SECRET LOVER (friend)

(any marine metaphor, no matter how good or learned, fills me with a certain monotony of symbols, of forms of language under repetitive equality, of predictable expressions --- promiscuous lips murmuring in the ear, bewitching, decanting, or deceiving mediocre afflictions --- are they then mermaids? IT IS NOW CLEAR THAT NOT! --- my superiority as a critic is even seen by others as my extravagant plenitude, sometimes insolent, theatrical, mocking, always approaching everything with feigned curiosity, in a hurry only to understand, decipher, reduce, to visualize very intimately, and then to feed myself only on something malleable and corrupt, perhaps common and banal, even in what is intangible within the unthinkable phantasmagoria of my sensitivity, too credulous to be able to free myself from myself, from my intentional banality --- with an impertinent look, this one yes of mermaid, I then put in myself baseness and tantra, a little oriental, sublunar sensuality, without knowing what to think after each person I meet and use, an intuition certainly very superficial in coveting men and even friends who do not imagine me so absorbed in these meanders of self-dramatization, representation and control; Above all, it always seemed to me the most useful thing for me, this worldly feast of the feminine sixth sense, concentrated in that weak spiritual flame, duchess's eyes, marquise's dignity, and the delicious tasting of everything I feel slowly waning in my life, already preparing me for a relieved smile, a mischievous assent, a well-aimed shot, after having passed a mirror and given myself one last quick glance, shrewd in the details of the expensive dress, a look full of seamstress's concentration, pushing aside my annoyance with myself so I can enter the scene in search of the "silent effect" --- after that, perhaps greater setbacks follow, forcing me to seek the "reserved effect," having already dissipated within myself, to lubricate some life scenes, all exclusive aristocratic pretension, all fictitious emblem of a small VIP group; only the old nods of worn friendship that hold my world together, and to the beloved easy prey whom I can approach without fear, being able to delight in the slow perfection of intimacy and seduction, smiling at every step, discreetly, waiting for a reward perhaps of scraps, perhaps a better nothing, only of specters, determining manners and environments, I don't know)