don't understand me then
i feel it becoming wrinkles in my skin anyhow
deepening further and further
burying my whole self under more skin
i look tired

but don't look at the wrinkles!
see me this way
no! not that way
this way
do you see my face?
i'm still beautiful, right? even in this light?
aren't i?
you will surely love me if i'm beautiful, won't you?
will you be able to perceive my beauty?
and then translate it into your own language?
you too - what about yours?
there are too many steps to be seen as what i am
so i crumple down
i scream with my sore throat,
into the empty void of the dark city
"let me be!"
it echos and no ones even there
i tell myself to forget about love
convince myself it's better this way
to be a solitary dark creature
that dwells underneath the city, underneath the pressure of gravity,
of the thick humidity of it all

i won't produce any sound
no one will even know i'm here

I will yearn for you in secret
Even though your hands were a bit too rough
Even though you hide the soft flesh underneath the stone of your outer skin
I will yearn for you
While waiting on the other side of those barricades
I will stay quiet
And still
Until you feel it is safe enough to peer outside
And to see that I am there
And it is spring
I will yearn for you in secret and in darkness
Until you are rough enough to step out into daylight
And to let your eyes adjust to see your own softness

In spite of everything,
I arranged flowers over my skin in a great effort to be worshiped
made myself into a garden for your plucking

I didn’t know how much of me was woman
and how much was girl

But you knew what I was
and what I would become under your caress
In spite of everything,
I offered up the entirety of my being to you
gave your selfish hands each blooming flower that you desired
For I was half asleep with longing for you
A cooing dove to your touch
and only yours

I did not have a heart to love you
until you sculpted it out of stone
and somehow you still could not understand
that it was made for you alone

I had only hoped to love you
to get lost in the center of the storm of you
to live on as an atom of your heart

I cannot go on hanging in the suspension between Earth and sky -
caught in the perpetual pull of dark stars
and drawn back down again into the twisting roots of the Earth
I'm laid out, **** between them
soaking with rainwater and scorched by the swelling moon
The wind shivers and daydreams tremble to white
craving some fleeting outline or living complexities
I would like to be carved as stone to put an end to this floating
but I'll wait here until you let me live as human

Don't cry, strange beauty -
The river and the wind listens
And cries gently with you