Pretty girl. Nice dress that shows off her legs. Just below her left knee, on the inside, sits a bruise the size of a dollar coin. Looks like a slightly faded ink spot. Like a slightly overripe banana.
Realization. This girl, this oh so pretty girl dressed up for a night on the town, she’s spent the better part of two hours – maybe three – getting ready; applying make-up, doing her hair, adjusting and layering and setting and brushing and dabbing and shading and shadowing until she looks just perfect. A sight for sore eyes. An object of affection. A goddess. An angel. Heart breaker, life taker, soul smasher, party crasher.
This oh so pretty girl, primped and polished and ready to rumble, might be heading downtown with a single pre-occupation greedily gnawing at her attention with the insecure paranoia of one conditioned by society obsessed with perfection, making the smallest of flaws the most prominent of features.
That small bruise on her leg. Her oh so pretty leg.
I enjoyed this composition. It brought to mind a line from a Waits song about someone who once held beauty but time has not been kind “She was a portrait of crumpling Beauty.” My new favourite songwriter is Jason Bisnell from The Drive By Truckers. His song Elephant is about watching a friend dying of cancer. Very touching. I cried. Check him out on Youtube.