soft & sensitive

i wanted to bless you with my words, shower them on you
(incase you didn't know
when this poet gives words
it's an act of love)
so i started telling you you're sweet and kind--but before i could finish, you talked over me, told me i was callin you soft

you made the word soft sound like horse shit

are you seriously gonna hide beneath that gruff, emotionless exterior all day, all night?
you told me i'm so sensitive. i affirmed that conclusion but held back the instinctive apology i felt rise in me
since when is sensitivity a bad thing?
ralph tresvant thought it was alright. now it's a liability. something apology-worthy. i wonder if i was "sensitive" enough to "sense" you were stressed, give you a massage and make you your favorite meal if my "sensitivity" to your needs would then be something you criticized?

you're right i don't understand you. you take your time getting to know a woman before loving her or maybe the journey is loving, i dunno.

i do know:
you ain't soft/
if you was
soft
even a lil bit
you would say sweet things back to me
or at least let my sugar roll out my mouth
uninterrupted & unjudged/
if you was
soft
you'd let yourself have a feeling once in awhile
besides sarcasm, anger or happiness.
and maybe you'd share that once-in-awhile-feeling with this oversensitive dyke.
i'm not one of your boys,
not one of them butches you roll with,
not someone you give daps to.
i don't know who we are to each other, but i know we ain't that. there are intimate tender things brewing beneath the taciturn surface of us that you ignore and i search for. and i'm tired of looking--i'm putting my flashlight and map away.

congratulations on being Hard Butch of the Year.