POEM: Can Love still be for Me?

This poem is based on personal dating experiences, and even just general non-romantic encounters with women. They’d left me bitter for years now (exemplified in my Marriage post), and this is a way to express that. 

 

Can I learn to love, the way I’d always fantasised as a kid?

 

 

Is it possible to meet the proverbial woman of my dreams, running toward her

While she’s running toward me in a wheat field like in the movies?

Is there really a woman who’ll make me feel safe to be totally open,

Safe to drop the runarounds and the games, and the baggage and the blames and

Just be happy with me. The real me, the bare me, the encoded-in-my-DNA me,

The every breath and every heartbeat of every second of every day me?

Could love still be for me?

And as for straight guys, are there any women who remember we exist?

We who like women rather than the idea of women,

Who value them not as trophies or prizes but as they are, without all the guises

Of make-up icing and hair-dos, falsies and high-heel shoes,

 

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

 Who find empowered intelligent women liberating not intimidating, 

Who want to express and caress them and not oppress or possess them?

Are there any women who remember we exist?

And if so, will I ever meet Her?

The One who’ll be my empress and I her emperor

And together we’ll found a whole new empire of little black princes and princesses

Who’ll grow up to conquer the neo-colonialists,

Vanquish the Eurocentrists and reinstate the righteous rule of Africa.

But does such a woman exist for me?

Could love still be for me?

See, I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs with females,

I’ve been close to love and lost it, I’ve been wanted like a criminal

So I ran away from a crime I still had yet to commit.

Been left high and dry, led on and lied, scorned and even just

Left scratching my head and wondering “What the f***?”

The contours and recesses of the woman’s body are uncharted territory to me,

Been too far up in the clouds of piety so long I’ve damn near evaporated and

Only now am I raining back down to Earth.

But no-one’s there to greet me, to welcome my return and so I say

“Screw my dreams, f*** the fantasy,

See women as they really are, the reality.

Here, nice guys finish last, good boys get nowhere fast,

And religious guys don’t even know there’s a race! So what the raas

Was I doing?!?

I’ve had my heart toyed with and fractured too many times, so time to harden up.

 

 

 

No love in, no love out. Too bad women, you had more than enough chances and you screwed ’em all up.

You wanted to be strong and independent, I can do that too. It takes two to tango

And I’m taking my two left feet outta the dancehall and taking the music tracks with me!”

But even so… could love still be for me?

Despite my bad experiences, despite my hardened heart,

Despite your flames of passion I drench to ashes from the start,

Despite my carnal ignorance, despite my confusion

About the mysteries of the female mind that have no solution,

Despite my lack of rhythm in the dance of infatuation,

Despite your lustful gazes I despise like a castration,

Could that queen-to-be still want to draw near,

Near like a Trojan horse through my fortress heart and

Render my defences useless? Convince me to surrender the shield and sword,

To let love in and give it back out, let it grow into a new empire

Together? Her and I, me and she?

Can it be possible that love’s still for me?

 

 

© ONE TAWNY STRANGER 2014