Title – Simply a Woman
I have met every kind of woman-
seen them all, known them all-
yet never the one
they dare to call
simply a-
woman.
Strangers crossed my path,
by chance or by choice,
but none ever felt like home.
All that I once imagined
hardened into dream
and lingered there-
unfinished,
untouched.
This is what happens
when value must be negotiated
instead of simply recognized.
I am looking for a woman
who does not lie to herself.
That is all.
She would arrive empty-handed,
carrying nothing but herself-
and that would have been
the entire fortune.
I stopped knocking on doors
that open only for negotiation.
The silence that answered
was the closest
I ever came to her voice.
The world knows
I write no romance.
The marketplace taught her value
in coins and contracts;
I offered silence
and she called it poverty.
