Foundation and tanning

Foundation and tanning

Choose your poison if you want,
smear dirty paint all over yourself,
while pouring molding plastic down your throat,
And go stand like the streetlamp,
red district,
identical to the next.

Be like the hippo on that poster,
caked in mud, drowned in it,
and lie after being sprayed like the pest on a flower,
like the jack-o-lantern,
be hollow with the the light on,
just smile, and you mimic its shape and shade.

Or, do the opposite,
Be yourself like a flower, any at all,
they grow in variations upon variations,
from the rose to the poppy.

Even the cactus,
which baser creatures and insects despise,
has a most lovely flower, mudless and clean,
And also holds a beautiful, pure core,
which gives it relief an beauty against the immortal sun,
It stays nourished and beautiful,
Unlike those that bake and burn in the mud.