No matter how immoral their actions would be,
You always sided with them, convinced of their loyalty,
That they’d transfer their strength and authority to you,
Save you, give you shelter. You never understood that their
Company would make you freeze even more, alienate you
From yourself. You put on a blindfold, glossing over all of their errors
And betrayals, they themselves didn’t even need to justify their actions anymore.
I wondered what I could learn from you.
I could just watch you, listen to your fabricated
Net of deceit and lies. How you fooled yourself into a corner.
Their voices would make you bow, their sex an ice pick getting too
Close to your heart. The vessel is so empty it can never get full.
You make yourself leak to erase all the false history, the truth as well,
The never-ending humiliation that you embraced in your life.
I look at you and ask myself where it’s coming from.
This self-torturing submission. Why do you love men
In this horrid way? Why are you on your knees for their sins?
Why are you the one paying? And why do they enjoy seeing
You on the floor, destroyed and whining? Until their nerves crack
And they’ll show you how they love.
You know that their belt and their sex are equal.
There are only a few rooms to run into.
But they all reflect the same storylines and memories.
Why would you await their drunkenness, the empty suitcase
Begging you. You think that because you know what is going to
Happen to you, you can turn into a cobblestone that he won’t find,
He, the man, who falls back into his childhood with every sip and
All grown, imitates his father and tears the house down.
And you think a million thoughts before you can take action.
Every single contemplation erases the action,
Is a doubt, is fear, is false hope, means consequences and you
Are convinced that you will not be able to survive.
He is attracted to you because you are his opposite,
Attracted to beating you, demolishing you, reduce you to nothingness.
Your powerlessness makes him so powerful
And he shuts the empty suitcase.
“Zorka in a red Armchair” by József Rippl-Rónai ( 1861-1927)
