A hollow-eyed Sisyphus heaving senseless longings
defined but unsung for a decade,
an eternity;

yearning for the sake of yearning,
I, trapped inside the skin of fantasy,
a starving child on a floor of dust,
a dying woman they will bury in mud
dry-eyed, knowing that
regardless,
tomorrow will come.

Speak of this to no one.

It is my soul they stab–
or, what I think is my soul
when no one else is looking,
foolish shadow the color of blood-tinged clouds
rising again and again to its knees,
sexless and fluid
–without even knowing, hearing
me liplessly plead only
with the idea of you,

never a whisper of desire out loud
to a bitter world, no
not even to you,
to you, strange subjunctive phantom
of my present’s damp sweet dreams;
serpentine, sharp;
your cuts will be no less
exacting
for their ignorance
and this gets too near the subjectivity
of my own truth,
littoral point of no return.