Dis-Solve

There are beautiful girls,
sleeping on couches,
with bees in their bones
and bruises 'round their eyes.

They sing
or they dance
or they steal what they can
but they never stop moving
because if they stop moving...

They'll just dissolve.
They'll downright disappear.

And these beautiful girls,
they drink too much
and they sway on their feet
but each one has sharks swimming circles
in her ribcage,

and this keeps them standing.
The centrifugal force of all those scales
keeps them standing.

These beautiful girls,
they run on krypton and other elements
with comic book names,
or they run on bad cooking
and good weed and soft drinks

or maybe they have some internal source
to keep them going.
They are combustion engines,
perpetual motion machines.

And these beautiful girls,
they write poetry on their arms
with sharpies or eyeliner
or lipstick
or whatever is handy.

The flesh of their inner elbows
is stained from all that ink,
but they don't mind too much.
If they squint their eyes tight,
it all looks like tattoos anyway.

And sometimes,
these beautiful girls,
they cry like schoolchildren
with skinned knees.

They pray like sinners
who have gazed upon perdition.

They swear in seven languages,
whenever anyone says anything
about one day dying.

These beautiful girls,
they lose battles daily,
but could still win the war
if they gave one solitary damn
about anything.

But there are beautiful girls,
reading in closets,
with snakes in their hands
and scars 'crost their spines.

And they smile
and they flicker
and they heal what they touch
but they never start loving
because if they start loving...

They believe they'll dissolve.
They'll downright disappear.