Sycamore

Sycamore

 

Sometimes I wish I could start anew

When I see strangers painting my image on billboards

Signs and truths, in open view

Drawn (yet skewed) by judging fools

Saying I have nothing to offer anyone

Except the wrong, a select few who have been dubbed

Inappropriate pronouns

My vintage wine's popped one year too soon

My rose carries one too many thorns

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I wish I could be that kind of girl

Who wears gray polyester suits

You know who I mean, don’t you?

That (generational) "new woman" who holds a 9 to 5

On the second floor of the Chrysler Building

She could be you, they always say

Sheets of numbers, tables, cubicles (a decent lay)

A lady who's cordial to the family friends

Or even better, the family too

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Sure, she could tie down a man who's never risked his life

Nor his sanity, his soul unscathed

Never braving that storm in a manic rape

Living off the bare and the raw, where there's no escape

In succumbing to trust

Or lust

Love's wings, danger's alleyways, the Devil's girth

A sinner's Heaven here on Earth

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No, no

It's better to have dry (non-ejaculatory)

Sheets to sleep on, since

We have that damn 10 o'clock bedtime again

A man with shirt pockets and

Tuesday dry-cleaning (stripped of sexual things)

Who answers the phone every damn time it rings

Whether or not he really wants to talk

To his friend from accounting

Or to his mistress, just one flight up

Whose days are spent clinging to false hopes

That (generational) feminine trust

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Sometimes I wish I could start anew

When I see strangers painting my portrait

Broadcasted strangely, in offbeat hues

Saying I have nothing to offer anyone

Except those dubbed politically incorrect names

Don't paint an image of me, colored by you

An illusion so false (yet promising too)

I can easily see with my blue eyes (momentarily green)

That you were blessed with conventionality

While I was born a sycamore among this land of maple trees

 

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