Just Like CLOCKWORK

The ugly girl is caressed by his touch;
she is an instrument - plucked apart, note by note,
creating a catastrophic quiet - a discordance of beauty.

She tunes in to the imperfections;
him, her, the bed - all imperfect when plucked individually.
Yet the strum, the beat, the rhythms created - that is harmony.

She knows how undeserving she is;
so she hides, disappearing into the sheets,
revealing her naked conscience and complications.

She drips into the cracks, lying bare with the cockroaches;
slipping silently beneath the bed,
afraid of her own nakedness.

Down there, her neighbors are cobwebs, her friends the carcasses of insects;
beneath there, she watches the feet of others,
safe from having to look down at her own.

That is everything though;
it all eventually hides under the bed forgotten,
it all slips through the cracks.

Finally, she stands naked and raw,
slipping back between the sheets and imperfections,
right where she belongs.