I wish I could be honest with you and smash you against a wall.
I’m tired of this benumbing smile, this irritation you cause.
I listen to you, observe your eyes, the mouth, and realise too late
What you actually said. I drag you with me and I despair.
The passages of the city pass me by and I see my face in the shifting
Window. It never belongs. My face never belongs. Neither does my accent.
Nor my language. I’m tired of standing still and letting them render me invisible.
You isolated me wherever I was. You had no idea what words could do.
You gave me legs but no pathway, no directions. You told me beloved
Stories of dead ends to keep me there, with you, knocking my head against
An unwelcoming door. And I look at those crowds that I pretended to adore
And let them in too deeply, and yet, not at all, who was I after all?
You created me out of nowhere, a materialist, and I was flesh and blood.
Everything that moves against your will you force to stay still.
“Volto di donna” by Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859-1933)
Croque-Melpomene 