I Have Decided
1006.2010

I have decided to die,
That the days as I am
Have run their course,

That no man won my heart,
And the chance came and went
As I was asleep.

I have also decided to avert my eyes,
Especially in shops full of fruit and flowers
Or streets overflowing with people and cars -
To hoard them from bodies I will never meet.

I also imagine that I decided
I dislike the California hills,
That as a dead woman I will head up north
Where my voice will bloom on branches of trees,
And sing with some smoke in its lungs.

I have decided to wave a white flag,
To abandon the crusade in my heart,
To avoid the ghosts who succeed
In these worldly conditions.

I have just now decided to tuck my sorrow
Into my boot, the bottom of it no less,
So with each step it cannot make a sound.

And you know how this is,
I have decided to say thank you:
That to do all these things and
To do them with some odium fixed
To my soul - that would be ignoble.

And I have decided to love nature
To bury myself in it wearing nothing but my death mask.

Marni©