Double Cleansing

It seems that I end each day as I start it.
In preparation.
In front of this mirror I
paint my face to prepare for whatever
war I trip into that day and
late at night I wash it all off
to allow it to
breathe.
As if I’ve not taken a gasp all day
I wipe and
wash and
scrub to atone for suffocating myself for the sake
of going outside.
For vanity, maybe? Maybe but what is vanity
really.
And what’s so bad about it?
If vanity lifts my chin and
chest and makes me
grin and
blessed
then I shamelessly paint with
each and every brush
so that I may
stand at my post for those hours.
Unapproached.
Unbothered.
Untested.
I suppose we like knowing that we could, if we needed to
but we don’t, so we won’t.
That mirror holds a face hung
on a soul which eludes.
I beg for them to like me, to praise me and
love me, not in love’s own definition of love but in the
love you always wanted but knew
never existed.
Fake film love that emulsifies
soul intertwining and
sonnets in the rain with
groaning and writhing in
obsessive sweet pain.
The love where you love it just
so
and so it goes
to sit there, untouched and unaltered because
simply you love it as
it sits.
It need do nothing else than
breathe.
Which I may only do
after washing
my face.