I am a fantastic piece of shit
about to hurl myself 2,500 miles
down a snowy road
accompanied only by
one engine
and one heartbeat, dog
this morning was a morning
just like any other before it
except
this was the particular morning
you finally pissed me off
fuck it
now you can have the
fire-breathing witch bitch
I’ve always known
was in there
I’m finally used to
that hot feeling in my chest
so I’m going to do what I want
and you
are rolling
like water
off my back
1. cry
2. cry
3. get drunk
4. wallow
5. break my key off in the door
6. fall over in front of the cemetery
7. cry next to the cemetery
8. throw my phone in the ocean
9. sleep
10. walk the dog
11. drive to the valley
12. look for eagle feathers
13. play the piano
14. write letters to friends
15. go to therapy
16. vent
17. try to jerk off but cry instead
18. nap
19. make coffee
20. practice tarot
21. sew
22. make a stencil
23. read a book
24. wheatpaste
25. write a song
26. eat salmon
27. do a reading at YAAC
28. be proud of myself
I mix in with the water
first, blood between my legs
then tears
I float
I bled twice as long after fearing pregnancy
I hold my tongue when I mean it
and say what I don’t mean to
I used to love swishing my hair slowly
back and forth like a mermaid
is my voice underwater more or less real?
are our reactions or our decisions
more or less real?
I’m giving her too much of my heart
she doesn’t want it
once, we got to 36 levels of Jenga
which is how I’ve stacked this all up
this morning there were coins in the bed
he said they were stuck to his legs
he’s gonna name the baby August
I’d name a baby August too
don’t compliment my eyes
I said
it’s too easy
he makes me feel sexy and rejected at once
he didn’t save me from hurting
like I thought he would
I want a life with her
beside her
but I want her to be by my side too
we’re teasing out the ends
which is responsibility?
and which is accountability?
self-guilt
doubt
blame?
I hold my tongue when I mean it
and say what I don’t mean
but sometimes
I’m just telling the truth
I turn on my side
and rest my head on the wall of the tub
I think I’ve done this position before
in my mama’s womb
see, the thing is
the last time I saw you
you were fanning stars from your eyes
and I knew it was my fault
I remember the first time I asked to kiss you
summer on the porch
and when granpa died
and I crawled into bed and you held me
I remember asking to call you my girlfriend
wrapped around each other on the little acorns
I remember how you would taste
kissing hello after biking
reading your homework to you
avoiding mine
doing laundry together
holding hands on the bus
morning rituals of kissing you awake
and coffee
your patience
and forgiveness
and when we cried goodbye
in the shower
see, the problem is
I’m grieving all over again
because I’m remembering
all of you that I want
and cannot have.
I guess we’re going for it
you told me you didn’t realize
I was a serious and well-read person
I told you that I liked you
but that I should draw clearer boundaries
I don’t know if you have experience with this
but I do
it’s amazing how easily I can slide
back into this role
Sean said it was like riding a bike
you talked about the wonders that tunnels are
blasted through mountains
and the disppointment of coming out on the other side
I thought about how society tells you
that your words are worth more than mine
I brush your silver hair out of your eyes
and wonder why you’re in my bed
I hate the way you kiss
but the desire to kiss you is overwhelming
later after you’re gone
I think, shit, I guess I’m going to need some condoms
Survived a turbulent (productive) therapy session.
Appreciated the hella fat glowing moon.
Met four gorgeous and amazing queer women on the dance floor.
Did not drink.
Wore really gaudy earrings. And crimped hair.
Laughed so hard I cried.
Gained a new sense of hope.
Fell asleep while masturbating, laughing exausted, exclaiming:
I found the dykes!
Nina defied death. I guess I should say defies because to my knowledge, she’s still kicking. She was a reckless, spirited genius, a gorgeous alcoholic.
I had been in Portland for almost two months exactly. My roommate, Stacy and I had driven down the Alcan in August, two days after my twenty-first birthday. We were staying on our friends’ couch, a couple from Alaska, ’til we found a place of our own. Two dogs, one cat, six bikes and four people in a single bedroom on Division. Stacy and I didn’t know much about the bar scene in Portland so we spent the summer nights biking back and forth between the two closest bars: the one with 75 cent “buckets” of PBR and the lesbian bar, The Egyptian Room. Sometimes on our way home we’d drunkenly circle around and around the roses of Ladd’s Addition, losing ourselves in the maze. We thought it was romantic. Its beauty, its novelty, was not lost on us.
We ended our nights at The E Room a lot. They had fairly cheap drinks and “we didn’t have to worry about guys”. Whatever that means. I was straight then. Not like I identified as straight really, but in my head the thought of touching someone else’s vagina kinda grossed me out. I remember we’d sit at the bar and I’d be anxious that all these lesbians could smell it on me that I wasn’t one of them, they’d make fun of me, or worse maybe they’d hit on me.
So on Halloween night we had been given tickets to an employee party at The Montage. It was a great party. Free drinks, flame throwers and other performances, lot’s of people. But we didn’t know anyone and everyone was in masks besides. We decided we wanted to go somewhere more familiar and took a cab to The E Room. After we got our drinks I went to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror I decided I didn’t feel comfortable in my costume (“heterosexism”- I was dressed butch with a black eye). I washed the gel out of my hair and the make-up off of my face and then dried my hair with the electric hand dryer. When I came out of the bathroom Stacy was pissed. She was upset that I had taken my costume off because she still had hers on (she was a Greek goddess). I tried to explain to her that my costume didn’t match my gender presentation like hers did and that I wasn’t being a poor sport I had just been wearing it all day, even at school. It didn’t matter, she ended up leaving me at the bar. I was hurt that she left me, but I wasn’t going home early, not on Halloween.
By the time last call came I was pretty drunk. I asked someone for a cigarette and went outside. After a few drags I remembered that I didn’t smoke anymore and held out the cigarette asking who wanted it. A tall woman with a skate board raised her hand and trotted over to get it. She said her name was Nina. The man she had been talking to followed her over to me. We chatted for a bit until the man said he had to get up early and walked off. He had been covered in blue yarn. When I asked what he was she wrapped her arm around him and proclaimed proudly, “He’s Tangled Up In Blue! It’s genius right? He didn’t have a costume when I picked him up!” It was good, I had to admit.
So Nina and I were standing alone watching the other drunk people stumble out of the closing bar. I can’t for the life of me remember how it happened but suddenly we started making out there on the sidewalk. I remember standing with my fingers hooked in her jean pockets, eyes closed thinking: this is weird, this is different, this is what it feels like to kiss a guy. I had made out with girls before, I had even had sex with women. But it wasn’t like this. I hadn’t felt desire or passion or pleasure, not until this moment. She pulled away from me, her eyes were green like mine. “I gotta go” she said. And she skateboarded off into the night.
I stood there stunned. What the fuck just happened? The bar was closed so I made my way home. I walked down the middle of Clinton St. because I was afraid of the unlit sidewalks. It was like someone had just unlocked some secret part of me. I just kept gasping aloud, “I’m gay…? I’m…gay. Oh my god, I’m gay!?”
Halloween had been on a Wednesday, so that Friday I went back to the E Room hoping I’d run into Nina again. To my surprise she was there playing pool with some people. I was nervous, but I walked over and said hello. She seemed glad to see me. I assumed the people she was with were her friends, but when they weren’t paying attention she pulled me into the bathroom and told me that they had followed her there from some sports bar. She asked me pretend we were going home together so the aggressive bull dyke would stop trying to get in her pants. I was happy to play the part. But then as we were plotting, the scary dyke burst into the bathroom angrily and got up in my face “Are you taking Nina home tonight???” she snarled. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do, I had only been a dyke for like two days. Nina grabbed my hand and said “Yeah, she is.” The scary dyke huffed out of the bathroom and Nina and I grabbed our things at the table and bolted for the door tripping over our stuff and laughing. We ran to my car and I gave her a ride home. She told me she had a crush on me and we made out again. She said she wanted to take me on a date. I was elated. I was gay. The world suddenly made sense.
Nina was not the kind of woman I would ever date now, but how could I have known my type? She was intensely beautiful. Dark hair in some weird freak haircut I can’t even explain because it won’t sound hot, and it was. She had piercing green eyes, not just because they were beautiful, but because she had this way of looking at you like she knew the secret of the universe and was just waiting for you to hurry up and realize it too. Her body was tall and medium sized, but she had a good hand full of ass. A very nice ass. She was a poet, a lyricist. She would take me to open mics where she would animatedly rattle off pieces about the cops or peace or fucking or abuse. None of them were about me. Actually, I’m pretty sure I was just a place holder. Someone to get drunk and go on adventures with. She would grab me by the waist and kiss me obviously on the MAX. She would shout at anyone who didn’t approve. She was always picking fights, stealing, and dropping her bottle of whiskey out from underneath her jacket at the wrong moments. But the bus drivers, the bartenders, the strangers, no one cared. It was like she was immune to getting in real trouble. I enjoyed being her sidekick. I fought the urge to tell her I loved her.
One night at an open mic at a dive in Northwest we got kicked out. Her for leaving empty liquor bottles under her seat, me for writing “N, YOU ARE THE HOTTEST BITCH EVER! LOVE, J” in a bathroom stall. I didn’t tell her it was the first time I had been kicked out of a bar. It was probably just her first time that week.
I also hadn’t told her that I had never dated a woman before. She was actually the perfect first woman to go gay for. The sex was like training wheels because she was always so wasted that if I messed up or didn’t know what to do she wouldn’t remember it in the morning. Still, I don’t know how she didn’t pick up on it. I remember the first time we had sex. It was the first time I had made a woman come, or seen a woman come for that matter. I remember being breathless. I told her that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She must have thought it was just flattering pillow talk. We had been sleeping together nearly a month when I confessed that she was my first. She was weirded out and if things hadn’t started to fizzle between us, they definitely did after that.
Eventually I got tired of dealing with her drinking. Our dates weren’t fun anymore, it was just me babysitting a twenty-eight year old drunk. Trying not to get kicked off the bus before we got home, trying to avoid her puking on my carpet, making sure she didn’t sleep through her alarm and get written up at work again. Plus I had developed crushes on two of my classmates who I had more things in common with anyway. I stopped calling her on the weeknights, she stopped calling on the weekends. Our last date was seeing Tori Amos at the Schnitzer. We ran into one of my crushes from school and she could tell I liked them.
After that night she just kind of disappeared. I saw her a year or so later and we exchanged numbers. We talked about getting a drink together sometime. I wanted to sleep with her again out of nostalgia, but we never did end up getting that drink.
It’s awkward trying to come up with a fake name to protect his identity because I don’t remember his actual name.
I was standing on the patio of the gay bar that stays open long after the others close. The fags I came with had pumped me full of whiskey and compliments all night, but now they were nowhere to be found. I had just ripped off my itchy $9 witch wig and washed an eyeliner moustache off in the bathroom mirror. Maybe that’s why I looked acceptable to him. Let’s call him Henry.
I had made eye contact with Henry between making conversation with the gorgeous old fag from Chile and sipping off of random drinks I found unattended on the wooden picnic tables. He was pretty unremarkable. Tall, average white dude, crew cut, black hoodie, five o’clock shadow. But I kept noticing him looking at me and was curious why. So I found myself leaning up against the table he was at asking him what was up. We talked for a while and when he asked me if I wanted to “hang out” I knew I was too drunk and bored to pass up a potential adventure for sleeping in my cold van.
Henry is in the Air Force and very proud of his Irish heritage (maybe I should have named him Liam). He tells me such things while we walk to the gas station. I laugh at him when he buys me bottled water and a gingersnap cookie. As we walk he says “You have the most clear green eyes. Make my eyes clear like that. Tell me how to make my eyes clear like yours.” I can’t tell if this is some special moment, or if he’s just drunk or high. He says he has a lot of money and would rather get a room for us to hang out in than take me to his downtown home because he has a pitbull. I try to explain to him that I work with dogs, a pitbull is not an issue for me (is it with other girls???) He insists, so we ride around and around in a cab and finally end up at a really rundown motel with holes punched in the head boards.
He turns on the cable and I shout from the bathroom for him to find some porn. There was a jacuzzi tub that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in ten years. I suddenly craved a hot bath so I started the water, got naked and came out of the bathroom proclaiming that we would have a hot tub together. Henry did not argue. He did whine that the water was too hot though and I told him to “man up, soldier”. You might be wondering why/how I got myself into this situation, I wondered that too. I hadn’t told Henry that I was gay yet, so when we were soaking in the tub he put his hand on my knee. I decided I was ok with that. We talked about his wife. Apparently this was the “pitbull” he spoke of. They hated each other but they got some kind of Air Force benefits if they stayed married. I told him he should get a divorce. He sighed in agreement. Henry got too hot and left the tub. I relaxed in it a little longer and when I got out I found him sprawled on the bed. I laid down and closed my eyes, heavy from the heat.
We talked a little more, or I should say he talked more. “You’re really cool.” he said. “You’re so…. chill.” I laughed at him. My eyes were still closed and suddenly he started sucking on my nipples out of nowhere in the middle of our small talk. I don’t know why but somehow I was ok with this too. I laughed and told him he wasn’t doing it hard enough. He got all timid and I remembered why I don’t like having sex with dudes. I figured if I just closed my eyes I could enjoy a little nipple sucking, why not?! He was so nervous and kinda dorky that it was almost cute. He grabbed his dick and I decided to start masturbating in front of him. He was mesmerized. I actually got a little turned on by the thought of him watching me and told him he could fuck me, with his hand only. He didn’t get it at first, but with a little direction it turned out ok. “You taste really good.” He said at one point, pulling his fingers from his mouth. It was then I remembered I was still kinda on my period. He tried to fuck me with his dick a few times and I had to push him away and tell him no, like he was a dog or something. I had a little moment of clarity in which I realized this burly bro could rape me if he wanted to and I was a little nervous for a second. I ended up coming three times and he was in awe watching me ejaculate, “I’ve never seen that in real life…” he said. I made him masturbate to orgasm and he was amazed that we had just had sex without penile penetration. Like it was some new secret trick. Afterward, I watched his face relax and then slowly turn into a grimace as he surely thought about his wife. “It’s alright,” I said, “you’re human. It’s not the end of the world. You can always make new choices. Nothing is forever. Everything will work out.” He nodded. Where were all these sagely words coming from?
Before we had arrived at the motel he had been saying “I’ll never lie to you, I’m a very honest person.” I didn’t think he was a bad guy and I decided I wanted to be honest with him now that we had been physical. “I should probably tell you that, uh… I’m a lesbian.” I blurted out. He looked confused. “Whoa, you’re like the coolest lesbian I’ve ever met…” He tried to kiss me and awkwardly missed. “You look kinda like Henry Rollins” I said. He didn’t know who that was.
I started to sober up and decided that if I was going to have some identity crisis because I just let a dude bro put his hand inside me that I should do it in the safety of my own van. He told me he should go home, but that I could stay if I promised not the break anything. I told him I would rather walk back to my van. I think he felt embarrassed to check out a few hours after he had checked in. We gathered our belongings and I started toward the door. “Wait.” he said. I turned around and saw him shuffling through his wallet. He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Take this.” he said. WTF? I told him no. He insisted. “Do you realize what that means?” I asked. He told me it wasn’t like that, he just wanted to make sure I got home safe (even though my van was two blocks away). I wasn’t going to turn down cash. He walked me to my van and as we parted he turned and said, “If anything happens just scream and I’ll come back.”
Henry, my boyfriend, my sugar daddy, my john (???).
Oh boy. Oh man. Oh Henry.
is it weird that you have a photo labeled Tribe
that is of twenty-two white people posing?
yes, I decided, it is
you are twenty-two
I thought you were younger
hot, just electric
banging the drums with earnest angst
or love, or whatever
it didn’t matter
slipped you a note
and it worked!
it worked?
maybe it didn’t, but something did
don’t remember how your tongue moved in my mouth
but I remember it felt good, surprisingly
no, not queer, you said
bisexual
no, not that either
let’s just be friends!
sorry, sorry you said
all gorgeous and smile, sorry
impossibly white teeth, sorry
shimmering skin, perfect hair, Christian smile, sorry
your laugh rushes all the blood into my face
I laugh too
and let you go
oh well, I think
there’s plenty of other young, beautiful, interesting, stylish, hot dancing queers in Anchorage to make out with
and then I laughed at my little joke
gripping your ungloved hand tight
following you through the snow
falling through the snow
we didn’t need the whiskey to be drunk
I contemplate class
quiet on the pin-striped couch
stitch deliberately
cutting thread with teeth
I accidentally snap branches
apple picking
and dance to avoid smashing
endearing little slugs
I pull up lavander
and rub it into dog’s collar
inhale its familiar scent
and am reminded of your fur
clapping boots on pavement
I sing a little song about you
watching dusk on the overpass
forget it on my way home
cats watch me rinse blood in the sink
I let it back into the ocean
to be pulled by the tide
or at least enjoy the idea
I venture carefully into bushes
dog at my feet
cradle the delicate berries
all the way home
I write and re-write
a fool if I tell you
(a fool if I don’t)
unfinished poems pile:
…a light manifested timeline of you
now with little pin holes of me
which my light shines through…
…tonight I walked past the bed of a truck
where you stood so matter of fact
realized you dilated something in me
and I don’t like to frame things that way
“you did this to me”
but the thought of you inspires new things
hidden things
brilliant, deeply hidden things…
like this one
frayed
and uneven
what I mean to say is
a friend once told me I was pretty
like a raspberry
I want you to know you are beautiful
like a blackberry
cityfolk can be so fearful
that they may never know
what it means to view the stars
without their own light
tonight the moon
is a marvelous crescent
laid in full cradle
I hold it
cityfolk have a hidden softness
a lush and undulating
microcosm of precious verdure
more than veiled
they hide so deep
I want to find it
their cunts are vibrant milky crescents
intoxicatingly succulent
salty sweet and savory
illuminating our bodies
their scent dilating my core
the moon is so gorgeous tonight
in a clear winter sky
with only the stars to keep her company
she can finally think
she can finally fill herself out
slowly
