Let her worship, those exaltations, whose rays never rain down on my pastures,

whom I generously gift them the yields of those borne from my lea.

They are awed by a star I projected in the sky myself, her image akin to my own.

She has aged, lined and grey, and has gone to domains I never will see with own eyes,

Not while I am still alive.

She has skin to peel off, shrinking me as her skin replenishes,

worth more than I will ever have in 100 lifetimes.

She is president, a pony, a princess, a popstar, a pioneer.

Playing the roles required of her, roles of my own creation.

She is made of me, but the blueprint remains stationery, traveling no further than her burrow.

She is here and she is a goddess, while I, a peasant look onto my creation and wonder if I took my own breath when I breathed life into her in sorrow.

I am a shell, I am empty, and she is not real. She is not me. She is a stranger.

I am the primordial, she is the projection. She is immortal, but I am corporeal.

Not subjected to the laws of the earth, she triumphs. She holds onto me, burying me in a cellar.

She comforts me with her cyanide, killing me softly as I wither.

She and I can co-exist, but on different planes of existence.

She is me, and I am she. But she is a stranger.

Cover image by Neelam Sundaram on Unsplash