Out of the Closet

What if we are all so closeted that we do not allow ourselves to know ourselves?

This may make you balk, but hear me out.

Who among us has not admired a physical attribute of the gender we haven’t habitually spent time in bed with?

Who can deny beauty?

What if we each stepped out from our usual hiding spots, the social roles we were groomed for without our consent?

What if we acted upon our misery and tried something radically different today?

I dreamt that a student of the romance languages asked me if a word was masculine or feminine.

I leaned toward them with a knowing smile and whispered, ‘It is a little known secret that everything is both masculine and feminine.’

Now you know.

The Thirteen-Handed Man

Man, you got me writing in this journal like an adolescent girl

My heart gushing forth while my mind’s in a twirl

I haven’t crushed this hard since I can’t remember, and probably longer still

You’re half comedian, half musician, and 100% enlightened genius skill

You must have a lot of girls climbing up your hill

There’s so much I wanted to say to you, but I hold myself back still

I wanted to dance to your music wildly, sit next to you in the circle

Be the first to hug you, jump into all of your arms

My inner alarms played their broken-record tune, ‘you’re shy, you aren’t worthy, it isn’t safe to follow your heart’.

Your voice sang smooth as the moon, and I swooned

There is so much I wanted to ask you, about where you’re going and where you’ve been

So much I wanted to applaud about you, to share and offer you

Helping you is the least I could do

Even the man with thirteen hands could use an extra hand sometimes

Should you need them, my hands are here for you

Regret

I have a rum-soaked regret

I spent a night lying in a bed next to you, wanting you and warmed by the feeling of you wanting me, without getting closer to you, without holding you

We passed out immediately upon contact with the mattress as a result of all that we had imbibed, as we were serious about celebrating my last night in town

You lingered after the other guests had gone

As the party went on we gravitated together and let each other know in lover’s language our shared desire, finding reasons to touch each other without a reason

I remained unconscious to the world until I woke up, still fully dressed

You were gone, taking with you my only chance to physically express admiration for you

To this day, you are an ocean away

Maybe it is just as well

Why endure a one night stand, only to be followed by regret as I worry about sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy

Your presence was intoxicating enough

We both drank too much

The bridge of alcohol became our wall

Thank you for the fond farewell

Made fonder still by unrequited romance

Glance Hall

What’s that I thought I saw

It’s nothing at all

Or maybe it was everything

You could be everything to me

I could be everything to you

Why do we disguise ourselves

What’s that I thought I saw

You glanced my way in the hall

Was it nothing or was it everything

You turned your gaze my way after I looked at you

By then, my hope was through

I had looked away by the time your eyes fell on me

Then you gave up and looked away again

I looked back at you

When will we meet

When will our feet stop

When will our hearts stop

When will we see that there is no difference between you and me

Was there ever any at all

First Sight

I keep my eyes wide open and my feet on the ground all the time

I saw you there, you reached for my hair and I wrote this rhyme

Am I levitating or am I meditating without a dime

I keep my eyes wide open and my feet on the ground both day and night

Though I want you around

I’ve got to slow down, ain’t that right

We both know well that the road to hell is a slippery slope

Once you start to fall, you’ll be desperately clawing for a rope

As you fall down there might not be a rope around til you’re on the ground, all the way down

In this life full of mystery what do you mean to me, we’ll have to see

What do I mean to you, we might not know til the sun is low and that’s ok, I’ll wait and stay

I’ll keep my eyes wide open and my feet on the ground til you come around

Prince

Tumble in the hay

Let’s hide away from the light of day

My fingers run through your flaxen hair

My other hand ends up over there

I go fish in your eyes- what a catch

You’re a fine dish, it’s no surprise that my mind’s between your thighs

Countless times I’ve denied myself dessert- the sweetness of your kiss

Though I’ve yet to taste it, it’s the flavor I miss

Though I’ve yet to be basted, I soak up your succulence

No matter how poor we’ve been,

You’ve always been my prince

Cinnamon

I dive into your eyes and start to swim

Wash up on the shores of your amber honey skin

I want to ignite your spark when the light glows dim

Nourish you when you grow thin

Because cinnamon is the state of mind I’m in

Ever since I first saw you, I’ve wanted to paw you and draw you in

Lick your spoon and feel my taste buds spin

Drink the moon and take you in

Mouthfuls of cinnamon

Tsunami

I want to go with you to the place beyond words

The place where our bodies do the talking in that effortless language

I want to go with you to the place where we first met and knew in an instant what we wanted

The place where a wordless message was exchanged by forces unseen, forces that move us ever closer

Forces more powerful than a tsunami

Sex, Money, Dishes

Tell me you’ve never fought with your partner about sex, money, or dishes.

Sex

I used to fight endlessly about sex, mainly because I didn’t want to have it but my partners did, so we’d fight and fuck, then I’d cry and be blinded by images of destroying my body or their body just to stop the rape and the torture of not feeling safe in my skin. Amazingly, we all survived and now I have a loving partner with whom I have gold-medal sex; you have to experience it to believe it, it’s like I’m cashing in on some sex fund which I invested in long ago. Happily I don’t fight about sex anymore- I’ve got a man I’m attracted to inside and out, and he loves me the way I want to be loved.

Money

I used to exchange sex for money. It seemed like there was always too much sex and not enough money in those transactions, or transgressions. Even those back-alley deals were more straight forward than my relationships in which sex was exchanged for the illusion of not being alone, for food, housing or ‘safety’, though I learned that the cost to my physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing which false relationships exacted was not worth the dinners, drinks, gifts of lingerie, attention or the roof over my head. You might get raped if you travel alone, but if you travel with a man you are guaranteed to get raped. Live within your means because fine dining won’t taste good if you are eating with a strange man, believe me I know. If you have to learn on your own I understand, however if my years of pain can help prevent a moment of your suffering, it will have been worth it.

Dishes

Rare is the man who finishes the dishes. Common are the men who stack the dishes artfully in the sink until there is barely room to turn on the faucet. I have noticed this pattern during my co-habitations with men. I’ve done too many dishes. It especially irks me when men drown sponges in the rinsed yet still not washed dish pile, unperturbed as the sponge decomposes into a musty mess. Men seem deaf to the silent cries of the forgotten dish sponge. Day after day, I rescue the sponge, wringing it out and restoring it to its rightful place safe on dry land, in sight. My man shows his love for me not only through our award-winning sex, but also through money (ie, responsibility for personal  finances to contribute to our future together) and dishes: ladies and gentlemen, my man did the dishes tonight, thus allowing me time to write the words you read. If a man loves you he will want to learn your love language, which you must teach him with patience, positive reinforcement, and more patience.

I grew up doing the dishes, in poverty, and sexually molested by family and friends. My sister would beat me when she got in trouble for not doing the dishes with me after we were told to do them, but the alternative would have been getting beaten by my parents for not doing the dishes, so I was going to get beat no matter what I did. I wished that someone would do the fucking dishes with me. A girl can get lonely amidst the dissolving suds.

Pretty Man

He is looking
So good looking
Did you see his physique?
Built like a tiger
Did you hear him speak?
He has a face
That I like to see
I want to feel him stand near me
Touch his skin and his hair-
That fountain of ebony
Pouring lavishly from his head
I want to kiss his face
Lose myself in his embrace
But I have felt this way before
So I know better than to knock on his door
Without pausing to remember
How often the ones who I adore
Are later the same ones who I abhor
Though I long to swim in the depths of his eyes
And his magnetism is a difficult force to defy
Though I flutter near him
I will enjoy his flame
From a healthy distance
And rest in my resistance
I know too well
The trouble on the other side of the kiss
I have already been burnt enough in my life
It is better to imagine the bliss
But I say again:
He is pretty
So pretty