The Type

* appropriation of Sarah Kay´s poem "The Type". I once heard that poetry does't belong to those who write it but to those who need it. Sarah, thank you for words that in a way I can make my own.

-

After our endless, numbered days, 

I hope you've learned what a woman looks like. 

Maybe you'd never seen one before. 

And maybe it wasn't me you were reaching for in the first place. 

Maybe it was a door, 

or a pen, or a bicycle 

but your hands found me first. 

I am a woman, 

and I won't mistake myself for a muse, 

or a guardian, 

or a promise, 

or a victim 

or a snack. 

I am a woman. 

skin and bones, 

veins and nerves, 

hair and sweat. 

I am not made of metaphors. 

Not apologies, 

not excuses. 

But

If I grow up the type of woman you want to hold...

I might let you hold me. 

I've come to realize only a few men 

will want to learn what it feels like 

to curl themselves into a question mark around me. 

And if someday you decide to try again,

You may have to admit 

that you still don't have the answers 

you thought you'd have by now. 

You may even want to hold me
like The Answer, 

but I am not The Answer. 

I am not the problem. 

Or the poem,

or the riddle 

or the joke. 

I am a woman. 

If I grow up the type of woman you want to love, 

I might let you love me. 

But being loved is not the same as loving. 

When you fall in love, it's discovering the ocean 

after years of puddle jumping, 

It’s realizing you have hands, 

It’s reaching for the tightrope 

once the crowds have gone home. 

I am done wondering if I'm the type of woman men will hurt. 

Once upon a time you left me with a car alarm heart, 

but guess what? 

I learned to sing along. 

It’s hard to stop loving the ocean,

even after it has left you gasping, salty, wrinkled.

So forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, 

the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night. 

I am the type of woman who is searching for a place to call her own,

but I have always been The Place. 

I am a woman who can build it herself. 
After all, I was born to create.