You said my favorite color was something in between saffron and goldenrod hues,
That if more flags had colors like cobalt, the color of a bruise,
(It’s really the blue of the vases amongst your grandma’s china, that kind of blue)
The world would be a better place, full of different views.

You said I couldn’t write poetry without words that sounded like despair
Or pain or desire or love, or make it sound like Voltaire,
You said it should be written in Spanish or French or Italian,
(I still wrote in Russian, no matter how taboo)

(I memorized the Countries of Europe to impress you)
You said you wanted to go to Luxembourg, Andorra, or Slovenia
You told me to be cultured, but culture is like schizophrenia,
And then you said you might want to go to Armenia.

You said to listen to Tchaikovsky and then later to Bach,
(I think you thought they were both Baroque, but you said you knew)
You preached that only classical would do, death to all rock,
When people don’t know the First Movement, always mock.

You said something like ‘j’adore les filles’ or something to that tune,
You smiled and said it made all the girls swoon
(I translated it online after you left, is it untrue?)
You always sang choruses of French lullabies until noon.

And then one day you said that to seem cultured, I needed to just be quiet,
My words didn’t “drip from my mouth”, I didn’t have “opinions like a riot”,
You smiled. You said I could go on a diet.
(I just don’t think culture is for me, adieu.)