The other day
A friend of mine asked me
If I preferred guys or girls
The truth is …
If I fall in love with you
I didn't pick you because of your gender
Or whatever pronoun
You've decided is good enough
For people who don't know your name

I like people
With lips cracked and dry
With noses bridged with freckles
Eyes that don't match
Words that stop and start
Stitched-up sides
Fingernails coated in chipped polish

I want to name each and every imperfection
The spots buried beneath your thick
sweaters
That you don't like to talk about much
I want to listen to the album that makes
you cry sometimes
Or learn about the imaginary friend
You had to go to four therapists to get rid of
And tell you the not-so-pretty things about me too

Because I don't like pretty ones
There are too many of those
I want you ripe with stories
Filled with trinkets and shards of glass
To paint walls with smudged lipstick
I want you to be like those journals
I never finish
Endless pages inked with handwriting
I can barely read
So that there are always new lines
to decipher

I have loved only two people like these
in my lifetime
One, a man you all know by now
He likes to drink coffee
And he paints in his spare time
I've memorized his laugh
And he does stupid tricks with his sunglasses
He's got a lot of different names
I call him Jonesy

The other
Is a girl, quite ordinary
She loves animals
Rats, especially
We didn't like each other at first
She thinks curls are the best
And fancies becoming a musician
She doesn't like herself very much
I have yet to find a more beautiful
human being

So in the end
I do not like labels
Assigning yourself to this or that gender
I like people of all kinds
That's why I can't just be attracted to
someone immediately
I have to notice your smile
Or the creases around your eyelids
Until I can't stop writing poetry about you
I'm not sure what they call that
It's like falling in love with your eyes closed
Or maybe really they're wide open

I beg of you now
Just to understand this
That maybe we're not meant to be sorted
Into black and white
Or blue and pink
I don't need a preference
And you should know …
Neither do you