While Years Pile Up Like Snails in a Basket

All I wanted was the white horses,
the salt water, the marsh my own desert.

I am haunted by the eyes of men.
I dream of boats when I dream.

Each day I say goodbye to the sun
as it sails across this foreign blue.

Each night I hide from the moon.
I have become that shy.

The women look for me sideways,
hope I will spare them.

They know so little how much we compare.
As girls, they long for the ponies

that glisten in the sun,
they want to ride in the light and the wind,

feel at one with another and yet feel free,
their own manes tangling behind them.

Then as women, they want men,
and the men want more.

The men want perfection.
The women want to be adored.