I had once
I had once crossed the desert to never look back in sorrow
and discovered myself dressed up as a tattered prince,
empty-handed and older than ever before and since,
in the land of nobody, with nothing to buy or borrow,
and I’d failed to dissolve like a stain on a stainless surface
in the ocean of faces so pale that the paper would
be ashamed of their whiteness, and tried not to knock on wood
nor to hope for the best, moving further away from purpose.
I had listened to preachers and thieves and would let whosever
sweaty palms on my lap, muddy fingers inside my purse,
words of prayer that'd always transform in an angry curse
in my language, and welcomed the failure to my endeavour.
I had followed the ocean devour infertile soil,
dried my colourless pupils in water and watched the sun
hide in waves, had completely forgotten my mother tongue
and abandoned the food that was nothing but rancid oil,
and my eyes, though the mirrors had never been truly humble
in the country of curtains, had finally matched the hair,
so I'd sit at the shore and inhale its salty air
and resemble the statue that knew it was time to crumble.
