Spanish Mistress/ American Woman

Barcelona has defeated me. She has taken my money, ignored my advances, thrashed me in her teeth like a careless puppy and tossed me in the corner of society to trudge through my days like a crass and dejected hobo. I am a foreigner in her house and a foreigner without purpose or contribution to her way of life. I speak to her and she slaps the language out of my mouth. I offer my services and she rejects the very premise of my suggestion. I did not first meet with her lawyer and enter her home through the labyrinth of paperwork and procedure and thus she has denied me my humanity and deemed me useless to her. Instead, I am subjected to look at her from beyond the front gates, like a painting, a statue, a lifeless creation of beauty and passion unable to be touched, or loved, or spoken to. I pay money and she shows me her delicacies, like a peep show in a seedy downtown alley. Though her attributes are worth the money. She brings men and women alike crawling to her shores with hard-earned savings in hand for only a glimpse of what she has to offer. To know her would take years; a lifetime. To see her, to get a few erotic photos of her intoxicating figure as she dismissively smacks your face again and again is worth every penny. Disfigured, insecure, helpless and crippled in a world of salsa dancers I follow her around with my camera and beg her to acknowledge me. I want to feel her love in return and be embraced in the warm arms of her culture. I want to walk her streets with the confidence and eloquence of language and knowledge; the style and grace and talent that her people possess. I want to tingle with the joy that they feel. But I lack the education. I lack the words and etiquette and manners that she requires of me. I am an unsophisticated oaf with only my dollars to speak for me. My ego comes from the manic happiness and distraction that allows my people to avoid the depths of thought and emotion. I hoard it over her waving my green flags, demanding like an indolent child that I be seen for my hard work, but she is unimpressed. "Can I play music and woo her?" she asks. "Can I cook her a meal or paint her self-portrait?" And for Christ sake, "Where are my manners?" And so I shrink and slither from her, melancholic and thoughtful, put in my place, back to my home shores, back to my own woman whom even as I search for something better is shouting from the highest mountains that she is about to change. "I will be better!" she says. "I will educate myself and wander from my tasteless distractions and see the inhumanity and disgracefulness of my behavior." But I am skeptical that she has the capacity. I will believe it when I see her smile and applaud should one of her suitors create a thing of beauty to impress her, rather than reprimanding him and asking why he would spend his time so foolishly when he should have been working. I will believe it when I see her soften and take her young and fragile children to her breast and comfort them like a mother. She will dissipate my cynicism when she learns to act like a civilized woman and like Gatsby host warm evening parties for her neighbors as they laugh and dance into the morning dew. I will take interest in her when she has the good sense to ignore the ruffians throwing bottles in the alleyway. She is too beautiful to stoop to their level. They have nothing she needs and nothing she must concern herself with. If she were as strong a woman as she claims to be she would snub her nose in their direction while walking confidently off to enjoy the spoils of life with her civilized friends; relaxing, reading, taking long walks in the woods to enjoy what grandeur she has been graced with.

But still she is my woman; familiar, comfortable, sexy. We have a past together, a history. She asks so little of me and yet I'm willing to give so much. I would give up all my worldly possessions to see her swoon and soften. I would give a lifetime to create something lasting and precious if only I thought she would appreciate it. Instead I spend my days filing documents for her like a rube and drinking my way through her harsh punishments on romantic souls. I smile as I work her fruitless fields. She demands my optimism for any year now she expects her sterile soil to blossom. But I know better. She must rotate her crops, she must let her fields rest. She must not ask so much of her farmers and give so little back. For I am only human and I would walk her streets in a three-piece tuxedo and read her poetry if she only asked it of me. I would learn the harp and conjure fine wines to intoxicate her. I would be the man that Spain demands of me if only she would shut her mouth and kiss me. I don't care for her ego. I'm not impressed with her wealth. I want to know that she can love. I want to see that she can dance. I want to make passionate love to her by candlelight in a boat slowly paddling downstream. I want her to smile as Spain smiles. For if she would, I would help her down from her pedestal and be poor with her for a lifetime. She is so very tired and rigid, sterile and on edge, overworked and overextended and without the energy to fight anymore. Let us run you a warm bath America. Let us burn incense and make music for your pleasure. We will create a thing of beauty of you and all of us will be better for it.