Assertiveness

Sometimes I feel
I ought to have been born a man.
I’m lucky I wasn’t, I suppose—
I’d have to fight for my interest in Art.
I don’t want to be a man.
I just wish…
there were women like the woman I want to be.
I have the perfect personality to do manly things, like
adoring from afar
and
knocking down walls.
In my daydreams,
I am the rescuer, the lover, the rider, the emperor
I am the one who does.
The subjective. The superlative.
Endless striving,
like that cad Faust.
My beloved is Dulcinea, she is Beatrice—
Is there a man for me to love?
Or will I have to love a woman?
In the dreams I have at night,
I can fly and nobody notices.