You Want Me

I see, you want me

to shrink myself down into something small enough to fit inside

your puny ideas

of what you think a woman should be,

but I don’t need your permission

to lick the stardust from the palm of my hand

after it smears there when I briefly catch the tail

of a comet.

I’m not going to apologize

for the pomegranate juice staining your skin and sheets.

I might make a huge mess: words, ideas, images, and fragments of stories littering the streets of the town, metaphors falling short of the garbage can in a chaotic splatter.

I may get down on the ground and wrestle with them, or take some of them into the boxing ring and beat them into submission.

I’ll take your fantasies and foibles, paint them into a loud, ugly (or beautiful) mural on the walls of time.

Then I’ll hire a string quartet to stand atop it and play Beethoven’s Ninth. Or maybe a simple waltz, but definitely not a tango.

I don’t care if you never forgive me

for being so much more

loud

messy

complicated

fucked up

beautiful

than you could ever comprehend.