Your patterns still potter around my mind.
The way you cried, the reasons why, your
Cracking voice, the shivering lips. I shared
Your heartache, never knew why, always
Clinging to you and your sadness, never dissolving.
Never could I cure anything, always wanting to, never
Enough, good enough, darkness erupts out of nowhere.
I bring people home with me, people I dislike,
Drag them home, in my head, the people that got
Under my skin, the invisible rash, that I hide from everybody,
I take them home and I listen to them, endlessly to their chicanery.
Their never-ending tapes of misery, drowning me, I do it
Voluntarily because I fell asleep with you. It could be one bad voice
Amongst a load of good ones, doesn’t matter, I can’t see the sun no more.
The bad one infects me, twists me entirely, empties me.
And I ask myself why I can’t stop it in the moment.
Why I keep listening and absorbing, letting the people
In and through and across. Why do I feed them, supply them
With everything they need to destroy me, why do I give them
The power that is mine? I know they’re wrong and yet, they
Wreak havoc under my skin, it pleasures them to see that they’re
Winning, that I can be disheartened, torn apart, crying whilst I’m
Smiling. You keep your demons and I’ll keep mine.
“одалиска” by Francesco Ballesio (1860-1923)
Croque-Melpomene 