“It’s grey”
is all I seem to be able to say
The sky and the sea
My eyes
I can’t —
It’s indistinguishable: the ocean
Curves of clouds
Of water
Of perfect hips
And ships
Wrecked women
Screaming at us, in pain
And fear
But men sway to their hurt
“It’s so … beautiful”
They throw themselves
Towards what they cannot feel
Bodies breaking on broken bodies
Arms outstretched to
Eyes twinkling
Not with malice,
but tears
And others, those ones left standing
Are enamoured
Mooring their boats to shore
Poor but not quite poor
Minds brimming with salt and horror
And so, with splashes of wet wet colour
They recreate sorrow
Flourishing
But not as sorrow
And others ock
Flapping mouths agape
“Pretty women”
“Perfect pretty women”
Who cannot speak
We walk those halls
The walls are full of mirrors
Eyes downcast
Or staring straight
My own face carved on to the bust of Medusa
Unapologetic
Flesh bared
But still apologising
Veritas
“Truth” they seem to say
“We are truth”
Or at least those are the words etched into their skin
By the gaze of the hungry
A sculpture lies in pieces on the floor
Too much mess
But at least she didn’t cry out
When he fucked her
When he pushed her onto her knees, breaking calves of stone like bone
And force feeding her himself
She choked on him, stone spitting out stone
She was cold
But he didn’t care
Because it made him feel alive
These are not alive
They never were
These pretty perfect women
Crying out
Without voices
I want to cry out
But not out of this
Not out of her
But because of her
Jouir
Because he cannot seem to make me
I want to feel electricity
But I can’t
Not with these women
Sore, outstretched
On the floor
My eyes reflecting back
What I have seen
On screens
Pushing into screams
I’ve promised myself to never fall in love with a woman
Because
Together
How could we win?
And they say “how could they not?”
So we oat downstream
Drowning
Covered in owers
Each one of us
Our own tragedy, our own sadness
On the very brink
“I do not know, my lord, what I should think”