How Not to Cry

Go to Spain
For the first time
Don’t speak Spanish
Don’t speak Spanish at all
(That will be important later)

Drop in at a hair dresser’s
Feel intense pride
For managing to ask them
To shorten your hair
(Cortar mi cabello 💇‍♀️)
Not to run your horse
(Correr mi caballo 🐎)

Go to an upscale restaurant
Order black rice
(That will be important later)

Write to your friend
(The cynical one
The one you always
squabble with)
Write to him
I need to let go
This love
It is time
It is hard

Be prepared for his
Oh, come on!
Be prepared for his
Get a grip, woman!
That’s why it’s him
You wrote to

Be not prepared
For words of solace
And tenderness
Be not prepared at all

Hope to heaven
Your mascara is waterproof
And while you dab your eyes
With a cloth napkin
(It is an upscale place!)
Look at the other black smudges
And realize that
Your teeth are probably black, too

No one
(No one!)
Can start crying
In an upscale restaurant
With the teeth black
No one.
(That’s why the black rice
Was important)

Open your eyes wide
Still unsure whether
The mascara is waterproof
Think of the glorious moment
When you asked them
To shorten your hair
(Cortar mi cabello 💇‍♀️)
Not to run your horse
(Correr mi caballo🐎)
(That’s why not speaking Spanish
Was important)

There you go
Not crying at all
Well done
You go, girl!