ORIGAMI

How many times am I supposed to be bent?
How many times in order to show love, trust, and devotion
must I crease to fold my spirit?
In which tortured ways should I bow this soul of mine
to keep the company, respect, support I need from you?
How many times, and in how many ways?

Is it until I have done it so much
that I would seem wasted, tired, and crumpled,
drained of the fire you loved once in me?
Should I do it time after time until the marrow breaks
and there’s nothing else?
Should I do it in silence and without complaining?


Should I never again stand for what I feel I deserve?
Is a brief kiss, the sweet tenderness of your warmth,
my song, and my given -back spring worth it?
Should I allow my self pleating into thousands of folds
Until I turn into some other, a thing I am not
a deceit such as the words that crushed the dreams I had?


And then, what?
Would you then turn away to follow the next butterfly,
filled again with promises and rainbows
until you grasp it and set up the endless origami
with which you kill the sweetness
you once followed ages hence?





Beatriz Illescas