Ugliness on purpose is fear.
You mangle the bridge of your nose
as an excuse to despise yourself;
bat your eyelashes with haste to
repel friendly waves across the street;
maintain lumps and depressions
of skin conforming to the inside skeleton.

Hiding the Marlboro pack beneath your palm,
shielding the lighter from careless breaths of God,
Inhale.
Exhale.
You know the routine.
Flee to deserted land,
bury your beating hurt below the ice,
next
light your esophagus on fire with
reptilian flames.

She hated the habit -- compelled you to quit
(the first promise you made her)
You meant it then, though
nicotine strangles the shreds from where she slit.
You ignite your lungs again
without looming above the ashes.
You continue suffocating.
Ugliness on purpose is fear.

Khaki pants constrain a beer
belly you’ve been growing illicitly.
Tan rubber bands snap as you stretch
them to a length they cannot attain
around knots of a dreaded mass.
Reflective silver peaks from your nostril’s
side like the mirror you fractured
when polished wood stood between you
and her.

Scattered about the patio table,
a single Hamilton bill, folded,
keys to a car? a home?
(do you have a home?),
and a simple black phone
rests on the marbled surface.

You wander across mindless truth
while fingering a cigarette in your left
hand and perching an elbow on the arm of a chair.
A thin mustache dances in distress
when you speak with words
so nauseating her lips curl in disgust.

She’s rooted to the red brick underneath her.
Her eyes flit this way and that,
observing the town around her
so dazzling, so pristine, so immaculate
that her cheeks pale
in comparison to the whispering backdrop.
It murmurs in doubt,
insufficient of dread.
Ugliness on purpose is fear.