I want to be married one day.

I want to be a lot, a whole lot,

but one of the bigger things

is that I want to be married someday.

 

And I don’t know if it’ll happen.

I’m scared

that it won’t,

but that’s not the worst part.

 

That part is the unwillingness

of everyone around me

to let me deal with that fear

because supposedly, I made my choice

a long time ago

 

when I chose brains and bookishness

and long nights of lonely, lonely reading.

 

And when I dated,

I dated in my spare time,

when it was easy,

and didn’t deal with things if and when

things got serious.

 

So if I’ve made my choice,

and my choice was not someone else,

how do I explain how

 

though I don’t want to be a wife right now,

and I’m not a spouse who scrapes and bows,

or one whose other is everything,

 

some days I look in the mirror and think,

how have I ever been loved?

How will I ever be loved again?

 

How do I deal with the fact that

some days I feel so not a woman,

 

and I love to be a woman,

 

but some days I see myself,

thick, tall, spotted, and so, so hurt,

and I think that no one will want to invest

repair time on my mess?

Or how hard I love, stupidly?

How I love with drooling, heavy, amorphous totality?

Why every crush is devastating,

why every rebuff is confirmation,

even though I know that one person,

two people, three, four, five

are not the final say on

whether or not I deserve love,

 

but then, I am that final say,

and I don’t think I ever believed

that I did

for one second?

 

I do? Do I?

I know I do, but do I?

 

I admit my worth,

and my talent,

and my heart,

and my intelligence,

 

but who is going to stop the voices

that whisper to me every moment,

 

that are my voice,

 

that say that I want to fall asleep

and never wake up,

 

and no one is going to find me,

 

and no one is going to go to bed the next night,

and rotate the ring around their finger

that I put there,

that belonged to both of us,

to fall into some brokenhearted, empty semblance

of sleep?