Things you must know if ever you are to love me

I am an unusual creature

I find ease in complication

I will not set the clocks back

I live in warm weather time

And in the spring I will write a note above the oven that reads “this is the hour”

I will eat the platanitos on the way home from the market 

or the grapes if I want something sweet

or the chocolate (dark) if I‘m in need of indulgence

I love the resounding silence of the morning

Those precious moments when the mind, a captive of the dream world only just liberated,

finds itself hollow

I remain entangled with my duvet until the sun aligns its eyes exactly with mine 

as though to say with a butter-soft smile “It’s time to wake up, my dear”

I am enticed by beginnings 

I am drawn to first chapters like 

infants to the warmth of mothers’ milk

Once every month I will throw a tantrum

Crouch beneath (what feels to be) the weight of the world

And then the next day the blood will flow and I’ll say

“Ah, so that’s what it was all about”

I find hats to be quite stimulating 

But every part of me resists containment 

the curls on my head being no exception 

So I hang the heralded head accessories on my wall and ogle 

Pulling them down only on days when I feel small enough to fit inside 

But most days I will dance 

I will dance beneath the full moon 

And in dimly lit studios while the Bossa Nova plays 

I will dance with my lips and my tongue 

and my hips and my loins  

And inspire words to twirl and dip and entertain

I will dance circles around you if you let me 

So you must dance too 

I seldom wear underwear! 

And I shave beneath my arms almost everyday 

I like for the air to find my skin 

I have a superiority complex about my left-handedness 

I believe my superiority complex about my left-handedness is justified. 

I treat rules as suggestions

because that’s what they are

And yet, I will always have the last word

Even if it’s just 

“Okay.”

I never lie

If it’s a matter of feelings I will steer away from 

the question at hand 

But then, 

sometimes

I lie 

I scar and I bruise like an over-ripened peach 

My body is patterned with relics 

And smile lines deeper than the ocean 

And knots tighter than any alibi 

I am constantly scouring the earth for a story

If I get an idea I will try it on 

My eyes widen and for a moment 

I am someplace else 

I am afraid of endings

my nightstand is stacked high with books I’ll never finish

my notebook filled with poems abandoned mid-verse 

I won’t say goodbye 

Especially when I know I’ll never see you again 

I did not cry when I entered this world 

And shed very few tears my first decade here

I have spent the last ten years making up for lost time    

In fact, when I cut the onions for stir-frys and stews I must don sunglasses

Or else I become Alice 

swimming in a pool of my own making 

I am my favorite conversationalist 

I will laugh at the air and point fingers at a phantom 

playing both Andre and Wally at the dinner table 

Oh how we love to dine alone

I am a product of my upbringing

I will share my bed with you every nightfall

But I will keep my apartment

And ask that you keep yours 

I have been acting the role of myself for such a great length of time 

I have finally become her

Though I think womanhood itself is but an act 

That is why I denounce it 

I find my power in femininity 

The ugly kind 

That slithers and hisses and avenges 

Smiles at the absurdity of its condition 

I am lawfully maniacal 

I will think a thing over in a hundred different directions 

Before approaching a conclusion

And I will unthink the same thing over in a hundred new directions

Before reaching a conclusion 

Yet I am a child of the bull and stubbornness abounds 

and when I decide 

I will make my mind up in limestone and bolt it to the ground 

Which is a gift if I love you 

And hell if I do not 

But another thing you must know is that I am very keen on loving  

Even where liking is no frequenter 

I will stay even when the glee has soured into expectation

I am afraid of goodbye

I am full of fire 

I’ll transform, but only as I please

So if ever you are to love me 

please know

I simply must be