Avert your eyes
from looking directly
at the monster.

Look only through
that reflective shield,
that glowing rectangle

that parades a
distorted vision of
the objective self,

that which in
dark moments may
suddenly shut off,

revealing one’s face:
inverted, expressionless, petrified—
like when the

mirror of Perseus
at last revealed
Medusa’s horrifying visage.

snake lady with slit, slivers of obsidian for eyes:
i beg you to **** the light, turn me to stone, make my darkness real.

i want nothing more than to be frozen in now,
offer me the stasis, **** me somehow.

that type of halfway point between the knife and
a weakened atlas is where i lie.

turn to me and transcend my paper-thin skin to emerald.

your eyes are the portal to freedom,
god's final mouthpiece.

give the gaze that kills the half-lidding living.