You owe me an explanation

The year is 1969, the place is Paris. The sun is shining, Serge Gainsbourg is chirping and fellow Spanish troublemaker Salvador Dalí walks his anteater on the street.

Mediterranean sassiness right there lad

So, this is standard. Standard because Dalí happens to be a widely known and praised artist, an icon of our almighty popular culture, and probably the best of the surrealists or, at least, the most daring one. It is standard because he's dead, his works finite, and everything has fallen into place once all the chapters of his life have been written.

Now, my very respectable reader, please take my hand. The year is 2016. The place is Liverpool. I'm wearing a lightning bolt on my face because David Bowie has passed away. I'm making my way to Seel Street when I'm interrupted by a passerby, who looks at me mockingly and ironically asks me about my Bowie tribute, not knowing who he was. He's got a strong Spanish accent and somehow he seems surprised by me detecting it. I could easily be rude to him but the pure and liberating truth is that I don't even care he walks this earth. Because he has his own story as I got mine. However, he makes me reflect on something: I have always been forced to explain myself, as a woman, as an artist and also in my personal life.

Made of sunshine and olive oil: your narrator

I need to explain myself constantly, surprisingly not only to every breathing man who happens to be around me, but also to other women, or even to friends. I need to give detailed explanations about the way I dress (outrageous I know), my working life (are you still a penniless artist?), and what happened to that boy I used to date (I buried him at the patio in Heebies). In my hours of weakness I, as we all have, shared some details about my sorrows with those I trust, and to my surprise in some cases what I found was people lecturing me about how to live my life, how to be a woman, how to be young. I have been told loads of things: to not to talk to certain people, to do this and that, to restrain from having sex, (ha nice try). And I have been patronised in a way that not even my parents - who can technically patronise me as they created the mess whom evolved to be me today - have, with some cases of people getting angry over me not following their advice. These makes me believe that their questions are not honest attempts at knowing if I'm okay, but attempts at trying to shape my life to their idea of how life should be lived.

Now, as any straight woman born in the 90s who indulges in wine, The Libertines and 19th literature, I have dated some blue-eyed English local rockstars at some point in my life. These creatures, who are common in the mythology of my life, are in some cases quite contradictory, but they have the right and the general praise to be so. Their love life is rarely discussed, their artistry vaguely criticised: they are allowed to find themselves as artists and also as men. To make mistakes. (Like dating me)

We've all been there

I am not allowed to do any of this, to explore, to live on my own terms. And I will never understand why. I get funny looks from fellow female poets who then write about the always crowd-pleasing "embrace yourself" mantra, I get shamed by friends for who I choose to be with even though I couldn't care less if they were dating a stuffed animal as long as they are happy, I have to laugh it off when someone feels entitled to comment on my body. And I will never understand that, and I hope I'll die without understanding it, because I don't care.

I know who I am.

I know what I do what I do, and I know its meaning.

I know I'm not hurting anybody because, on my trips to my artistic or personal edge, I always travel on my own.

I cannot imagine Dalí explaining to the Parisian crowds why he was doing what he was doing. There's no explanation, he doesn't owe you one, and I don't either. If you see me screaming the lyrics to Dreaming of You at a table in Mojo, grabbing coffee at Bold Street with a cigarette holder in my mouth, posting silly things on facebook, wearing some bunny ears at a poetry event, this is all you need to know: 

that I am a poet, which means that I'm in love with life 

that I'm trying to create a story, which means that I am alive

that we all have our stories, so if someone's moves are a mystery to you, don't take it personally,

that you should live life the best you can, but don't be hard on yourself if you fail,

that if you approach me and are nice to me I'll respect you and support you as a fellow artist, whatever ways you choose to express yourself.

So, anyway, how long has it been since you last walked your anteater?