You enriched yourself, bathing in my fruitless vulnerability.
I touched you, embraced you, with a blind face, a heart as naive
As water travelling through a hole. I believed you were made of light.
I embellished you, justified you, to erase everyone else’s doubts and
Clairvoyance. Why did I knock myself out? Your heartlessness was blatant.
I walked through the city, amongst chaotic braids of people.
I smell your perfume. Her perfume. See common features.
The same old clothing. And my heart stops. My body thinks that
I’ll be attacked, that I need to protect myself, fight you off.
It’s never you, and always, in dysfunctional silhouettes, mouldy.
And I think, this is it, a decisive moment.
My mind can make everything worse.
And I want to take your face and scream and give
Everything back to you. You resurfacer. You want something from me.
And you never happen, not in the same form, I’ve taken myself out of the equation
A long time ago and all I’m dealing with are ashen memories.
“Portrait of a lady” by either Jean-Laurent Mosnier (1743-1808) or Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842)
