The seats were lined with velvet
and diamonds gleamed in the fur cushions
almost as brightly as the shiny silver eyes
of the girl propped up on the suede settee.

She batted her feathery eyelashes up at the ceiling
and pursed her lips in such a way
that fooled all the boys into thinking
she was lost in a daze of pretty thoughts that never
dived deeper than the clean surface of a dirty pond.

But behind those ruby-red lips and pearl-white teeth,
behind those angelic smiles and discreet flirtations,
behind that soft voice and hand-covered laugh,
behind that porcelain face and dreamy white dress,
there lived a girl without a stitch of innocent thought.

She was lost to the world of glamor and blind bliss;
she saw through the candy-coated smiles of society;
she understood the sad ring in the mockingbird’s tune;
she knew how it felt to hang from the fisherman’s pole
desperately gasping for water that was not meant
for a proper young lady’s rosy-red lips.

This darling girl bathed in riches and gold
had learned how to enchant all the young souls
with a breath of honey-streaked air from her untouched lips,
how to manipulate with a flutter of her shiny silver eyes,
how to lie without a falter, how to deceive with a kiss.

She had learned how to get everything a heart
could ever desire, how to satiate every human need
with a look of feigned purity at a foolish rich boy
with puppy-dog eyes and a hunger for dominance.

She had learned how to love everything
and nothing at all; how to fool everyone into thinking
her a dumb little doll.

It just took a glittering smile and a rippling laugh,
a set of good manners and admirable class, a locked gaze
and quick dropping of her eyes, a kiss blown from her gloved
hand out into the world of chipping gold paint, and then she was
as rich as she could be—covered in diamonds and sapphires and
the most exotic furs—powdered snow-white and smiling ever so prettily,
dead in a coffin where no one cared to look, no one cared to see.