Here is how it feels.

There is the show, and there is backstage.
Show is so pretty, it’s all the rage.
There is makeup, there’s lights.
Please enjoy the sights.
For reality,
[it bites].

Then backstage, dark parade.
Starved of all accolade.
It is dim, it is cold.
The light fixtures, broke and old.
Left with ugly,
[pretty sold].

She has dreams
(To consume her own flesh in the corner-
Poetic self-sufficiency!)
Ballet shoes that callous traversed feet
(The hangnails, oh the horror!
Athlete’s foot on a sedentary animal!)
Puking up at thoughts of you
(Love me, but not too realistically
Love me like you would on stage
But remember to leave me backstage
In a fit of my own rage
For this script is settled
In its old age).

Jesus at the whipping post
Do you think he had this all in mind?
Indulgent procreation vs. condoms
Venereal disease to deter?
And those little heart-shaped candies
Did they leave us with a point?
Ah yes, to love and to be loved,
But what for the ones that can’t?
Methinks the Lama cleared that up
“Don’t hurt,” was it?
So, tracing over your pretty scars
I wish not to be a new-age artist of your pain
You pull me into the dance, but alas!
I tell you my feet are wary.
Leading a lifeless body
Patient love on Rohypnol
We can try all you want
But you may be waltzing with a corpse.