=sad little girl with ice cream cone=

Why is the little girl so sad? 

Maybe it's because they never 

gave her an ice cream cone. 

Or they gave her one but with all the upsetting crap 

going on around her all the time

 she could never take a lick.  

Because she lost her appetite. 

Because she forgot she was even holding

 an ice cream cone 

she was so terrified. 

Because that haircut she has wasn't real. 

Or the red dress. 

Or the white socks and shiny black patent leather shoes

 you can't see she's not really wearing.

Because nothing you see in the picture was real.

Leaving her asking for the rest of her life:

"What is real?"

And getting no answer she can believe.

Because  her entire childhood was a lie

—a staged photograph

 with a prop ice cream cone. 

Or it's something she cannot remember

without huge areas of the painting 

better left blank. 

Because she never saw it coming.

Because objects in the mirror aren't there at all.

I'm talking to you, now.

I'm telling you that little girl didn't exist.

She was a figment of the imagination

of a little boy who wished he didn't.

The only thing real about her was the mouth.

I'm talking to you, now,

because I don't think you're listening.

If you gave him 3 wishes

he'd use all three wishing he'd never been born.

When he blew out the candles and heard the applause

his heart fell because it meant

when he opened his eyes he'd still be there.

All the world's a stage.

The little girl is sad because she signifies nothing.

But the mouth exists,

the mouth survives.

The mouth reappears in one reproduction

after another, like a bloodstain on a wall

in an old movie 

when the guilty party walks into the room.

Maybe the little girl is so sad 

because she never existed

except as the sad little boy who blew out the candles.

Because she's  a picture of a picture of who might have been.

the ghost of someone who might have lived

if it had been a different party.

The sadness exists, though.

The sorrow survives.
Christ Almighty, it rises from the dead again & again.

I'm talking to you now

but I'm telling you nothing.

I'm talking to you now

only to hear the silence
which will tell you everything 

once I finally shut my fucking mouth.