It’s been the same story my entire life, if someone says I can’t have something, by definition I decide I not only want it, I need it and deserve it.  I have to have it, and then – guess what? – I always end up NOT getting it (of course) and I end up feeling gypped.

Gypped of something that I was never going to get in the first place

Gypped of getting to wake up each day and see your caring face

Because I happened to decide that that barely visible tan line on your ring finger meant that ‘available’ meant that you could be there for me.  Yeah, I decided that way before I even reached the end of our first date.  I decided that without checking in with myself, it was just fate that I would fall for you…by definition…because you’re not available.  You’re present and you listen and you care and you are smart and funny and sexy and you make me feel even more beautiful than I already know I am… but you’re not available.

Thus: I wanted more of you than you could give.  More of you than you ever offered.

Funny enough, I wonder if you ever become available, if you’ll be less attractive to me.  I wonder if things work conversely in my perverse mind…in my convoluted emotional infrastructure that sets me up almost every time.

Oh, look!  Someone’s holding love for me over my head just out of reach! 

This is the perfect time to decide to focus all my attention on them instead of saying:

“Please stay the hell away from me.”

And God help the person who does this on purpose.  God help him.  God help that man who did this to me on purpose.  God help you, little boyman.  Because the rage that is built up inside me burns through my pores and if I lay eyes on you, I will have to implore my Id to not destroy you. 

But, I digress.

Back to my ‘look but cannot touch’ affair with the businessman who I would like to believe might like to be there for me, in some alternate world…in some Borgesian world where we get to live out every possibility… where he could have his cake and eat it, too…

I mean, for fuck’s sake, we only went on four or five dates.  How is it possible that I had so much at stake in such a short time?  Clearly, this is a case of mistaken identity.  It isn’t the businessman’s fault that I got caught in a snare – I neglected to ask the questions that I knew not to ask so that I could pretend the “one” had shown up at last.

Oy vey.

Even after all the strain and suffering and four decades of pain, I still have internalized Disney’s inane fairy tales… He was the prince who came to save me from my pain… and he turns out to be a guy, a good guy, who means well, who doesn’t have even close to all the answers and who is confused about some rather fundamental things and who is doing his best and who likes me.  No white horse.  A nice Mercedes…but no white horse.  No armor.  Feelings. 

But sexy.  So sexy.  Shit.  And fun.  So fun. 

It’s just that there’s the wife and the kids and the workaholism that comes along with the package.  Hm.

Timing.

Ani’s “Soft Shoulder” keeps running through my brain.

So, I’ve cried my eyes out,

I’ve wept ‘til I’ve thrown up.

I’ve gotten dizzy with pain

I’ve shook with rage…

They flutter through her belly

with nauseating rapidity

spinning around her insides

with no regard for her to-do list.

She needs to save the world!

Don’t those damn butternerves tangling up her intestines realize that?

But oh how they swept through today

like bats flying out of the hell of her loneliness

and into the light of real laughter

shared between real people

between warm sheets.

"Shit, I’m fucked.”  she says to herself quietly,

A prayer before dinner

After the afternoon tryst and before the evening’s chores.

She wants more and more

But time will not allow for it.

So she is left alone with the insanity of the butterflies.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she mutters.

Love sick.

Everything I want to say today is cliché

I want to talk about how women put on masks

In order to get through all the tasks

That society asks of them

So they can solve every problem

Without seeming like they have any themselves

That they shelve their personalities

Their specific needs

So they can feed the egos of those around them

While sitting behind the mask starving for attention.

But how can she get attention is she’s masked by a mask?

How can she be heard if she asks?

And sometimes the mask gets so stuck to her face

That she’s a mess if she tries to pry it off,

‘Cause her face falls all over the place

Parts of her skin peel off with the mask and leave her innards exposed

And yeah this hurts, but it also throws her into throes of terror

That someone might see her

Someone might see her

Someone might see her

Insides.

flipside, can’t hide, what she’s got inside

Inside she’s all butterflies and cobwebs
She’s got sunlight and tornados running through her head

She’s got uppers and downers homoning through her veins

She’s not sanity wrapped up in insecurities that drive her insane

She’s got places of calm that aren’t the eye of a hurricane

She’s got whorehouses and temples built from her ribs

She’s got first place in every race, but she lost all her dibs

Mixed up isn’t how she feels

Specific and Personal is what she is

Conflicted is not how she reels

Her cards run the full deck and she is a trick whiz

She knows her way around the maze of her craze

She wends her path and isn’t afraid of her wrath

She can give you a map if only you’d ask

But you’d have to open your mind so broad so that you can manage the task

Of comprehending the breadth and depth of her specificity

And so far people just pass her by

Men and women, far and wide, when they see what’s behind the mask

Find her too confusing and strange and unreal

They tell her that she doesn’t understand the real deal

Of what it is to live in this world

Where everything fits into boxes and squirrels

And squirrels

And in Japan squirrels are so rare they’re caged up in zoos

And here in the US, they’re a dime a dozen so who’s to say

What passes for normal

But she’s walked decades and hasn’t found a place where she’s typical

She’s told she’s so unusual

She should be put in a cage

Or maybe up on stage

For all to see

‘Cause she’s so different and yet really so similar to you and to me…

flipside, have to hide, what she’s got inside.

So she keeps on the mask

And her voice remains muffled

And when she speaks, her lips don’t move

And when she frowns, her cheeks remain cheery

And she needs our help

She needs some safe spaces

Where she can breathe clean air

Unpolluted with expectation that she will always be there

Deep breath in and deep breath out

And maybe a hand to hold for a minute or three

And maybe a moment when she can raise her voice and shout

“I am not the cartoon you make me out to be”

And maybe if she allows herself or finds the space

Where she can take off the mask on the regular in a supportive place

Then it won’t stick to her face and it won’t peel off her skin

And she can breathe freely and feel balance and won’t have to fall apart from within

For some people to notice that she really is human

So the next time you see her with her head held up high

And you think “Wow she’s got it together, I can’t imagine how I

Could ever make a difference in her perfect world?”

Take a moment and look her in her eyes

Let her know

That you see she is real and that some of her perfection is for show

And give her a hug and tell her you’re proud

That she’s out here grinding away without making a sound

They say the squeaky wheel always gets the grease

Let’s listen to the silence of the well-oiled masked woman’s pleas.