Opinions

Everyone has their own idea,

who they think I am.

Some of them only know

the cadence of my nerves,

never bothered introducing themselves

to my fears, like the one of

falling

to my near-death or

the other one who’s too timid

to tell you what her name smells like.

Complete ignorance

of how I danced on the stairs

at the Soul Bar, to Dancing Queen

or

the night I climbed the fountain

by the amphitheater.

These half-baked opinions

never wrote a term paper on deadline,

never had to pay the sitter

with borrowed money.

Never drove all the way home

from the beach in a wet bathing suit with the top down

and cold stars falling out of the sky.

Pardon me if I dismiss the opinions

of those who don’t have

someone else’s dog hair on the stairs.

Ideas of me are malnourished,

parasites gulping down knowledge

of the pity fucks, the benevolent bestowing of womanhood

on boys who didn’t learn what

a man is, hoping that

ignorance serves them well.

All the girls in expensive shoes,

not even comfortable for sitting

on Brad Pitt’s face read

romance novels and charge their devices

on the nightstand.

They never went skinny-dipping

in the river with a virgin

on acid. They don’t even know

the difference between

an IUD and the OED.

I’m not telling them.

I may fail to sympathize,

make no attempt to empathize

with anyone who thinks

Persephone was abducted

and

Helen was a whore.