Medusa
"The eye is the window to the soul,"
people say.
"Her eyes were full of sorrow,"
one writes.
But the eye is neither a window nor full.
It is an empty sink
that drains to a yellow hole
from where arteries climb like ivy,
clawing for any sign of reciprocal life.
It is a Venus flytrap
closing its jaws around your inverted image,
distilling the light that reflects off your face
into just enough hope
to sustain my life for another day
in this nightmare.
But when I finally
reach you and
touch you,
you too are stone.