Day 801: to the women who love the poet in me (revision)

original

you will revel in the way I say your name
how the weight bounces off the concret
you will wait for me to open your doors
to sing you to sleep
to fling songs into your body as your pulse under me
you will call it sexy
I, will not know any other way to keep myself from falling into you completely
I will keep singing

you let your hand fall just a little farther from you body
begging me to hold you
and will
i will kiss your cheek
your wrist
your lips
when i kiss your forehead
a part of me will jump through my body and take home in yours
you will not feel my entry
but i will feel my own absence
something about it will leave me feeling empty
so I will keep singing

you will watch me on tv
on youtube
on your phone
computer
at a friends house
when I gain the confidence to walk across the room to introduce myself
and extend my hand
you will say you know me
I will be surprised and not understand what you mean
But excited at the possibility that maybe
You were that spirit I felt the night before
On stage
you will see me perfected
the parts of me i practice in front of mirrors
only what is left after iʻve been cut and edited
you will see me then
stripped of all my human
and you will want to be apart of the masterpiece
of the story
want me to be your introduction to women who dress and sing like me
want me to hold you
because my hands are softer than your boyfriends
and i know how to make your body move right
you will want me then
and i will let you
Take a piece of every poem
Call it your own
When you say
That every time I read a love poem that you wish it were about you
I will write you your own
You will be terrified and will not listen
Not hear the words
Just see my body moving on stage
Call it anything other than honest
You will be wrong
I will be hollow

when i fall in love
you will think you are lucky
that you have caught the uncatchable
That I have written my last love poem for the beautiful things I see
you will think you are special
that you can be the one to tie my hands behind my back
make me yours
you will only be partially wrong
you will think you love me because your heart drowns when you think of the tsunamis behind my voice
but you will not be ready to see me after the curtains close
when the imperfect parts find their way home
when i am not so memorized and refined
you will wonder why you came to me in the first place
you never wanted human
you wanted magic
the flashing lights
the stage presence
the tears iʻve shed on stage

you will call my vulnerability sexy
but only when you are drinking it from the other end of my microphone
you will not want to stay and listen through the night
not know why i need to be told
what your love means
you will not understand when i need you to count the ways
over and over
until its etched into the center of my chest
how I will ask you again before you are finished
you will not know how I wait for you to reach our your hand a little further from your body
how i will need to held every once and a while
need someone imperfect to call me beautiful
to see me
in all the worst lights
when the words don’t come out right
and nothing rhymes
and my hands are too heavy
and you are not rising under me

I will need you to try
To look into
my ugly
my insecure
my love
my human
and maybe
and maybe
And maybe
still want
to stay the night