The Eyes and the Hungers

What can I say? I am hopeless.

I will die of old age, unmarried,
no children. I will be worn,
knobby knuckles, grey hair and sightless.
I will dream images behind my
eyes that are like glass, one-way mirrors,
facing nothing and tear-blurred,
reflecting back like a prism.

I will grow into a bitter woman,
marred by her loveless state,
her middle-aged madness,
hooking to hearts and leeching the soul.
It has been done before,
and I will continue the tradition
with Banshee screams and heated fights,
destroying the hollow souls of men.

Racked by sobs in my twenties,
I will push off love with an iron fist
because I desire,
but not the pain it brings. My heart
will reign cold like Russia;
My feet will drag and my body will
sway within the night. Transparent,
I am the uninvited spirit who has been called
to this world to spout midnight messages;
meaningless words.

Oh pressure of diamonds and binding bands:
When I fall in love, I say "forever" --
But like spirits and poems, forever has limits,
and the rose-jail that is love prevails as the sun falls
and the chapter closes.

I will see that I was sent here to be prisoner;
a sponsor for women who cannot
find their other halves,
who love without reason and without words,
who die to be heard over the strain,
whose typical drowning death is no match
for the eyes and the hungers of men.