They'll always find the door in the morning

And my beauty, it's always been conditional.
Always been conditional.

I think I've gotten to a point where I'm not angry or offended, I've become a bit too tired for that.
The problem though, is that it isn't water off a duck's back. I don't have feathers, for one, and definitely not the waterproof sort either. So there are a lot of words that soak through my skin and find their way inside me.
And baby, I've got poison running through my veins.
Poison running through my veins. I have for quite a fair many years now.


And in the glow of orange lamps, or sunlight (or moonlight) that's slipped through curtains, in empty stairwells and quiet parks,
where hands reach in desperate need to lay claim, where every whisper is a promise to break, where teeth sink into flesh so they can call your pain theirs-
I have been called beautiful.
Beautiful, so, so beautiful, they've said.
Leaving fingerprints where you shouldn't and stains that I wanted to burn off my skin. Beautiful, they've said.
But oh, you don't need me to believe you, just like I didn't need you to lie.

My beauty, I've always known, is conditional. Circumstantial.




"He said I had an interesting face. Me and Marilyn Monroe, we have 'interesting' faces. He laid me then, and took some pictures. Then he laid me again. Know what my interesting face was Stephen? Boredom. I kept waiting for him to wake me up."
-- Janice; A Sea Of White Horses. A monologue excerpt.