By Róise Nic Dhonnagáin
Softness
I am more beautiful than ever.
The mirror whispers this to me,
her watery surface, distorting,
leaves me decapitated.
A face of sharp angles sinks like a stone,
no one but Narcissus to accompany her,
while the bloated body bobs upwards,
free in a way that only balloons are.
This is the place where the best
and worst things happen.
The same numbers flash before me,
again, and again and again.
The room plummets,
overwhelmed by the weight of empty.
So full of nothingness.
Destined to sink,
but doomed to float.
The moon is awake already.
Her greedy eyes like saucers,
I can feel her watching.
The thickest fabric could never block her out.
She, the half shell, always yearning to be full,
Never full enough.
She can have my fullness,
Gorge herself on the curves and rounds and dips and rises.
I have no use for it.
She boasts her ever changing cycle with pride,
chasing the fleeting wholeness.
My cycle of smooth skin, coarse hair, flowing blood,
does nothing but remind me of my failures.
Cursed to be soft,
in a world made of steel edges.
The sharper the better.
I would purge myself of it all if I could.
Cut myself on the razor – edged world,
Shorn of all that makes me soft and vulnerable.
Cut to bone and cut still,
Leave me with the nothingness that feeds me.
Then, I shall start to feel whole.
