Category: #childhood
What kind of lesbian would I be if I were born today?
I see your pictures on social media
a part of me is envious
of your freedom
even though women many years before
either of us
had absolutely no freedom and only those
with enough money could consider taking
a woman as their lover
it is hard to imagine
each generation I suspect
forgets the sacrifices of the last
cannot envision a time when
it was illegal to love
my experience was never that awful
I had freedoms many women still do not possess
and I am grateful for that
but sometimes when I see your
youthful face and the grace with which you accept love
how natural and easy it feels
I recall how I began
hiding in dark bars, trying to fit in, failing
never one to play endless games of poker face
I didn’t fit in with my own kind then
but if I’d been you
born in the sun with your turquoise eyes like the Donovan song
I might have had on my arm
a whole host of dreams and not
dabbled in boys for a few futile and unhappy years or
felt I couldn’t have had children and let
my fear and my constraint decide for me
the future
you are the age my daughter might be
and I would like to think I’d have
done all you have done had I been born
in a time of greater acceptance where
women who love women can grow their hair
and not have to cling to stereotypes or subterfuge
carrying knots of shame and confusion
like blankets never stretched out and slept on
I would have gotten a tattoo and maybe
been less shy and apologetic
I remember at 18 that’s all I seemed to do
sorry to my family for not having turned out straight
sorry to my friends for being the odd one out
sorry to the gays on the march who thought
with my dresses and my long tresses I was a weekend
lesbian
if they only knew
what it took and what I sacrificed
maybe they understand now
but we’re all a little older and
you don’t recapture what you felt at 18
you remember it like a language
I spoke the language of trial and error
I suspect you speak the language of love
just a little freer
so forgive me if I envy you as you walk past me
hand in hand, laughing, the edges of your hair
hitting your waist
like a Summer tidal wave.
SMITTEN – This is What Love Looks Like – Poetry by women for women – an anthology of poetry published by Indie Blu(e) will be out OCTOBER 2019 and available through all good book sellers. Please consider following SMITTEN’s FB page at https://www.facebook.com/SMITTENwomen/
If you are interested in supporting this project in any way please contact me @ candicedaquin@gmail.com. All LGBTQ projects are a little more challenging to succeed and we want the 120_+ poets who have work in SMITTEN to be read by many! Indie Blu(e) and their submissions rules can be found at www.indieblu.net
Only child
I’m sitting in a linoleum room with ghosts, specters and occasional stranger
a girl with long legs like a foal, is pulling elastic pink lines of gum from her full mouth
and snapping them back, loudly
I wonder if I have ever sat so evenly in a chair, if I ever had peach hair, light on my skin like that
it reminds me of my friend who competed in gymkhanas, we made up our own horses, hers was called Mars and mine, BeTwix and we ran
so fast our hearts thundered up her grandmother’s hill in the La Roque-Gageac
her legs were like those of a foal, even at eleven, the waiters watched her with wet lips
I think of The Object Of Beauty, how Liv Tyler gleamed, coming out of the oval swimming pool
What men must think when underage girls begin to fruit.
My ghosts routinely tell me, I am without worth, they remind me if I had anything worth having
my mother wouldn’t be absent
a life time of inadequacy, wouldn’t be my legacy
I disappoint myself, not just the ghosts, sometimes I think
I don’t belong in this American world, where women are proud to work sixty hour weeks and go the gym at 9pm
still feeling they haven’t worked hard enough.
I think I am forever running in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine, with my imaginary horse
watching a girl turn into a woman, aware of too much even then, and not enough
the specters mock my lack of confidence, whispering in my detached earlobe
nobody likes a wuss, confidence is the American calling card, haven’t you noticed?
Even silly people and indifferent people get somewhere, if they believe in their
silly people and indifferent selves. And brilliant people, who doubt, will fester
like a ring someone lost in a river, glitters too deeply for marbled birds to
pluck it out and restore to light.
I lost a ring once, you’d given it to me when we were 14 and I didn’t have coltish legs
or peach fuss on my skin, but rather, the strong bones of a kid who drank milk with her cereal and got a stomach ache
reading Asterix at the pine breakfast table, with her stuffed toys.
I can still hear the plastic clock and hum of the washing machine
a warm symphony of my childhood, as I delayed leaving for school
and the inevitable crush of humanity, I had long decided was not for me
in fact, my trajectory was so far from that world of push and pull
competition and attention, fan fare and nose-pick small talk
I inhabited the after school hours like an addict of one
rejoicing in the quiet and empty spaces where
my mind could roam and gallop
sometimes I would sit on the roof tops of outdoor storage buidings
eating my soggy paper bag of sweets, stuck together from being
crunched in my pocket, head stuck in a book about
beautiful places with kind people and fantastic things
wild roses growing like thoughts from arching cracks
in concrete, their soft heads and sharp thorns
not the decapitated baby bird, I buried beneath the acorn tree
its silvered blind eyes, swollen and bulging
wings pressed like cries of regret for having never spread
in flight
something horrifying in everywhere you looked
like the terror you feel when you realize you are truly alone.
That kitchen clock would change day and month
but never really the precision of its emptiness
I learned it is better, to rely upon fantasy and avoidance
than the pinch and grope of society.
Often, a stranger would ask
why are you playing outside so late?
I would run away into the eclipsing shadows
behind the corrugated iron fences that separated
the good neighborhood from the skeletons
those bombed, bleached, bones of former homes
where a kid of twenty years ago had lain
watching paper airplanes cycle
above their head, clutching something with glass eyes
and faux fur, as I still did
funny, to find some comfort in the inanimate manufacture
of nature
my toys looked at me in the darkness and spoke
words of love, I needed to consume
their salty fur held
the cups of my early disenchantment
when teachers commented on my red eyes
I said; hay-fever and they believed me
because I wore a dragon tail
this was surely an adjusted child
with avid imagination
cantering alongside her friend
with the honey colored hair and long bare arms
absorbing sun like a shining fruit
I knew then how different I was
how quiet pain, how loud silence
my mother always looked so beautiful in
floral dresses with her trim ankles and long neck
I, the stranger behind her
admiring and shameful in her artlessness.
it was among the lost in forest, I claimed my place
when first love failed, when promises became
paper envelopes containing no letter
dishing out school diner and homework
leaving my scuffed shoes at the door
I climb
into the ivy
away from the party
a reflection I see of myself
gathering stillness like a blanket
she is fetching her best smile
for the emptiness of years
staring into emulous clouds, watching
for signs and miracles and unspent words
the sound of others laughter
rinsing through tall green shadows
like echoes of
someone else’s life
Its shining watch
Then make me a tree
that I may reach through earth
lengthening root
climb up, take form
gather again, that moment shook
from memory never
where moon was twice its natural size
reflected in your angry eyes
sitting in idling car
my sticky throated youth
your still punching vigor
movement then, as taught immemorial
of lovers who are not yet.
…
watchful of your thin wrist
flickering just before touch
warm air, window down
languid stroke of time
painting all these years hence
something you have
absented from, like unpicked fruit
in turning, strange and unfamiliar
I dial that feeling
quite often
not fantasy, no
something real
painted over
turned to shellac, too hard to prize
open again
…
I watch her in time
the girl I was
wondering at her thoughts
as I know them almost
unformed and loose
like her hair, thicker and tumbling than now
the auburn xylophone of her back
I could fall in love with
each of us again
the blush of your pomegranate lips
how your dark eyes soak up light
extinguish it black
no wonder, I say … no wonder
…
yet, would I be here now?
if I had not
beseeched night in stolen lament;
if it is meant … let her call
fate or you obey, though months had passed
a moment, as electric as fire burns oxygen
like fingers on your neck portend soft doom
female silhouettes of trees sway in night breeze
would they have whispered?
no don’t do it, don’t go, turn back
heavy keys in light fabric, jingle like steps
wide open un-rehearsed land rushing past
silence and folded roosting birds, holding their breath
…
it wasn’t lust
it wasn’t yet love
something other
we were always
in between, time and sense
every song written about
when you leaned, close enough
fusion then, a kind of glory
unspoken of to this day
sealing our fate
like flightless coin
run over many times
shall silver
in tarmac, make
an echo of the very stars
blessing
its
shining
watch
Moonshine
(inspired by finding an old photograph of a fancy-dress party I attended at University that I hadn’t seen in years)
One of them is me
but which holds the key? Later perhaps we
shall know our fruiting journey through
maze of youth
and slow pull of stocking
for kind of touch best found
in satiny afternoon glow
outside I hear my dim-eyed neighbor
mowing lawns until he aches silver
because his wife has turned away
nobody touches him anymore with
the dreams of yesteryear
so we sprint toward each
invisible finish line
with emptiness in our hearts
filled with busy distraction
nothing lasting, nothing to
endure or sate cold claim
of climbing into bed
unwanted or alone
the feel of darkness, our shroud
from terrible disappointment
and then
then I had it all and didn’t know
standing on the precipice
we laughed at our indomitable
facility to thrive
not yet diseased
not yet rawboned with stretch marks
nipping their silver lines like unwanted lace
or sagging pieces shaking to no
good beat
not yet diminished on shallow waxen wheel
of male adoration
though for me this was never
a piece I wished to carve for myself
it was the love of a woman I craved
like first drink from fountain
on a hot day with no clouds in sight
languorously we exult
in
crocheted certainty, time will stand still
make for ourselves exceptions and grand entrance
the labor of hope so easy and lubricated
then
we’ll never be shaken off
like a dull wet thing
nor left to gather dust
as something once favored
we are surely, gleaming warm heads
of our own personal state
if I could have heard the warning
should I have been able
to listen?
likely not for
day is long and hour far
we take lovers for bread and jam
hate yet a curiosity
our parents live robust
we can yet still, the freedom to
go home
there are structures protecting
the hollow timber of our hearts
from these days what we can we learn?
as growing up and away
truth becomes stretched and gray
friends falling away
the bounty of never-never coming to claim
her inevitable duality
delight in youth, for contrast is cruel
all should have its value
but we are flippant with our boon
and when the cold night comes
we usher ourselves to greater darkness
in the strangeness of change
not able to see what is portent
nor later
the freedom
released from expectation
to unfold our wings
take flight
no more a shining thing
but something effervescent
and filled with
light
casting its thrall
as long ago, diving for pearls
we claimed the moon
Behind your eyes
When I stopped dancing full-time and entered delayed puberty
my breasts swelled like a lily in a pond
at first it was kinda cool getting attention from boys
then I hated how they jutted out and called ahead
like car headlights
slowly tracking, flashing, blinding
in those days of Flashdance and Fame
the three L’s; leggings, leg warmers, leotards
loving in the afternoon, running to studio
dancing with the smell of sex on my stomach
other girls ate salad and cardboard
threw up in the bathrooms
bound their breasts with cloth
I admired their long necks and sinewy thighs
the tightness of their waists and flat chests
my own puberty felt like something out of control
foreign and unwanted to me
I wanted the lean girl of childhood back
the one who climbed trees with one hand
hung upside down
eating apples
there was too much
attached to owning breasts and thighs
even his circle of me dimmed
looking at some of my friends
the ones with slimmer hips and shoulders
still in their girl-doll-bodies
I with my woman seeping out
became a thing of disgust, or so I thought
when I carried his child, my breasts grew even more
wetting the front of my nightshirt with wasteful milk
his eyes took in the sum of me and disgusted
he looked away
always preferring me hairless and skinny
like a girl not a woman
no make-up, wearing little thin things
someone he could control
so I had a sickness in myself
of warped images, desire and lost babies
starving myself beyond the pale
it wasn’t hard, I had little to lose
soon I ran for buses on the breath of feathers
circling my waist he’d say
you remind me of Audrey Hepburn
being tiny, I decided it had been a dream
no child, no loss, no lack of desire
he sexed me every night until sate
leaving bruises on my legs and arms like
vampire bites
but always turning his head away
like he was thinking of someone else
when he left me for that girl
who was dark-skinned and voluptuous and healthy
I realized being a little girl didn’t keep me safe at all
after that I never gave myself away
to people with eyes that looked straight through me
or hands that grabbed to own
a piece of me or what I possessed
though I had no idea what
that was
lying by myself in a small room
smoking hashish in the dark listening to
Tunnel of Love on repeat
I tried to turn my heart to glass
only my body wanted to be awoken from her slumber
a virginal boy, with no grace and long hair
filled my nights and my bed for a time
I taught him how
to roll the perfect joint
and study, where time ended and pleasure began
once he asked
why do you bind your breasts every morning?
they are beautiful
I turned from him
my skin burning with secrets
and did not ever reply
for who can disclose the litany of pain?
as it lies
like a sleeping child
behind your eyes?
Want & Ritual
I grew up fetishizing
the nubile antonyms of beauty
Helmut Newton’s exploitation
penis behind camera stroking
sloe-eyed girls with tired mouths
smoking yellow papered Gauloises
nipples grazing peach crinoline
men’s eyes like dry stones, seeking squeezing
I grew up thinking
contortion and bondage was
an art form not
excuse for masochism
as unsupervised child, I’d look through
graphic design manuals
that inexplicably had vulvas and
perky breasts
to illustrate Pantone
it was after all
the seventies
what did I know? Except
women on beaches without tops
giving me francs for not spilling their dirty martini’s
Mon sucre d’orge, sois gentil, va me chercher mes cigarettes
always gentleman watching
the rise and fall of female throats
nicotine mouths, stained vermillion
long tan legs swept beneath chiffon
men taking them to hotel rooms
children
smoking the leftovers whilst adults
fucked behind closed doors
wondering
when I grow up
how can I lie beneath
a girl whose sweat glistens
like marzipan
and if she should
sip on me I think I’d scream
all my silver bracelets falling off
like metal flowers on hotel carpet
after all
life is a film
where we tie ourselves up
with want and ritual
Fear – Candice Louisa Daquin — FREE VERSE REVOLUTION
Fear for a child is very different to the adult and exactly the same the child inhabits another decade, in the past, another life before they knew they were who they become the child wets the bed because she misses her mother who is beautiful, ethereal, slender and absent the smell of her still lingers […]
Not even ourselves
Why and when did people stop being interested?
as kids we would sit on benches and talk about our pain
there seemed then, such a mercy in the air
it hung like cobwebbed dew around us and
despite the hardships we bore, our friends were
our succor
Why and when did people stop being interested?
and grief was labeled an annoyance?
why does growing-up mean we no longer write
poems like this
do we no longer feel the same
or just hide it away?
and if it is hidden how does it stay so
with the swell and the surge and the blistering salt
I hear rain falling into a tin can somewhere
and briefly I remember eating out of cans in summer
my lips sticky with apricot
it was a luxury then and my grandmother carefully
spooned each peachy globule out and added ice-cream
I hated the taste of ice-cream and I loved
the feeling of lying high in a big tree smelling apple leaves
in those days
when tragedy struck
we children who are called resilient
had the hope or the armor of youth
and the cherish of our friends
I saw her running toward me across the fields separating our houses
her red hair and freckled face red with exertion
we ate stale cucumber sandwiches left over from her mother’s
garden party and she held my hand in her own
clammy seedy palm
as if I were a starfish
I told her of my disappointments and the ache in my chest
all those who had forsaken and gone their own way
with the wisdom of child she wrinkled up her eyes against the sun
told me what I needed to do was pretend I didn’t care a damn
because one day you’ll grow up and nobody will be able to hurt you
I held onto that advice like a piece of paper framed in my chest
but it wasn’t true it wasn’t true
and I wonder where she is now
if she has children
if she is the same kind of mother she was as a friend
if I could see her again I would say
thank you for giving me the hope to get to this point
maybe it wasn’t true, maybe adults fool themselves into
thinking they are not children with ageing hearts and
brittle bones
maybe being an adult is harder than any childhood
because you don’t have afterwards to dream of
and the future as yet unsummoned
with all your magic and all your wistfulness
seen through the eyes of someone not old enough
to know the reality
I would tell her don’t tell your children the truth
let them dream as we did just a bit more
where I can still hear my grandmother knocking over pots
as she makes an apple pie and the smell
of summer is all about us in a haze
and your red hair makes mine look blonde
and your freckles tan your legs whilst mine remain blue
and your hand in mine is the first hand of friendship
I would thank you for running when I called
because nobody has run since and I suspect
adults have ways of doing things
us children never quite understand
I’m thinking if I could choose a side
I’d go through time and clasp your wrist and run
into the high grass fields out the back and where
nobody would find us
not even ourselves
years from now
Thrift Store Special
If I hung in a storefront
I’d have no label
It was torn off in the wash
The store owner lied
Trying to cover a great crime
I’m not gentle cycle, nor wash below 30c
I don’t fluff up well in dryer
Or need ironing on low heat
I’m a thrift store special
Good for a gander, then better cast off
Stuffed in the back of your closet
Forgotten until you move house
When you hold me to the light
Exclaiming; where did I buy this?
A little wistful, a little disgust
Just like a spare thread can run
Through any knit and mar its form
I was shrunk on hot and stretched in cold
Long before you grabbed me out of the lucky dip bin
It was the elongation of my experience
Like wool is malformed turning huge in water
Expanding and reducing, I am the sheared sheep who took off
When the shepherd came to my turn
I never backed down, nor avoided spitting in their eye
My fur smells of energy and emptiness and freedom and neglect
You wear me when you want attention
Or to be someone you’re not
And I’m sequins gathered in a pearls bosom
The knotted mohair and impossibly soft angora
But most of all, I’m the time you left your possessions behind
And rode in the dark without lights
Imagining your bicycle a horse and you …
with your dress catching in the spokes covered in oil
You just wanted him to catch fire on your edges
Sounding the cavorting need you had to bloom beneath
Then you were a water-lily and even years later
You are reminded each time a candle is lit, the smell of wax
How he burned your fingers with his inelegant desire
And you opened like origami to his bewitchment
Then you were a dragonfly, passing through fountain
If I hung in a storefront
I’d have no label
But you’d purchase me all the same
Over again
Smiling
At the memory of
Something you couldn’t quite grasp
TheFeatheredSleep 