Guilty Pleasure

It started in a flash.
A smile for the camera.
My pretty blue petticoats so fluffy
they need to be weighted down
so my rosy cheeks will not cower in the shadows
like my mother so often did.
It was no match
me against the shadows.
The shadows always won
with the things they offered her.
A smile for the camera
so no one will see.
The mask of the perfect mother
hiding the darkness inside.
Desperately grasping reality
by its scruff
and throwing it violently outside
to be stepped on by the wind
and burnt by the sun 
in a thousand realities 
of sadness.
No one can see.
No one can find out
the guilty pleasure
of the one
hiding in the shadows
alone.