empire

{ mediocre aphrodite, pt. II }

she's not the same as you remember / anymore / she sits in your mind like a fever / burning your insides and leaving a bitter taste on your tongue / she wears lipstick the color of papercuts / and she smokes cigarettes for every meal / and you can't help but notice / that she has replaced the thicket she used to keep her head in / with a ring of thorns slung around her neck / she craves torture

and sometimes / you can hear her humid summer breeze breathing / through the walls of your bedroom / and you can picture her in your head again / arched back and twisted neck and nails tearing into marble shoulders / but you don't clench your thighs this time / because you know her back is arched underneath your brother / and her neck is twisted into the mouth of your brother's pillow / and her nails are tearing into his marble shoulders

you've seen her bent over the porcelain sink in your bathroom / back heaving as she cries acid-raindrop tears / and you wonder / if she has forgotten her mediocre aphrodite beauty / because it is far more tragic than beautiful now / she is far more tragic than beautiful now / and you wonder / whether she has been ruined somehow / or if she was like this from the start / and your dreams curled her copper body / into something made of gold