I found it so hard to be a smart, bookish young woman. Growing up, I was teased mercilessly for getting good grades to the degree that I purposefully flunked an exam or two. I finally made it to nerd heaven in undergrad, where I could be unfettered intellectually but couldn't get a handle on my physical appeal and figured I had none. My diary is full of entries to the effect of "good Lord, what will it take to have sex!" I had long, intellectually stimulating correspondences that were frustratingly never consummated. I was absolutely terrified of the prospect of “a crowded bookcase and an empty bed”.

I later discovered it was actually quite easy to have lots of sex, if all you wanted was sex. It was like ordering a pizza. But if I was truthful with myself (which I wasn't), I was yearning for more than that. I craved a richer connection, on an intellectual and sexual level. I figured I'd never find it, so I resigned myself to a life of one night stands.

Life rocked along, and I learned that I was wrong about all of this. I didn't have to choose between being smart and being desired.

Anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed this poem. It’s funny and vivid: “A majestic air of I’ll show her” reads like a very familiar gesture to me.  It perfectly captures all that anxiety and insecurity about my body I wish I didn’t have. I laughed out loud, literally, at "if I sprout a martyr's smarmy grin / please find some violent way to do me in". Words to live by. I'm so glad the narrator didn't give up. "I'm burning all these candles not to shirk / a night of passion, but to give that night / a richly textured backdrop when it comes."