Sometimes you have to have faith in yourself,
even when the mirror screams ‘old and ugly’
and your desire for sex—meaningless or otherwise—
no longer goes beyond the topic of an article in a rag
casually opened while waiting at the hairdresser’s,
or so they say, and there may be some truth to it—
atheists decorate Christmas trees too, after all—
but it’s hard to shake the hand that just castrated you.
I have nothing to say, and yet I keep talking,
meticulously combining nouns, personal pronouns, and verbs,
adding an occasional adjective here and there, so as to hide
in the multitude of dependent clauses—each introduced with the most unique
subordinating conjunction I can think of—my utter inability to form and express
an original thought of my own (it’s a bit like in the kitchen
when you dream of your own signature dish,
or at least a decent phoritto or some other fusion food,
and you end up reheating a ready-made meal, glad
you didn’t burn it).
