boringscribbleswiththelittlewoodenboy

Come-on to Ani DiFranco

I want a hard girl to be soft to me,
you want a soft boy to be hard for you:
baby, we were made for each other.
Your right hand is a hammer, oh,
your left hand is the nails,
& when you raise your right hand
& bring it down, and when you put
your two hands together, oh,
it is me between them that you take
and break, it is rock and folk,
it is the whole anemic
Lilith Fair, that you got your hand
around the throat of—Christ, you are
flamenco, when you get it on
with the catclaw fingerpicks, & rake
notes out of the bone harp
of your own body, man, you make
Paco de fucking Lucía look
comparatively pussy—bring
down the blade of your finger, bang
sweet harmonics out of the twelfth fret,
& it’s like bells, it’s like the angels
knocked the mutes out of their trumpets,
& I’ll be your puddle, baby,
jump into me.

I want a hard girl to be soft to me,
you want a soft boy to be hard for you.
When we make love it will be an epic event.
We’ll be a metaphor.
We’ll give this godforsaken decade
a nickname, maybe the century,
hell, they can spin the calendar back to zero
to commemorate our never-ending
gender-bending love.
They’ll make us into constellations.
They’ll point us out in the night sky:
There’s Craig & Ani in a tantric lotus, look!
with an arm around each other’s waist,
with a hand gracing the soft suede
at the back of each other’s buzz-clipped skull.
I know you’ve grown your hair out, but why not.
What the world needs is a new love story,
something with bite marks in it,
something with more grit than Trent and Tori
wrapped in blankets drinking hot cocoa.
Come on, you know it’s going to happen.

I want a hard girl to be soft to me,
you want a soft boy to be hard for you.
I could be hard for you,
but it might take awhile, like years.
Just promise me you’ll never say
oh it’s okay, let’s just cuddle.
Make me your motorcycle, baby,
put on the biggest boots of all,
kick up the stand & kick me into gear.
Make me go
potato potato potato potato
like an unrepentant Harley—would you be Mr.
DiFranco to me, would you be Xena,
Warrior Princess, would you be
Diana the huntress, with the silver
bow of the moon for your guitar?
Pull the strings back to your ear
& make the arrow sing and sting
all the way into my heart
and hurt me into loving, & I will stand
up for you, the only one
I would ever stand up for—you are the end
of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,”
sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me,
can’t you tell how much I’d love to
sock it to you, yes, in just that way,
I haven’t got it down but we could practice.
Come on.

Notes