Spend so long being fake,
being a painted lie,
and somewhere along the way
reality is lost,
truth is lost,
identity
is lost.
You become another blank face
among the mindless herd
of popular zombies,
indistinguishable and unimportant -
a single, discardable cell
in the greater, carnivorous mob.

What colors you had
to set you apart -
the reds of passion,
the blues of sorrow -
are bleached to white
and eyes become set
in cool, affected apathy
until a vacant stare
is the only expression left.

Plastic, you are plastic -
a very realistic plastic doll,
only given motion,
life,
by the whims of others.
They pick you up to play for a bit
and you blink, slowly.
How it amuses them.

But I can see
right
through
it,
through you.
I can see the lack
where the substance used to be,
where you willingly let them
bleed it out
for the sake of a name
in breifly flashing lights.

I would call you hollow,
as transparent as glass,
but that would imply some kind of depth.

02/10/2004

Author's Note: Topic from Joe Chiles. Another already-in-bed-and-had-to-get-up-again-to-write poems. No, this is not about me...this is an apostrophe, addressed to a person not present.

Posted on 02/10/2004
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