The Type<br /><br />Everyone needs a place. It shouldn't be inside of someone else. -Richard Siken<br /><br />If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,<br />you can let them look at you. But do not mistake eyes for hands.<br /><br />Or windows.<br />Or mirrors.<br /><br />Let them see what a woman looks like.<br />They may not have ever seen one before.<br /><br />If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,<br />you can let them touch you.<br /><br />Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.<br />Sometimes it is a bottle. A door. A sandwich. A Pulitzer. Another woman.<br /><br />But their hands found you first. Do not mistake yourself for a guardian.<br />Or a muse. Or a promise. Or a victim. Or a snack.<br /><br />You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat.<br />You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.<br /><br />If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,<br />you can let them hold you.<br /><br />All day they practice keeping their bodies upright--<br />even after all this evolving, it still feels unnatural, still strains the muscles,<br /><br />holds firm the arms and spine. Only some men will want to learn<br />what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,<br /><br />admit they do not have the answers<br />they thought they would have by now;<br /><br />some men will want to hold you like The Answer.<br />You are not The Answer.<br /><br />You are not the problem. You are not the poem<br />or the punchline or the riddle or the joke.<br /><br />Woman. If you grow up the type men want to love,<br />You can let them love you.<br /><br />Being loved is not the same thing as loving.<br />When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean<br /><br />after years of puddle jumping. It is realizing you have hands.<br />It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.<br /><br />Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of woman<br />men will hurt. If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.<br /><br />It is hard to stop loving the ocean. Even after it has left you gasping, salty.<br />Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call<br /><br />mistakes when you tuck them in at night. And know this:<br />Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours.<br /><br />Let the statues crumble.<br />You have always been the place.<br /><br />You are a woman who can build it yourself.<br />You were born to build.