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.

Someday

I was born pretty, impoverished and good natured.

I knew the story, or thought I did.

I cleaned more than Cinderella, read more books than Belle, and amassed more treasures than Ariel.

All I had to do was stick to the fairy tale script and marry a prince, simple and easy.

Things turned out to be a bit more complicated.

Love didn’t unfold easily: it still doesn’t.

I worked long and hard, and longer and harder still.

Through true grit and hard-won experience, I became my own prince, which is to say I provide for myself.

Now I’d like a princess of my own.

Someday.

In the Shower

In the shower I see

One leg shaved smooth, the other hairy

I finally appear as non-binary on the outside as I feel on the inside

Though I doubt that I will ever feel safe enough to tell anyone outloud

At least in the shower, I stand proud

This is all of me

Closet

My closet holds an avalanche of dress-up clothes
Costumes for all occasions
I am the teacher and the seductress
My closet holds a harvest of skeletons
Big-boned men, backstage women, and first-trimester fetuses
I am bi-curious in my closet
I locked myself in long ago
I am buried under a whirlwind of unspoken emotions
Terrified to let a breath of truth seep out from the crack below the door
It is getting crowded inside my closet
Yet I gather more
Peering out, I wonder what it would be like to show myself to the world
Instead of burying myself under other people’s expectations
I have great expectations which remain frozen in fear
Seemingly motionless year after year
Yet there is growth within stillness
I put on the uniform I need to play the part
Only then do I step out from the dark

Non-Binary Dreams

One of the most potent dreams I have ever had
Was of looking deeply into their enchanting eyes
Accepting the invitation to open their thighs
Like they were my favorite book

I want to savor their scent
Hold their every word in my mouth
Tenderly turn their pages
Until I know them cover to cover
My non-binary lover

Bi-Curiouser and Curiouser

I feel bi-curiouser and curiouser
Is it because of my genes that my eyes follow the curves of ladies’ jeans?
Is it because I was molested by my mother that women intrigue me?
Or is it because I suffered so many violations by men when I was younger
That I became a commercial sex worker just to profit from my skills
And now have fear and rage toward Y chromosome carriers,
That I fantasize about women more and more?

Women are beautiful
Visualizing their bodies near me,
I erupt in earth-moving orgasms

I am more bi-curious every day

To the point that bi is no longer a question- is the answer to why being with a man never felt quite right and at night I dream of they and I, the invitation of their thighs

I want to read you cover to cover, my bi-curious lover

Their eyes are bluer than any other.

Our love is pure albeit undercover.

They are not she or he

They are we