You are not to be wooed. You are to be colonized.

 

If one were to woo you with flowers, one would choose wildflowers. Never roses. Never red. An un-self-conscious bird of paradise, perhaps. Deceptively frail persian lilies. An elegantly rude hibiscus that conveys uninhibited desire. (For the hibiscus is not a suggestive flower. It is blatant in its sexuality. Unapologetically wanton. It is the most beautiful prostitute in the garden.)

 

If one were to woo you with chocolate one would never give you a ribbon-tied box of gourmet assortments. No candied Turkish delights, no nougat-filled truffles. No.

One would give you a handful of dark mounds broken off a mountain of cocoa. One would reach into one’s pockets and pull out fistfuls of raspberries, broken with juice, that have stained one’s fingers deliciously.

Then one would ask you to clean the reds, maroons, purples, crimsons from my fingers with your lips.

 

If one were to woo you with music one would not choose the grandiose pretension of an operatic magnum opus, or an orchestral masterpiece. One would not compile a ‘mixtape’ of love songs. No.

One would serenade you with a flamenco under your window in the dead of night until even the wolves were silenced.

 

One does not woo you with the classical poetry of romantics. One does not quote Shakespeare or drop couplets by Keats. One would not speak of Byron or Rossetti. One might make references to Lorca, one might even mention Neruda in passing. But what one does, is this: one writes lines across your forearm with a ball point pen in the silence of a library, broken only by breathing. One leaves smudge marks on your skin where one has been clumsy with one’s words. And then, one drops letters into your ears one whisper at a time.

One pushes lovelanguage under your skin, inch by inch. Consonant by consonant.

 

One does not woo you with compliments. One does not simply say “my, how beautiful you look today.” Because one doesn’t speak of obvious things. One reminds you of those often forgotten.

One forgets to breathe. One forgets to blink. One does not let you out of one’s sight. And when asked what the matter is, one finds no voice. One stammers.

 

One does not woo you as one woos other women. Because you are not other women. You are all women. And none. You are not to be wooed. you are to be colonized. You are the surviving image of one’s desire. You are the compass and the direction. The instigator and the receptacle.

And when one reaches out to touch you, one can only pray that you are real.