with thanks to L.V.

How to be what you want me to be.

What I wanted to be which is what

I saw in my head, quite likely unlike

anything you saw. In fact, now that

I think of it, I feel certain our visions

are divergent. That what you want

is one who never was me. So dark

and different, a real polar opposite,

it leaves one of us alone, without love,

or without what you offer, what I offer.

I am not what you want. At last, I saw it:

I do not want to be what you want.

I may be some of those things. Certainly

when I am gone, I will be what you want.

Yet now, love, I become what I want.

What I like, who I am, not an approximation

or a thing you may want, some cheap or false

copy that falls short. No. I am saturated - self.

Today a friend writes “Dear, you are lovelier than air.”

and I fall to my knees with such gratitude.