Thoughts On the Duplicity of Delicacy.
I love lace
which is to say, I love the idea
of a winding and caressing fabric that
entwines and embodies the delicacy of the woman
that it wraps itself around and in around.
Right. Woman.
Because I also love the idea of
a human that’s loving and smart and
as cunning as she is beautiful and kind as she is absolutely
ruthless in the most benign sense of the word.
And beauty.
There’s a construct that I’ve been
told of time and time again. I don’t know
where to begin decomposing its sinews and breaking down
its rigid and cold and cellulose structure of starch.
Like starched shirts.
I could totally put on a simple t-shirt and
leave my house and live my life. But I don’t because
I have a rhythm and that rhythm requires me to adhere to the
common time, the signature that classifies me
as ‘sophisticated’.
As a man worth listening to and a
man worth hearing and a man deserving of
a beautiful person, a person who loves to be caught in lace but
hates to be trapped by lace. Because her music is so
much different.
Her music tells her that she is a
flute when she desperately wants to be a
baritone. Her music lets her compromise by being a horn, but
not a trumpet. She’s a cornet, because it has
curves. Wider
curves and larger tubes. And she really
still functions like the music wants her to. Because
she’s still in B-flat, but she can’t be flat. At least not up front.
Because there’s no sense in a horn that can’t
show off.
But not ‘show off’ in the trumpeting
sense. (I’m speaking of a real woman now, this is not
a metaphor.) A subtle kind of ‘showing off’ that’s very nuanced
and very subtle. Right, because women shouldn’t
trumpet. They
should blend with their section. Right?
That’s what harmony is about. Not standing out or leaving
the texture. The texture like lace. I keep coming back to that be-
cause I have a point. Lace is a trap, and it’s not.
But I can’t say
anything of that, can’t I? I’m afraid that
if I do, I’ll look like the enemy. But I support women, I do.
Or at least, I’ve always thought I have. Until in one sudden stroke what
I was hoping was just chivalry and basic kindness
was not. It was
patriarchy, and misogyny, and, like,
an incredible imposition of the male dominance that I must
be a part of, because I’m a male. And, you know, we’ve destroyed
everything. I won’t lie, we guys are awful. It isn’t
noble. It’s not,
what we’ve done. She has to remain
in the texture of her section, that horn that is not a horn.
She has to stay inside of the lace that catches and traps her and curls
around her body like creeping ivy. The same lace
that says, ‘She
can’t go to an Ivy. There’s no femininity
in being smarter than men, or being smarter than anyone
at all.’ And I hate that kind of lace, because I support women, right?
But I love lace, because of the way it feels and how
it reminds me
of everything that I wish I could say was
my partner. I’m supposed to be sophisticated and quiet.
Aristocratic, or at least that’s the air I put on because I love the
prestige that comes with it. But in truth, though,
I’m a boy.
Just a little boy who pretends at being
a professor, a writer, a voice that deserves to be heard.
A little boy, but one who knows the harshness his half of humanity
has wrought on our world. And one who desires
the soft caress
of lace. The white lace, the one that says
beauty, true beauty, pure beauty, isn’t a trap. The lace
that wants to be divorced from its cousin that is a trap, that is sub-
jugation. That is everything that we don’t need
more of, in this
dark, dank place. My half rapes, and hurts,
and beats, and hurts, and laughs, and hurts, and drinks,
and hurts hurts hurts. And we tighten that black lace because it works
for us. It turns us on. (I say us, but I’m not into
that kind of thing.
In a sexual sense and also in a metaphorical
sense.) White lace. Right, yes, I know, it still means
'sexy', it's still a brand of the disgusting standards that my half holds
for the not-my half. But maybe if we just, stopped
with the black
lace. Took away its power and its meaning.
Broke the stupid standards, shattered the translucent
pay ceiling, gave up on hurting and got down with helping, healing.
Maybe I could hold doors and still be in support.
Then maybe I could like lace.
