Questioning (Feb 2nd, 2010)

(So this is a 2nd draft. It's coming out of a women's storytelling class, about what love is and how people think about themselves as individuals and as people with history and as participants in loving (or other kinds of) relationships. It's a moment of frustration. I often wonder why the stakes are so high, when we let love...)

I am a cliche,
also a study in contradictions.
Who could love me?

I don't sleep.
I survive on just coffee with soy.
Who could know?

I need to stay moving,
rest and waiting freak me out.
Who wants to keep up?

I'm alive when I'm spontaneous,
depressed when I'm bored.
Who can deal?

I day dream, almost hourly,
about love-fueled revolutions.
Who could stomach it?

I sing out loud
on the subway. And dance.
No one would tolerate it.

I cry in the shower.
I melt in the steam.
No one cares.

I like to cook and hoolihoop
and abbreviate and fuck and read
and walk and take shots
and theorize and pretend to work
and listen and laugh.
So what. No one relates.

I am easy to please
and hard to understand.
Whose willing to navigate complexities
for the sake of a kiss?