Content warning: erotic objectification; references to sex

On Sundays, i’ll bathe in rose water, rinse

the mud from my feet and

wash my linen.

i’ll return to my display room, carved

creamy marble streaked in pure honey light, staked to a concrete pedestal.

i’ll sulk in my finest perfumes, and let

the purple tail stray from the open decanter and

wander.

my pearled gaze

will watch that haze mark the soul

will watch it puncture

thirty hollow men,

who trace that slight curve of my torso and

fuck my name without even knowing it.

nameless men,

who abbreviate their personality

into plum blush on my neck and

punctuate

their evils

into bruises on my bottom lip.

whilst in my presence,

man’s eye will transcend time and dress me as his white

rose,

bursting/blossoming/

shameful youth.

i am his, he reveres me,

father’s namesake

—it is scribed on my title card. i

am that limitless echo, art

leaving a writhing imprint on his stained sheets.

a long dead beauty that only

his eye remembers.