An Elegy for Astral Bodies

And I opened my window hoping you would never return.

You’d appear out of nowhere and like an ignorant insect

Sneak your way into my ear and tickle out words that I’d never

Utter, thoughts that stand in opposition to everything I desire.

You mummify me in my half-hearted sleep. And you let me face

Myself. The version that doesn’t exist. And you shame me for it.

And then you take out the big guns, sickness, the end of me.

It is effortless to teach cruelty.

You can barely see the outcome on someone’s features.

It can be found in a smile, imagine that.

Out of context, to be twisted and manufactured.

A kiss can poison you, careful.

You never know where it comes from, always make sure.

You cannot rely on the aesthetics of chicanery.

They have been raised and moulded.

The integration happened a long time ago.

The masquerade and mockery. They’re statues by now.

If we stare for too long we collide with ourselves and quiver

At the bottom of their feet, a heart made out of stone, I think of death.

These sinister nuances of us grow temporary wings and flaunt them.

And they force me into submission, but I smoke them out.

“Mrs. Kunffy in a Flowery Hat” by József Rippl-Rónai (1861-1927)