you said you thought of me as your idol.
that i was always virtuous, oh how i inspired you toward virtue.
that i was clever, no, brilliant. Oh, if only,
you cried
if only you could see the inner workings
of my mind.

you said you didn’t quite comprehend
what i was saying when I threw myself outstretched
upon those open battlefields and came up bloody, tattered
but, you said, it was alright
you just knew
you just knew that somehow it was important, intellectual
a statement
yes
and now you’ll throw yourself where i have bled.

but, you see,
my dear, you’re incorrect.
remove those rosy glasses.
take away that clouded sheathe, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll see—

i'm not that golden icon thrust
upon your shoulders and into your hearts
residing on the astral plane, perfect, solid, invulnerable
and always right.

i've spun myself up from old butterfly wings
the spare legs of moths and flies
salvaged from dead windowpanes
there’s nothing underneath it all, really
an empty cocoon with the aborted larva
leaking out from in between my
paper princess legs

month by month by month
and on and on.