Ecstasy

When labels were collars around necks

ruffled, feathered, leather, yoke

you were either ‘gay‘ or you weren’t

I was. And I fell for a man.

Boy really. Once. Only time.

Hips smaller than mine, delving into my bones

like cream poured through coffee we burned calcium

our former labels damp at the door.

The value of a woman is in her smell

the rustle of her soul, how gentle and tough

merge together into womanhood

he was none of these

acrid, funny tasting (masculine?) Sinewy arms wrapping around

like a lost bear it didn’t feel ‘right‘ it didn’t feel ‘wrong‘

we were very young, his mind on fire trying to figure out the world

popping little tabs like they could pause time

because God, someone had to.

In Winter’s loose ends, we holed up at his brother’s flat

half-Thai eyes and burnt toast skin, along with the tang of marijuana

it’s hard not to fall for genius’s and sexual beings with magnetism in their lips

we lay in the dark, he emulated a girl and then became a boy

shadows on the wall, male, female, something more

I clung to him through torrent, it didn’t feel ‘wrong‘ it didn’t feel ‘right‘

night stretched out in submission, he loved me being a woman

in ways maybe another woman never has

joined we were, hard to separate, laughter, solace, grief, shards of joy

his body sleek like a girls, hard to accept the difference, I looked away

feeling him move inside me like a word

aching for punctuation.

I felt like a woman, a woman, a woman

contrast, a figure of eight in reflection

kinder than any girl I knew, smarter than any other human

a girl will touch your breasts with knowing, then ask you to find her bra

he brought me gypsy guitar and red wine and sucked until I screamed.

Dancers, we, danced in detail, scratching out labels defining

what this was, who, what?

I didn’t love him, no. Love an underdeveloped muscle

in a closed box, only women and their sharpness can pick

he searched my face, my breasts, my thighs, for signs

of relenting, wanting to bury himself within, become one

stay together, two cusps, why not? Be mine. Marriage

some papered form of devotion. Not ownership, just need.

I wanted to give him a child then, birth it

right there on the futon, beneath moon, hollering; “eat me until

I become glutted on your goodness,” We shook together

a ritual, procession into silvered ore earth’s center

letting go, the child came, bidden, quickening, like opening

your mouth and accepting change, drink me down

between my legs, the writhe of us, male/female/female/male

losing edges, the blurred outline of pretense.

We woke when the light came

to an empty room

nothing left of us to consume

just condom wrapper

unused by the bedside

and life in my belly rounding music

he wore my silver ring

I told him, don’t cut your hair

remember nothing

we walked in opposite directions

he took a bus

I, a train

he never knew I took him too

in my belly, quiet and full.

Advertisement

Entrance by default

Maybe it’s time to stop wearing

a dead woman’s perfume

find my own

smell

be my own

woman

I met her when I was 11

looked up to her in that tinkering way

I have continually become besotted

with older women

those who knew more than I

all the secret clubs they belonged to

giving me entrance by default

knock, knock, admittance, change your coat

alter your mind, don another mask

take a turn at the carousel, the diamond

cut of your eyes as you churn out living

into the willing mouths of babes

go on lap it up …

drink yourself into thinking you’re not you

comfortable with anything but

your own skin

the smell of your life clinging to my escape

like a day old glass of wine

just drinkable, a little bitter

redolent in mid-day sun

as soft as fur

I think I’m old enough

to be myself now

which means

your smell

in that white bottle

that I can only buy in rare perfume shops

because it was long ago discontined

much as it reminds me

of being a young girl

trying to understand why

she had feelings for older women

(that were definitely not about seeking a mother)

those days are over

I’m old enough now to have had

my own children

and while I still

have a thing for older women

I’m not going to smell of you

and the memories

anymore

Feral

Girl with ire, for you are woman, though you are still

a girl

dark skinned girl, like a fruit grown in midnight

richer somehow, distinct in a world of lost focus

something in movement deliniates this, hones in

brands you ageless in ways

only few achieve

it is your saving grace and why

my jaw hurts from grinding

all the passion I have to pieces of

confetti, ready for your marriage to

status of unattainable.

I had a rule once, don’t fall for girls

who cut their fractured eyes at the world

ruled with upturned, defiant chins

don’t succumb to the delights others see

in that girl who brightens the room with her

brown-eyed glare and gnashing smile

she is merciless, she is cruel at times, cutting

in that barbed way of the magnificient, used to

her fawning subjugates

she is unaware of you and the depths you swim

for she exists only in the light, that hot wattage

her skin, her movement, set on high to drive you

to distraction, as you watch her skirt hike

just slightly above her knees as she talks with her hands, unknowing her own unfurling

not to want anything, not you, not solace

where radiant and hot she stands, fuming

diety, showered, sharp teeth licking

what it feels like to carry that long tongued weight of desire

with adulation and never

all those shuttered years with trembling

closed lips

for some secrets cannot be revealed

save they render you victim to the

longing you want to bear, a willing nudist who buried her unspent confessions, aching for release

she is everything you are not

and yet in a hesitant moment you can pretend

you have the right dial and tune in to her song

that will lull her back from her gleeming audience

claim her yours

surely, surely, in all the years spent thinking of her

you found some way to make her your own?

Some method, spell, isn’t there a means to every wish?

Wordless, you know there is not

the unattainable sit just out of reach

lingering in their fancy of being regarded

untouchable.

And she? She is one of those fine

creatures you read of in novels, who make men

mad and women? Women are not mentioned for

our ardor is pressed flat along with the flowers from

the marsh we collect, I would if I could, string them

outside your house until the perfume woke you

from a dream about me, and you ran, barefooted along rail tracks like urchin dancer,

into my waiting arms, and as I think this, I know

you will no more run to me, than I could hypnotize

a snake not to bite, a feral cat not to scratch, a

pain not to hurt and cripple the daydream.

I don’t have mastery over you, nobody does,

you chew on rules for breakfast with black hot coffee and make

scolding and conquest a daily thing, in the brilliance of your

caramel-centered bedroom eyes, I see only an acknowledging

of control. whilst I, think of ways I might

stand out, be different, have something going for me

that could mark me worthy

it is of course, an impossible thing, a poison dart captured in my throat, quietly

hybernating or dying in drips and drabs

as you will never lay in my arms, molded to my shape and I will

not know your taste or how your lips part

with the first of many sighs, I cannot even

imagine touching your hand or pressing myself, small and hungering

close to you and knowing of what you smell, there in the stymen of your flushing bloom

the myriad ways you breathe in and out, the chorus of your existing, I

stand far, even when near, too far for comfort, perpetuate rain, disguising distress, I told myself as a young woman, do not

fall for the Siren’s call, she is merciless, she will

cut you without meaning, your futile search

for the key to her blistering heart

no closer

could last a life time and you’d stand, unpacking your fools errand, as a beautiful gown will

invariably spoil in predicted monsoon

she is ferocious and untame

the elongation of her beauty

a thing you must only weep over

when alone and inconsolate you imagine

a life time of wanting

what you can never, ever

capture.

What kind of lesbian would I be if I were born today?

Photo by Karina Irias on Pexels.com

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

Anthology – accepting poems

Indie Blu(e) Publishing will be releasing an Anthology of Lesbian Poets later in 2019. Themes of this Anthology will include identity, coming out, relationship, family, love, loss, and sensuality (rather than graphic erotica.) The deadline for submissions is June 16, 2019. Submissions can be sent directly to candicedaquin@gmail.com and should be accompanied by a brief biography not to exceed 75 words.

The maximum number of submissions per writer is FIVE.

Writing should be submitted as a Word or PDF attachment. If you choose to submit a poetry meme, the meme must be accompanied by the text in a Word or PDF version.

Artwork for the Anthology is also being accepted and must be able to be reproduced clearly in black and white.

Questions? Contact Candice Daquin at candicedaquin@gmail.com.

Thank you for your interest.

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?

You are not a girl anymore

Girl you are not a girl anymore

you are a woman

woman you are reviled and judged

for being a woman

when you were a girl it was suffice to

have a nice pair of legs and a pretty mouth

do you recall how often you were asked to ‘cheer up and smile love’

when all you were doing was trying to grow-up and be serious?

how men would do your bidding because of your WonderBra and not the sense of your words

now you are a woman

you will inherit

inequality

double-standards

and not be able to find clothes that feel right in stores not meant for your body

because nothing is going to come easy anymore and still

as you sit there in your curves and your burgeoning skin

feeling the surround of yourself lapping at the corners

you will inherit also

the voice of your round bellied ancestors

who have come ringing through time and again

been judged, poked, prodded or worse, flat out ignored

seen how silver haired men get all the fuss like carefully licked jewels

whilst a woman of substance is

lost lost lost

behind the mad din and snuff of youth

for youth it seems needs a distinguished father of any age

but does not require

a mother

a grandmother

a female sage

for women are judged upon their reproductive abilities and

the years they have lived beneath the moon listening to the shore

if too few, they are deemed unintelligent

too many and nobody wants to hear

for women are judged upon

scales created long before

an even playing field was won

if it has, if it has yet

for women it is easier to become lost after the lights have grown less hot

held to a higher standard than the eternal covet of men

who are picked up and dusted off by many worshipful female hands

too eager to say ‘there, there, I will help you, poor thing’

who shall help then, the woman?

Not her own kind, surely, nor men who adore only youngest vintage

Who shall see her? When she is grown and perhaps does not accept her allotted place

or wish to remain invisible or grow old with pressurized grace

who shall listen when she wants to be heard at any age?

or the desires of her are beyond the sanctioned pail

or her damp passion which does not flip and flop and require Viagra

a woman if she is loved

is ten-fold her maiden self

for the wefts and the welts are earned and learned and now they represent

a splendid coat of multicolor

she wears with pride and sometimes regret

but more often silver wisdom and the softening yet

of her edges into rounded corners and eventually

a supple circle come full

the world may dominate her discourse

the youth may clamor for their right to change the channel

she may slip quietly through the bridled noise

with strong thick womanly thighs

and as men chase their tail and young women cast a gaze that seems to say

who the HELL do you think you are, old lady?

woman, you do not bat your eyes or rise to those absurdities left behind

for she is the wake of day and dusted sleep of night

cradling the future in her all-mighty grip

she learns from being kicked

to stand she must let go of the girl within and be

a woman of our time

casting her pearly net wide as she

swallows the sea and sighs

letting the tide tumble out with her exhaled breath

aaahhh yes

aaahhh yes

Rune

They ran through markets

elms strung with sari’s

bedecked with jewels and

girls kenning their heads

babes at their breast

growing crowns of red and indigo

she pressed into my palm

the spell of her rune

smelling of Finnish water stone

rubbed over and over beneath time

leaves still containing their flung pigment

where slippered feet ran and picked them

casting their glass throng to glory

she has the shiny hair of a child and

cheeks full for her pressed size

she who is gone and now returned

talking in other languages with Irish accent

she who manifests and disappears and is reborn

doesn’t look large enough to give birth

or sing at the top of a road the song of her

we were

separated by water and fear and longing

broken in sea, put back together by current

I was always swimming in her direction and the

light tread of her spring

she is a carnival of paper-cut outs

wearing scarlet hose and rings on her toes

yet upward / yet down in earth where

roots inform her choices as well as ancestor

she is of me and I

am stranger and intimate

familiarity is a rubbed sleeve on silver

her thin knees beneath duvet

twitching dreams caught in muslin

tents in high wind holding their claim

sheared gravity, she is lifted from her sail

and through the tarot of her eyes

I see each snapshot and Rorschach blot

when they told us friendship will expire

they did not know

the language of ink and how

it leaves itself

swirling for paper

on which to draw

us

Worshipping without words

A lovely girl

when she smiles it is like the world is rent and light bursts through

she takes my breath away with her thin, flickered wrists and how the tip of her tongue is used as signal

for her mood

no ink permanent enough to score

her mark upon my soul

like first cherry blossom, fragile in the cold, endures

a hundred lifetimes could pass and wouldn’t be sufficient

to show the depth of my attachment to her

two skaters on frozen lake, cutting eights over each other’s traversed shapes

I finish where she starts and begin at her end, to each the other, ascending like fireworks in indigo wash

when I hold her preciously against myself and hear the softness of time pushing past

a pain seizes my courage, to imagine myself without her is impossible

lift my chin, you’ll see her in my eyes, her reflection, her electric movement

it is said, do not rely upon another, for you will bear their loss

I do not know how to separate myself, we are woven, we are of the same material

cut with the same scissors and fashioned into human cloth

they left a part connected, a tug I feel when she is far

like a fistful of light, she once burned so bright I saw only her outline

if she was free, she’d still slip away, into the night just before herald of day

leaving her perfume and perfect sigh, she’d gleam, in midsummer eve

lingering through opened windows and flung hands taunting, the day to never end

she is a girl with eyes from the ocean, there are invisible lines leading me back

to her slim clavical and the motion of her sleeping dance

she wakens me in a dream, I am not able to feel deeply

without her muse, she has the gentle spirit and I am fired to chase her

through bluebells, and thin white trees, cupping their hands of green

worshipping without words