The girl in the ticket booth,
I see her day after day, like a doll
In her plastic wrap, keeping her pristine
Before somebody can get their grubby fingers
Onto her pale skin and run through her hair
That is fiery red and drapes across eyes
As she prints off our tickets to board the train.
She smiles so small but I feel that it’s me
All of that smile is there there for me.
I’ll speak to her one of these days,
Something more than ‘return to Victoria’
The most I ever seem to mumble at her
With eyes down and cheeks flaming
As I throw her my coins and dissolve into crowds
Not to be seen until the same time tomorrow
When I’ll fumble again and wish that I could
Say how I feel to the girl in the booth.
I don’t know what it is but I seem to always find it easier to write about women. I sometimes think that if people didn’t see my picture they might think that I am a man, my Twitter feed is full of poems to women. And yet I’m just a girl who like men!
It just got me thinking that it was a strange quirk that I had. I have self published a few novels that I’ve written and a couple of them are written from a male point of view too, so it’s not confined to poetry.
I think that one reason might be that infatuation with women is so easy to write about. Whether it is from a romantic perspective or something a bit darker, the idea of a man just quietly watching a woman is so powerful. And, of course, the classic literary muse is always female, so I guess it makes sense.
I’d love to know if any of you writerly types had weird quirks like that. Meanwhile, I’m going to stay over here pretending to be a man for the rest of the day……
Much Love,
Rachel xx
ceponatia
I actually sympathize quite a lot. I’ve always gotten along much better than women (to the point that I currently can count my male friends on one finger) so I get asked if I’m gay fairly regularly when people meet me. I’ve been asked out by quite flattering men throughout my life so it’s kind of a shame that I’m straight as I’d have a bangin’ husband.
I’m also frequently mistaken for a woman when I write on forums or in chat apps where people don’t know me well such as Discord. I’ve had to shatter a 16 year old gamer boys dreams more than once.
ceponatia
should have read “much better WITH women” not “than”. Haven’t had my coffee yet.
Greg Dennison
I’m the opposite. I can pretty much only write about characters who are like me. I remember years ago I did write a short story with a female main character; I haven’t read that in a long time, nor have I shared it enough to know if it really worked. I was thinking, someday years from now, when I finish DLTDGB, I might keep the blog going by rewriting some classic DLTDGB episodes from the perspective of another character. I’ve thought of two that I want to do this way: rewriting the story about the time my friends woke me up in the middle of the night from Sarah’s perspective, and rewriting the story about the first time I saw Megan sophomore year (which I haven’t written yet, it’ll be approximately 3 episodes from now) from Megan’s perspective.