I Want To Be

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        I want to be a thief, a gentlewoman with downward-tilted hat and elegant gloved fingers, gloved fingers that left no marks on the sparkling glass case where the jewels rested only a moment ago as I disappear in a puff of smoke, an immaculate fantasy, a beautiful phantom; daring, flamboyant, impossible. 

I want to be a detective, tapping, smoking, my suspenders shrugged off my shoulders, pacing a floor littered with newspaper clippings and grainy photos fluttered down from their pins, possessor of more luck than my Irish ancestors, more dogged than any hunting hound, a determined devil to any man with a clenched smile and a smoking gun.

I want to be a knight, a dragon-slayer, a lone samurai with a humble heart and only a honed blade and an unbent back left to me, a disaster to the demon-dragon with forked tongue and spiteful fire, a shield to the innocent and the worst of nightmares to the wicked. 

I want to be a maiden pure, unstained enough even the unicorns would love me, the birds would trust me, with a laugh to set the stars a-twinkling, innocent, lovely; whole-hearted, curious; loving without condition, lighter than air and a thousand times more real. 

I want to be many things and yet I am none of them and yet I am all of them.


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