Unpublished

I am a Martian.
Green, eyes on stalks,
Tentacled, telepathic.

Publishers tell me,
There's no market
For Martian authors.

They must be right.
We're not in the bookshops,
Even remainders.

I read a publisher's mind.
Aborigine. Disability.
Sacred site. Euthanasia.

I add:
Steamy sand, shifting sex, golden sunsets,
Dispossession, dehydration, despair.

I know this story,
From Mars,
Aeons ago.

It sells millions, critically acclaimed.
"... unparallelled insight into the human mind."
A mini-series is planned.

I am exposed.

I am the fiction now.
My words mean nothing.

I hide.

I write about entwining silicates
Under the searing Venusian sun,
Enthralling another world
For a little while.