the feminine mystique
i have never ever wanted to be a feminine miss meek. not that women are only timid, but there are those that pretend to be ingenues forever, hiding the truth of their power from the gazes of even they themselves. i hesitate to say...but i think some of us are scared.
i have never wanted to be a woman, broadly. i'm not even sure that i could try to be a broad.
(tough it out. rough it out. mess around and muck about. any stlawart presentation's for the one(s) that stuck it out.)
i can't stand to be "missus" even if it's not really "mrs" or merely the smack of a misplaced i.
a misplaced i. that's me, alright! nowhere to be found in the world.
attic, infested. partner, divested. neighbor? still cold standing by.
identity issues, they tell me, plain out. you're confused. you don't know who you are.
but i certainly know it better than any of them do. i certainly have the only concept going.
with surety. with purpose. with one ring part to my circus.
i have always wanted to be unmarried, no children, floating masculine on the lesbian side. i have always wanted to be a cryptic giver, with unerring and maximal stride.
let me be your expos'y. let me be your thrust. let me be your entity, an earning of your trust.
(exquis'y. ecstasy. equity. beckon me.)
let me be your curiosity, to show at divers times. let me be equilateral, and scalene from all sides.
gender not found. it went away somewhere. it's taking an extended sabbatical. it's learning, as a matter of actual fact, how to be even and ever more ungrammatical.
my concept is sold by a mononymic name, which is only respected when it's all that i give, unless you're very - peer peri - very clever and wise.
clever and wise - are those really the words? maybe generous, maybe patient, maybe susceptible or gullible or guilty.
people with the bandwidth to waste on determining what and who i am, beyond a sticky badge that's fast unsticking and a lanyard hidden beneath. people who won't be bothered but excited when they hear a new name, a true name, the words different but the song same.
i'm complaining, i know. i'm off on a tangent. i'm diving too far from the board.
i'd like to be breezy, perhaps easily earnest. i'd like, but i don't, so i can't, even try, anymore.
i'm confused by it, all daunted. i could be accused of recusion to running and hide. i could be determined to have solved the equation by the due process of e-limination, which isn't really a solution and should only rarely be tried.
i may be tried, for my ineptitude and my capacity to overthink. i may hear sighs, for my inscrut' of a dude and talking faster than walk.
i don't know. i'm aimless. being masculine is painless. being feminine is a superset of the thousand natural shocks.
a girl, a lady, is lifted from below. she stands poised on pedestal, always ready to go.
a boy, a gentleman, is the one with the prop. he's always making sure that his gang's on top.
but a thing like me, indeterminate and undefined, is thrown over shoulder and hid behind lines. is bound under beams and crossed by all stars, is kidnapped and ransacked and charged between cars.
there are words for this. i think there must be. i'm not wholly outside of the dictionar'y. but these words, those words, aren't daughter, vowed, achievement, perceiv-ed, professional, proud. the words are more like: confusing, unique, overwhelming, overzeal'ming, intractable, bleak.
i don't know that i can be described as nicely. even if nice is my only goal.
maybe i don't have goals. maybe i only have fears.
but anyway, let's get to moving on.
signpost bright says You Are Here, so i really have to go and i can't come back, now, you hear?