Growing up I didn’t have a SMITTEN

Growing up in Europe I didn’t have anything like SMITTEN. My ‘sources’ were hard to find and often took me to oblique and obscure bookstores that had tiny ‘feminism/Lesbian’ (as they were once twinned) sections. Within those sections I found little I could personally relate to. I read Radcliffe Hall’s The Well Of Loneliness, now considered the ‘Bible’ of lesbianism and whether right or wrong, it did set a stage for me, and I loved the style and emotions therein, but over all her book is also very sad, it talks of lesbians as ‘inverts’ who are women trapped inside men’s bodies wishing to live the life men live and love women like men do. That was not my feeling. I was a woman happy to be a woman who wanted to love another woman who was most definitely a woman. (It should be noted many lesbians prefer to identify on the masculine end of the scale and yet identify as masculine women and this is a legit form of love too).

Even now, many years hence, there are divides within the LGBTQ and even lesbian/bi worlds. For some, you are just not considered a lesbian unless you subscribe to some of the dress-code/tough-act code and you are objectified for wanting to take on some of the accoutrement considered ‘heterosexual’ by queers. Likewise, you may be typecast as ‘femme’ (or butch) even in today’s society, as much as anything because since legislation has legalized gay marriage and made it easier in some countries for LGBTQ it has been assumed LGBTQ doesn’t need the same resources and so, there are less lesbian clubs/places to meet than ever before, and more is conducted online which as we all know, can be very hit and miss.

I personally knew of four lesbians who were date-raped when they met their ‘lesbian’ date in real life, after meeting online. In all cases, it was a set-up and there were men involved who took advantage of those women and punished them for being lesbians and not attracted to men. You may think that sounds extreme but having worked at two rape crisis centers I can assure you, it’s as common place now as it was in the seventies. The idea that LGBTQ and lesbians don’t need a ‘safe place’ to meet other like minded people, is too optimistic, it assumes it is now ‘safe’ to be a lesbian, but as any lesbian will tell you, we still fear holding a woman’s hand walking down certain streets. That hasn’t and won’t go away.

Let us not forget, in the vast majority of the world it is still illegal, frowned upon, punished or made impossible to be a lesbian and LGBTQ only pertains to a small percentage of this world in terms of population. If you are an African lesbian, good luck, you risk your life admitting that. So our Western ideas do not apply to the majority of lesbians out there.

Little really good literature is lesbian or LGBTQ, indicative of the stereotyping of LGBTQ literature when it is published and the small minority size of each group. You really have to hunt to find excellent, really well written lesbian literature or poetry. It was my dream to put together a group of authors who embodied love between women and showed the variety and depth of that love. SMITTEN accomplished this with over 120 poets and artists contributing some striking, stirring poems, drawings and thoughts of love and attachment.

SMITTEN was created for those people though I am certain we do not reach nearly enough. But it was my dream that even if we reached a few, even if we reached a girl like myself who went in search of ‘real’ lesbian love in a book store, they could find it. Maybe we haven’t done enough but with every act we hope to raise the consciousness of all people not just LGBTQ. People who may assume because gays have the right to vote and marry  and are represented on TV in some countries that they are absolutely free of persecution. This is not the case and while there are many other such minorities who are objectified, ridiculed, stereotyped and minimized, it was my mission to highlight lesbians and women who love women because I am one.

SMITTEN may not have existed when I was really young and had no gay friends, no cohorts who were LGBTQ and no school friends who were even sympathetic or understanding of LGBTQ. I myself didn’t really know enough. I sought refuge in gay bars when old enough but often times found those as judging and uncomfortable as being the only straight. The stereotypes, expectations, reductions and cliches of being a lesbian were as backward among lesbians as among heterosexuals! We had no role-models, nobody to refer to and only a palpable sense of shame emanating from society en mass. Nobody in their right mind wanted their daughter to grow up to be a lesbian, wasn’t that just something that happened like a birth defect or because a mother didn’t do her job right? That was the thinking back then and back then wasn’t ‘that’ long ago!

Consequently I spent more of my youth trying to get by without examining my lesbian identity and enjoying what it could be like to love another woman. I look at photos of very young lesbians now and I envy them their freedom but I am not so naive to assume they are entirely free, as a minute after the photo is taken, they could be beaten up by a mob who didn’t like what they saw. It still happens.

SMITTEN defies the hate, bigotry and misunderstanding of lesbianism. SMITTEN isn’t about women fucking other women for porn. SMITTEN isn’t about stereotypical lesbians created by heterosexual men. SMITTEN isn’t angry and hateful as some feminist backlash can be. SMITTEN is about this: Love IS LOVE.

Please support SMITTEN by gifting it to an LGBTQ person you care about, or buying it for yourself irrespective of your gender and sexual orientation, because love IS love and it transcends everything. If you like poetry, or you support LGBTQ inclusion and visibility then your support of SMITTEN can person by person, change everything. And if you cannot do that, perhaps think of requesting SMITTEN from your local library or purchasing the less expensive Kindle version (although it should be said the print version of SMITTEN is sumptuous!). YOUR support helps little girls growing up today, grow up to have a VERY different outlook in life, one without as much fear and isolation.

SMITTEN is available in print at

SMITTEN is available in KINDLE at

SMITTEN’s authors interviews, poetry readings and photo archive can be found here

With thanks to Indie Blu(e) for taking a chance and publishing this incredible project.

Her own thirsty heart

Photo by Mahrael Boutros on Pexels.com

But I am divided. In a way that is hard to shape into words.

For women who love women are often the rarest night birds.

Theirs is a love that does not come easily and for this reason, it takes a great deal to stay

Sure and certain on the rainbow path.

Sometimes I understand my bisexual sisters, who having had their love affair with the curves and softness of a woman

Return to their husbands in droves or pick out that wedding dress and let the man

carry them over the threshold.

For a woman to be loved by a woman may feel natural but many times it is a struggle

we have no rule book, we may both want to have the other carry us or hold us when

fear besets

and men are so good at being heroes

and women are taught to be saved and rescued.

I understand then, the desire for a woman and the longing for less strife

where if you have children it is sometimes impossible to find a way to describe

why you leave daddy for a second mommy and how

fractures in emotions are not easily translated for young minds.

Had I children, who is to say I would have been brave enough? Equally it is part why

I never did.

My sacrifice came because I saw no other way

for it was never as it felt in the arms of someone of the same gender

and in that I am unusual and possibly 1 or 2 percent of the entire world

though it will seem more during Gay Pride and other events

where everyone holds a rainbow and joins in.

Only the days when we are not celebrating, we may be struggling

to fit in with even each other, strange as we may be, these women who

in various guise and costume

fall in love with other women.

I don’t get on well I admit, with those who believe the only true lesbian

is one who shaves her head and dons mens clothes.

It is not that I cannot see their point, or how many years before

it may have been the only choice

but I did not fight this hard to dress as a man and love a woman

who is also dressed as a man.

I would rather pick a full cheeked feminine boy with long hair

and pretend he had nothing between his legs than sell out my own idea

that love of a woman is as feminine as it gets

and we shall share each others’ dresses.

Our history has been unkind and as such, we do not trust very easily

if at all and when we do, we are liable to judge or leave out and exclude many of our tribe

just as women have done for millennia in their pursuit of men

hated other women for existing and challenging that thin mesh of safety.

It saddens me then, to be ostracized when I walk into a gay bar

and do not fit in, or feel judged by my sisters whom I want to

take into my arms and feel less lonely by.

This is but one aspect of the kalidoscope of being the L in the LGBTQ and

few of your G’s and B’s and T’s and Q’s will rush to your defense

we are co-opted in a group who really knows little of the other

for we are as disparate and different as it gets and often we walk

alone, despite our legal rights and our social acceptance (some of the time).

Alone because we cannot befriend a straight woman for she may

wonder if we would fall in love with her (and quite possibly might)

nor a gay woman for her girlfriend will begrudge us, nor a gay man

as they have often hated women and especially those who forsake

men, there is nothing in common there, and straight men will

try to tell us we just need a good f**king and we’ll soon change our

ways so who is left?  In the great wide world to be close to and share?

Those fears and our desires, the very stories of our lives

for whom 98 percent of the world cares not, they have their

1.5 children and ideas of normalcy and we don’t fit well enough.

Sometimes, how much I want to tell someone

of the love I have for a woman and the stillness of night

when we move together and how I catch my breath as

she turns like a thimble in my hands, silver against moonlight.

So quiet instead we are, often falling in love and unable

to share this or speak of it, for it is forbidden. No one will

listen, or be interested, they do not understand our strange ways.

Still in this day and this time we are shadows within

light and light within shadows picking our way through

mostly eaten strawberry fields, dreaming of a girl

who may like ourselves be wandering, looking for

a girl like herself who has only ever wanted to be

held tightly and hear the slow beat of a girls heart feel

the rise and fall of her soft breasts and know

she is where she belongs and needed every bit

as much as her own thirsty heart longs

in the early hours and late at night like the lonely

wolf who by himself will climb to highest point

in futile search of another’s call.

Turkish delight

I didn’t have time to un-knot my hair or brush it down

it used to hang to my thighs and I had to cut it

when the sickness came and I was green with bile

all those years I held my hair as my calling card

for I had nothing else

so when you see me this way you know

I’m not pretending anything anymore, this is me

this is the girl you once loved

I remember thinking I was old back then

what a laugh

and time is a cordial of horrors and trickery

what we need to know is, it’s all in the eye of the beholder

so if I feel tired and beat up now, remember, I tell myself

in ten years I will rue the day I forgot to dance

I dance now

bare footed with dirty soles

to the memories of

our liquid union

and planes do not fall out of the sky

the day is quiet

despite the tornado in my mind

I would let you in and not let you out

shut inside me like a favorite book

chapter marked by the sinew of my want

clasp you tightly with my muscular need to belong

within your kaleidoscope, a star in your universe

behind these accoutrements and forbids  I burn electric

you never get too old for longing

I want you to take me in your arms

crush me into sugared pieces

eat each one and never spit me out

I want to become you and stay

inside your candied warmth

where amber things are less real

set in time to wait out storm

but you care about them more

as part of your compass, to set your destination

I was born of your desire

I am now without wing

soon I will fade into pieces

and nobody will pick them up to eat

 

 

The expulsion of love

Where are you now?

Sitting on your stoop, first light, cats weaving between

coffee in hand, watching sunrise,

what are you thinking?

You are not thinking of me

the door is shut on us and you turned the key

it took only the loss of hope that gentle thing

and I became a stranger

so many days, months, years and still

I know you less

is it that easy? Was it that hard?

The expulsion of love

still live, dying on the floor.

I met you when the coals were

burning hottest, all I wanted was

a reflection of those feelings

you took my hand and guided it

into your clasp and pressed my back

with a deep

push into another world

the world of you

where I have been these many years.

They weren’t just words

though if I strain I can hear

the first you whispered

our curled against other in dark

your fingers creating universes

I felt their beckon

as I had not before

the press of you and the beseech of me

it was as if once inside

you claimed that part and as your possessed

I never struggled to be free

it was what I had always sought

to be needed at that scolding temperature

we barely survived our love

it burned and that heat was

the very raging heart of us.

Now day is long

you are gone in so many ways

absent in your once fine mind

emptied of the gentleness I knew

a stranger to me, a welted memory

it is not death, it is not life

I cannot talk to you, the only one I would

I have no solace in recall

it is like being tortured

there is only time, and they say time

heals all, but that is a lie

perhaps for you, already forgetting

I recall too much and everything

is a red road sign to us always.

The day I stood nude on white balcony

I did not recognize that girl who

had stupidly wanted forever and you

she wanted the innocence of us

how neither had ever fallen before

how you were virgin of touch and I

closed and shut up

together we opened the universe

you, it was only you and

it wasn’t me but for the echo of you

enfolded and besotted as no

future can replicate

there are some times only

once and never again

moments and feelings untested

who meet and create together

that celestial place in time.

I think of you now with a crushing feeling

as if someone has come within me, a trespass

thrown out all the certainty and warmth

leaving me emptied and discarded

surely you know that and pass it by

as your armored heart does not

recognize me anymore

there is nothing more awful

than to fade and diminish in regard

until you are no more than

a throwaway comment.

I walk the streets of my memories

like a widow in her veil

watching myself dry into a statue

of torment and you? You I suppose are free

it was always your selfhood to

change and alter in fickle flick of wrist

the time, the hour, in this case the girl

who stands in her memory palace

trying to rid herself of the feeling

it will only ever contain your shadow

and the footsteps you left

some bloodied, some too deep

to ever expunge that influence or

the sound of your whisper calling me

over time and space to some created place

where I am ever yours and never

free of that promise I made when you asked

me to submit and wed, the marrow to

your existence.

I did not understand how easy it was

to break and smash the very articles of

us

oh my love, oh my love

I never said it before, I never said it afterward

where did you bury my soul? And where

is the key to unlock that prison I inhabit now?

where being alone, I hear at night

the fidget and torture of your touch

over the fading moon an outline of

you and only ever you, it has become

an effigy to something once

consumed me whole and kept me digested

within you darling, to your very core

where I heard your life blood rush and gather

I became then, the child of you

she cries out now to your emptied eyes

turned from me, reduced to ash

as cold and unfeeling, as if never was

the burn and sear of branded emotion

we called us two and now only one

the loneliness is destroying me

inch by inch, I claim further madness

for you were me and I do not know

how to exist without, the belief we were

sewn in harmony with

each other’s binding, become all I know

all of me born, the day you baptized me

with your claiming eyes

deciding it should be me, you take

as your mate in this world.

Now our world has decayed to naught

you will not return, or have a thought

for what you left behind when you

closed that door

and

without sound

left the key to

rust into

red

water

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

The Nightingale

Only anger

where there should be love

until we let it go

become nothing but empty

as we were before

ever finding

fickle road to emotion

all its vanity and its glory

the good and the not so

and in between, days of roses

turning their thorns into pricks of

passion and belonging

for I surely

have never dwelt in another place so deeply

as that space of you

nothing left after the hurricane

all memory fled and closed

like a cuckoo clock without bird

a hollow tree absent of owl

the indigo night and no

stars

lighting our way back

now, we can only go forward

stumbling blindly

a snowstorm, desert, running out

of reasons to put

one step in front of next

yet as humans we have this penchant

for survival at any cost

it is not always a pretty thing

sometimes our hair is gnarled

our very hide, matted and overgrown

we may never recover

the girl within who

let you in

but still in mornings earliest hour

before most things awake

there is a stillness, a hush

an abundance of hope

in slow shadows and still warm hearth

a wisp of your hair remains

caught in my brush

I will let no-one use it

it stands testimony

proof of breakage

I am not the girl I once was

coming to you with flowers

plaited with fullness of trust

we are both much older now

turning from copper

the green of rivers drowning

those early wants

carrying lightness down stream

leaving us in perpetuate shade

where you tell me to go on

without you

turn your back

becoming stone

on which I pound

my small fists until they

bruise, turn purple like

spring crocus pushing through

late snow

if saying it changed anything

you’d never leave

if love were a superpower

you’d always stay

but birds always migrate

come first cold night

every year they return

changed

still searching for

meaning in the

wetlands of life

I suppose I am

your soundless bird who fell from her

cage

wishing you would

scoop me up, make me

in your image

with the press of your devour

and when you

were absent long enough

the wide sky outside did not

beckon

I became a

nightingale

I inhabit

darkness

like a needle can pierce

velvet and leave

no

discernible

mark

Where you once turned

Without you I am a blank erased space

emptied of misletoe

I am the weed that grows fitfully from concrete

without nourishment I survive

but survival is too great a word for what I do

enduring time like chewing tobacco

to be masticated and spat

black and stinking on unsullied

surface

you are the spark within me

I used to have many years ago

a key I misplaced

perhaps I hung it from a tree I was climbing

and it was simply lost

though I suspect

the key drowned

fell to the bottom of the lake

and was unreachable

glittered as it did from the depths

my own hand claimed

by weeds and gravity

the need to be lost in that

murmuring ache

I saw the key once in a while

sparkling from below and for a few hours, maybe a day

I could pretend briefly like a long drink

I was wearing scarlet tights again and you were

pushing me in the shopping cart

my cheeks red with laughter

the rings on your fingers counting down the days

until we cut our hair and sealed ourselves inside

envelopes to nowhere

you were always better at

pretending there was a point

I did not know how to

make things grow in my garden

with you absent

the moon even

an eclipsing reminder

of those waning moments

before the storm

so still the skies

so hush the trees

like velvet inhabited nature

a majesty of peace

I closed my eyes feeling

the length of your slim arm

a pulse behind our skin

like neon lights left flickering

long after dark

your eyes reflected against

deep pools of water and gathered

tears all emotion spent and real

something sincere in every ushered

appreciation of you

even as I am the only one

still paying attention

for you are staring out of windows

watching migrating birds

cross colorless skies

they are heading away

and you wish

for something to stir

the calm opiate within

your spare and unheated room

feel something

again

turning to stone

slow and grave like visitors to a wake

sometimes it feels like preparation for

our own funeral

yet there is life still

catching and flickering

the smell of sulfur

the sound of laughing

when we knew nothing and we knew one thing

the resound of the other

making music in

all we touched

and you touched me

deeply and with the earnest of

something bound not to last

for a flame is most beautiful

when it is fragile and almost

gives out

lighting darkness and ourselves

just enough

until it is not

and there is cold again

in our cupped hands

beseeching the void

where you once turned

and all the world existed

in the love from your eyes