Highway 101

This is what I’d say
If we were speaking

If cellos played ambrosial
If those who said they were alone actually knew what alone meant
This is what I’d say
To the ancestors with sepia faces
To the full family tables I could never navigate
The empty drive, unfilled road, the lack of fake
I’d say
I can’t do pretense

Or big events
broken pipes
yellow light

Or changing people

False words
Mislaid purpose

I would say I couldn’t get on with you
We fought like siblings
Though both were singletons
The vibration of only children with no children
I would say I became angry when you lied
When you faked who you were
When you got suckered by people stupider than you
When you lived in your pretend world
Whilst I ate and feasted on blisters
I would say those from wealth and those from basalt cannot understand

The empire
Of emptiness

A track road with lisping night creatures
And desert burning into mirage
I would say it seems at times
Futile to try to get close

to anyone

But I felt serried to you
That’s likely why I got so churlish
Why I stopped talking

Said nothing

Because betrayal comes unconsciously for most of us
In the voluble let downs and unseen affronts
Like a storm threatening, then retreating

Electricity in verging air
Reminding us of bigger purpose

Points of tangency and points of equilibrium

The hour until we ease into contiguous dying
The way you assumed I’d believe what you believed
I never did
I carry a heart with wormholes in it
The rain lets out
You get out
I drive on
In the mirror of oil on the road
I see you understand

I would say we were the same
Not even at different ends
Just burning with curved impulses

That quench the other
As I look in your eyes

I see myself

And it hurts and unsettles me

Worse than my own reflection

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Reach out

If I had the courage to tell you

I’d tell you I’m foolish

as they say in Texas; this isn’t my first rodeo

I know better

here I am though, thinking of you

remembering the way you move when

you pause to sit down

sleek and translucent like silk

the fall of your chin, and rise of your clavicle

how the harpsichord of your mouth bows and sends

me crossing my legs in want

how I know you diminish yourself

cannot see, what I

quiet and observant

in my courageless pretense of being

just friends

notice in the gentle sway of you

sometimes I wish the world woke up

and girls loved girls everywhere

though it would be like chocolate

lovely at first and then too much

there is something sacred in smaller numbers

we are rare night birds who fly singing

when everyone else is asleep

sometimes we recognize each other just by

a glance

like a language only we damson girls speak

those who love others in whispers

…

for the most part it is a lonely walk

being the cuckoo in the nest

watching girls you thought glorious, invariably fall in love with boys

their hearts broken when you

could have given them the spin of a dream

it is not the weft of this world to permit

girls who love girls become the norm

we will always be the nightingale and the black swan

I will feel the need to apologize

if I look at you too long

for it is a respectful dance we learn

to stay our distance and not become

a pastiche or cliche; the girl who loved girls led astray

by someone incapable of returning her ardor

though if you could just break the rules

sometimes I suspect, in the way you gaze back

all redolent and tied tightly with secrets

we’d have a grand ole time

…

there are worlds you haven’t even imagined

places you cannot give names to

once you swim to that fair isle, few return willingly

I don’t boast but what’s wrong with admitting

love between girls has a special season

deep and sonorous, we think such things do not exist

only because our imagination is not so

vivid

if you gave me one word or even

on a certain day, when feeling bold I may

require just a particular arching smile

as you let go and said; Yes I do

I’d not hesitate to make you mine

all your closeted longing

the belief you hold, that love has a sell by date

and you are not worthy

I would remove each of those

aches like the layers of an artichoke

delving into what makes you tremble

and find there, the pain and the longing

owning no words just primal need

like a river coming to flood the delta

I’d pour myself into your loneliness

the many nights you dreamed, of being reached so deep

gave up thinking that will never be me, I could not be loved that much

in the reflection of my longing, you would see

the worth of you and how all those fears

were just surfaces as yet untouched

for we who dance

together

never

stop

and I will not let go

if you just

reach

out

The outsider

she wasn’t like them, so they didn’t like her

to her face they smiled and said ‘nice things’

which she knew were lies

behind her back they laughed

and made dirty-lezzie jokes

because it made them uncomfortable

to think about what they thought she did

it made them feel a bit disgusted

like when you stand too close

…

she looked like them in superficial ways

wore at times, nicer dresses and had longer hair

the fact that she liked girls wasn’t in their

comfort zone

when it was summer time they had

BBQ’s and invited all the neighborhood kids

wondering if she would be safe around minors or

would do something inappropriate

when they started a mommy running club

she wasn’t invited because she was neither

a mommy or someone they wanted to

bare their secrets with

what would she understand of husbands?

maybe their husbands liked her

because she was unavailable

when it was Halloween they made candy and

knocked on all the doors but hers

because the other mothers said best to avoid

what they did not care to know

…

that’s why she lived a harder life than she had to

for there is almost nothing worse than pretend friendliness

leaving you more alone than if they said what they thought

and spat in your face

if you think that’s an exaggeration or she feels

sorry for herself

think on the tiny percent of the world

where being gay is safe or legal

and the huge part of the world where it is forbidden or punished

think on how many lament at

the shift in culture toward acceptance

calling it a ruination of our society with all

those damn fags

compare it to those who truly feel inclusive

how every day isn’t the same

when you have to contend with not fitting in

making everyone else feel uncomfortable

just by existing

nor can you talk about what matters to you

just in-case visual images abound and people

begin to change the subject

…

if it were a choice … a lifestyle … few would make it

yet she exists

wishing sometimes the phone would ring

another girl like her would say

I know how you feel

would you like to go for a walk?

she is a gay princess in a tower

and her princess

is somewhere in the world perhaps

thinking the same thoughts

two outsiders

unable to find each other

Nourishment

There resides in you

A shifting filament

While you are composed of water

The filament burns sage and longing

Sometimes the current of your nature holds you back

Makes you feel tired just stepping into effort’s shoes

The filament never tires but stares

Bare eyed into the center of the humming universe

And spinning in its helium, sees what you could have been

If like others

You had caught fire instead of brine

And rising out of the ocean

Growing legs and feet to run

Naked and filled with satelite urge

Down shining shellac road

But it was not your way

You are the gentle nudge behind theatre curtain

You prefer the feel of bunched velvet and the spotlights on the other side

When young girls fought to be first

You found no competition pooling in yourself

It was as if

You had drunk your fill and

Just wanted to be free

People would say

Why doesn’t she want more?

Why doesn’t she fight for it?

They did not understand

She was made of water

There was only so long she could

Breathe air

And the heat of desired things

Steaming on the tongues of others

Before she slipped gratefully

Beneath the membrane of the world

And watched

Them clamor

And beat their chests

To get one step ahead

She was

Running out of time

For her edges evaporated

With each muse of sound

Capturing the necks of mountains

And her love knew

When she grew warm

Water could hardly contain

Her steaming rise

But against the world of noise

And clamoring souls inching for their

Fifteen minutes

She must have appeared a wilted flower

Bent at the neck

She didn’t fit with brick and mortar

Reducing days to races, tests, competitions

Her nourishment always lay in your arms

Twisting like plankton, dancing in sea spray

I don’t like you

A little girl

With golden hair reaching her tan

Told me, tongue to one side, half-licked lips

I don’t like you.

Afterward I asked

A disinterested person

Who was paid to iron my dad’s shirts and begrudgingly

Watch me until he returned

Why would someone not like me?

I hadn’t said this with some inflated belief that I deserved universal liking

But rather, an innocent question

That first time

Branding with the word knife

The girl with flax hair

Didn’t include me in hopscotch or skip rope

Ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies, a-tissue, a-tissue, they all fall down

She was the most popular and they chose her for Mary in the school play

Whilst I played a donkey, braying when gift bearing wise men arrived

The local woman who ironed my dad’s shirts

Begrudged making me a canned supper

I was a nuisance, playing in her dour house until 6pm every day

Throwing dirt on drab paving stones, pretending to be invisible

I don’t know why

She crossly replied

Her forehead wrinkled with steam

Curly hair rising, sleeves rolled up, sweat stains coloring

Maybe you’re a nasty little girl.

The next day when my father dropped me off on his bike

At the school gates

I walked the other way

I have been ever since

Learning to salvage myself

From unexpected spite.

If I met the peach-kneed Danish girl today

She’d likely have track-marks and bruised eyes

Turned out she was beaten beneath her starched frocks

Turning the wickedness back into the world

Isn’t that what hurt children do?

Perhaps it’s not wise to always listen to your elders

I’d warn the five-year old me

Playing with empty hands on the stoop of someone else’s street.

As an adult, when someone doesn’t like me

Which happens like storms and rain in May

Their voice reminds me of that first loneliness.

Children who stop believing in a kind world

Feeling sharp thorned scorn

Grow into adults who keep themselves sheltered

From the humans in wolf skin, prowling outside

Like castaway cries of surprise

When we think we are safe and

Still, we trip and fall.

Fondle

They said she was uncool

they laughed at her pathetic attempt

to fit in to the A-Crowd and be

whatever cool intended

she was not able to tan with

baby oil and lemon

therefore didn’t look good in yellow

or the teeny tiny jock shorts

all the girls with the floppy hair

and shiny legs knew

if you wanted to be an A-Lister

better get bronze and angular

she had the legs of a cross-legged child

with fat bits that poked through

her back wasn’t too straight from hunching

over the tv with bowl of Coco Puffs

they said she was uncool

because she couldn’t spell and didn’t know how

to french kiss or accept blow backs

of weak marijuana in local park

she didn’t stand as tall and couldn’t climb up

to fondle faceless boys who shriveled afterward

she wasn’t full chested, more of an empty shirt

what’s the point? one asked, just give me a hand job

and she didn’t know it took so much momentum

of her thin unused wrist

so she had to prop it up with the other hand

and everyone took the piss

you can’t even wank a boy without losing steam

how are you going to ride him?

she didn’t want to ride a boy, or even a horse

she didn’t need to be cool if it meant spitting out semen afterwards

her freckles and her pasty face, weren’t the sum total of her soul

if it’s uncool to be an outsider, she thought

I’ll make it into an art-form

so she wore purple when the IT color was red

flattened her chest instead of wearing WonderBra

liked polka dot panties over thong

didn’t touch cold-sore boys, even with gloves on

watched the girls from the A-List grow fatigued

of sore jaws and empty hearts and stained skirts

whilst she painted and danced and cycled and swam

climbed trees, shot arrows, read on roof tops, ate bags of blue gumballs

her teeth were not as white as those with lithe brown thighs

her sneakers did not have the right logo

she wore thrift store sweaters and Hello Kitty socks

they said she was uncool

for not knowing how to pleasure and perform

she told her dolls and her bears

it meant she got another summer without having to worry

about being pinched and poked by thirsty boys

with Ralph Lauren t-shirts and Converse All Stars

taunted by girls with Abercrombie skirts and Victoria’s Secret push-up

comparing cleavage and score cards

what a relief to be uncool

her name didn’t begin with A

it began with C and she preferred hanging upside down

from the jungle jim

watching the world fool

young girls

 

 

Sisterhood

Sometimes 

As a woman

You feel very apart

Striving for sisterhood

From other women

Comparing and similar

As if they

Are all sitting together

Heads down and touching

listening to a song

Whose lyrics

You cannot hear