That Woman in me

 This is a poem I wrote for a blues song (sung in my dreams by me)

(whispers pause, slow low hum)

She… was never the loud one.
No.
Never the one who walked in to be seen.
She...  let the air
shift around her.
Let silence… do the seduction.

(slow breath)

Mmm hmmm.

You didn’t notice her
until you realized your eyes had been begging for her...
All along.

Her voice?
Not sharp.
Not raised.
But low.
Coiled.

Like a matchstick being struck
ev'a so slow.

(Long sigh.. mmmm) 

Sultry.
And final.

(Sax, trumpet, double bass) 

She didn’t touch you ... first.

She let you burn on the edge of almost.

She....

She let you reach…

and wonder

if you were worthy

of what would come next.

Mmm hmmmm...

Her intelligence?

Mon Dieu...

It rivaled Cleopatra

but quieter.

She used those words of hers the way others use fingers:

to unbutton.

To disarm.

To dominate.

(Piano, double bass) 

She smiled

like a locked French bakery.

Hmmm mmmmm...

Sweet.

Hmmm mmmm.

Glazed with invitation.

But closed.

Unless you knew how to say,

“Please,”

in the language of her restraint.

(slow exhale, humming) 

She didn’t undress.

She… released.

Fabric slipping like breath over skin,

and when it dropped 

(Sound of blues guitar)

you didn’t reach.

You watched. 

As if sacred things
should be studied
before worshipped.

---

Her fingers…
not rushed.
But tracing.

Deliberate.

Like they were memorizing your weakest place
just to decide
if you deserved to keep it.

She kissed with pause.

(Kissing noise)

She kissed with patience.

(Kissing noise)

With power.
With the kind of mouth that leaves marks
before lips ever meet flesh.

She does not scream.
But you will hear her
in your bones,
in your silence,

hmm. Mmmm.
in the ache behind your ribs
long after your body forgets
why you ever tried to live without her.

(low breath, blues guitar) 

She was never the loud one.
But she will echo
forever... forever...

Inside the grave of your composure.
Inside the breath you never caught.

Inside the you
that burned
for the woman who never needed
to ask.