WHAT IS BEHIND THAT SMILE???

Her plastic smile spreads across her face at nightfall
the puckered brow, the kohl lined eyes, the cheap lipstick
Waits beside the kerb--to be sold for one more night,
to be picked up and tossed into bed.

Her plastic smile covers a night full of tears.
greedy eyes , greedy senses, greedy hands reach for her,
twists her, turns her, plays with her
---- as a night full of tears and unrealized dreams
trickles away--- with the plastic smile on her plastic face.

What is it that shines in her red neon bed?
“Are those halos in her hair?
without a prayer and without hope”
the glistening tears dry with fake ecstasy
-- the mask of lewdness, trembles and hopes each moment
for a day void of fabricated love and that fake plastic smile.

The neon gives way to the light of day;
she leaves her bed and walks away
The gratifying moments when she washes and rubs herself
to get rid of the shame that sticks to her like a cheap perfume.
The smile breaks into tears washing away with it,
a veil of paints and colours.

The pristine rays of sun

sparkle in her watery pure eyes--
with questions that do not go beyond
the walls of her chastisised city.
The parched skin, without paint
without kohl, without whatever she is not,
Walks towards the rising sun--
hoping that red would not just be
the colour of her painted lips .

But the flush of hue that will someday touch her unpainted cheeks.