On Death Row [rev] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Doomed - having to spend the rest of my current
life translating Spanish Phytosanitary Regulations;
trying the Magical Approach - looking for previous
translations, revealing there's none - I have to dig
in the salt mines all by myself like the sad miller's
daughter locked up in a room of straw to be spun
into gold where she cried uncontrollably as she'd
no clue how to; I'm stuck in this eternal moment

Without brothers Grimm producing Rumpelstiltskin
to save my skin, & soul-destroying, heart-breaking
Regulation-straw still has to be spun into golden
lines of fluid English legal terms flowing in shiny
rivulets, adorned by the bright diamond facets of
perfect grammar rules, exact use of prepositions
and impressive legalese without any inappropriate
punctuation marks - & discouraged, I'm waiting for

The guillotine to lop off my useless head as my
brain's gone biddy-bye, mind turned into sludge
& my heart melting inside; this is hell itself, I feel
terrible about enjoying my day-dreaming mind -
before it was simply grand as we create our own
reality & understanding; clearly, I detest myself to
have brought this painful task upon me, without
hope or light, without self-esteem, researching

Depressing terms, stuck in this place and time,
the dark hole in my brain swallowing the World,
the little alien and crocodile because they can't
commit to slow, painstaking work - leaving me a
gibbering idiot on a burned-out mountain ridge,
all alone on death row…