The Stain

Pretty tops

And trackie bottoms

The girls all got their

Lashes done

Long nails

Pigtails

I wonder where

That stain’s come from

There’s big pupils

Behind the wings

And the beat is heavy

On the song

“What is it,” she asks

Her mates

“That feels so good about

Doing wrong?”

They all nod

Their sweating necks

Know exactly

Where she’s coming from

Before they know it

The night’s dead

It’s home time

And the trek is long

Main cargo

Empty sachet

Raving heart

And head in thong

Feels only five minutes

Since that drop

Now keys fit lock

But all gaps

Map powder on

The stain’s grown

She’s finally home

All that swearing down’s

Made her tongue 

Feel wrong

Cos the bad bits

Of all that doing it

Have finally come

And stopped that sweet

Sweet song

---

The stain gets deeper

Purely filthy

Turned a murky green

From its adolescent milky

Her gums so scarred

They’re just silky

No more mornings

Of blisters screaming

“Pick me”

It’s the same tracksuit bottoms

And the same old crowd

Days are quiet 

And the nights are loud

She shouts over the speakers

“Search and you’ll be found”

But the decibels of her mumble

Flutter to the ground

And no one hears her sound

No one in the smoking area

Cares for her sermons

Speeches and preaches

As she’s slurring

Laughs to herself

Says “the tables keep turning”

But a DJ deck 

Ain’t a step to a calorie

Worth burning

Been here every weekend

Since earning ID

“Think this club was your birthplace” 

“Yeah it might be”

Takes a toke, feels broke

But, as always, it’s 

“Only slightly”

---

Now the stain touches skin

Just like anyone who’ll give

“If you wanna know about life

Come to me and you’ll live”

The club’s old news

And the dance floor has dried

Skives in the living room 

With smokey eyes

Cries on the kitchen tiles

Vile with her markings

Picks at the stain

Little darkling

But these crystals 

Just keep sparkling

And them little encouragers 

Stay barking

“Binges need purge

It’s Yin and Yang

It’s science

So to have any peace

Means you need 

To have violence

And to really enjoy the beat

You need to embrace the silence”

The flat says quiet

And her body stays pounding

In that cubby is exactly

Where she found him

But he dissolved as quick

As the sugar she swallows

“No one, not one of us

Is promised tomorrow”

She itches, she scratches

And the prophecies follow

Roots through the past

Finds an image of her at the start

In some pretty top that she borrowed

---

The stain is black now

Woolly and rotten

The makeup, the glitter

The body, have all been forgotten

Spent forever trying to catch up

To top them

But they never had her reasons

And who’s she to stop them

Can’t remember start of sentence

Let alone wisdom

Mumbles and stumbles

Herself to the kitchen

Feels lights bite

Like she lit them

“I want to be a girl again

Feel everything brand new

I want to feel like mine again

Not ran through”

Starts carving and cutting

And slicing the stain

Digs deeper and darker

And drains

Outpours this clawing creature

Big, sick and strange

So excited to be

Freed from its cage

Her frame slumps onto knees

Like she’s gonna pray

But all she manages to say

Is “please stay”

Because she knows

As she goes

She’s nothing

Without

The Stain. 

---

---

By Lyric Deep.