But what does it matter what reality is outside myself, so long as it has helped me to live, to feel that I am, and what I am? - Charles Baudelaire

Minutes, foolish mortal, are the base mineral
that you must not let go of without extracting their gold!

Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,
that soft summer morning
round a turning in the path,
the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,
its legs in the air like a woman in need
burning its wedding poisons
like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs,
I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound,
but I touch my body in vain to find the wound.
I am the vampire of my own heart,
one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughter
who can no longer smile.
Am I dead?
I must be dead.

To fornicate is to aspire to enter into another; the artist never emerges from himself.