This is not a metaphor

If I had an invisibility cloak, I would not wear it. I want the opposite. I want a visibility uncloak.

I want to be naked, on a pedestal, slowly spinning. At an airport or a busy intersection, where there are hordes of bustling people. Maybe Times Square.

I am in warrior pose or painted like a zebra or a rainbow. And I am reciting my own words or maybe the poems of Rebecca Elson or Marie Howe or Anne Sexton or channeling Emma Goldman.

And sometimes I am whispering so the people need to stand really close to me.

They lean in listening with innocent senses. Or maybe pure intent.

They are silent.

They read my lips.

They read my eyes.

They read my hips and study my eyebrows.

They wait for the way my mouth shapes vowels: “Ohhhhhhhhh” “Ahhhhhh”and fall in love with my lips.

They stand back and cover their ears as I shriek. Loudly. Then louder still.

They grimace. Not all of them. But many of them. They don’t leave. Not one person leaves.

Music starts to play and I begin to move my arms, waving them back and forth, snaking them up and over my head, around and around like an oroboros.

I bend and twist and slink as the music screams.

I sway like a tree in the wind. I make a “whooosh” sound that starts in my belly and travels through my diaphragm and chest but few can hear it over the music playing.

I keep my eyes closed as I dance ecstatically.

Until I am swirling like a tornado woman.

All eyes are on me.

You cannot look away. You don’t want to miss anything. I want you to watch me and I want to love it so I can love me. Do you know now how important you are to me?

I slow my spinning as the music fades.

The crowd remains because we are committed to each other. To this relationship we have temporarily cemented.

I stop moving. The music stops playing. My limbs feel heavy and light. My eyes are open. There is no you and there is no me. Finally, I am seen and I see.