she dips her makeup brush in gunpowder instead of eyeshadow

because her mother was a soldier and her father was a poet,

and nobody ever told her that always bleeding symbolism isn’t healthy,

especially when the only battles she fought

weren’t the ones her father left the family for, but

ones in her own mind that

took every thought of hers and replaced them with

ashes and burning flesh and

gunpowder instead of eyeshadow.