Saturday 3 December 2011

A Self-made Male Estella

My secrets run deep -
Or allegedly so -
An ocean to plummet;
An endless knowledge to know.

What can you promise
A lover
But the key to that door;
The map to that labyrinth -
The depths of the soul?

Here, take this crowbar,
Take this screwdriver,
This clawhammer,
This jimmy, this pick,
And use it to prize
Open my head
Or bust into my heart.
We’ve always been hazy
On where’s best to start.

And here lies my mystery,
Here lies the truth:
My truth is my emptiness,
My truth is my void.
The rhetoric of romance
Is all in my voice;
A slight of the hand,
A castaway glance,
A mirror that of habit
Can’t help but flatter.

I’ll bare your delusions,
I’ll hang on your wall -
Suit any interior; impress all your friends,
I’ll awaken your fantasies,
Embody them all,
But I’ve not the substance
To weather their fall.

For as good as things look,
For all of their promise,
I’m not sure I really
Feel a thing.
My hidden depths
Are on constant display.
There’s not a thing to me
But bone, hair and meat.
No soul, no spirit,
No emotional core here -
Just chemical signals
Encased in a cranium
And balanced by chance
On top of a spine.