a recent coversation about letters of recommendation we would give to one another’s other and/or future lovers, led a certain butch to say the following about yours truly recently:
makes great brownies.
moans better.
ahem! i do declare…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: butches, exes, femmes, love, memory, random ramblings, the ex: cohen, writing
it’s almost something sacred. the word “you,” when you speak it in reference to me. it is one word in a sentence made of many others, but it’s the only one that hangs on your tongue like the way honey drags down the length of a spoon – slow and thick at first and then rushed and ribboned towards the end. my punched down, plumped up heart doesn’t care about the sentiments or about the words that surround this mention of me in your mouth. i am focused only on the way it feels to be cradled by your lips like that; attention paid only to the feel of your breath grazing when you exhale me.
this is about absence. the kind that causes me to rock away grief. because sitting still with it is just too great an ache.
i am responsible for near tidal waves.
when we were a part of one another still, i noticed not the way you held me in your mouth – pulled me in, pushed me out – but more the sound. the gravel of your generations-deep, southwestern pennsylvania, coal miner family accent and the way it snuck out between the cracks of a crooked smile passed down from a grandmother every bit as pretty then as you are handsome today.
my concentration on the way you spoke me, the way you still sometimes do when i let my guard down a little too early, is about the ways i loved you. i wonder now if something as simple as how you wore your lips when you grinned – practically a right angle instead of a more even, upwards bevel – should have been a sign of the unpredictability of you.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: academia, butches, college, fall, fashion, fatness, femmes, thrifting
fall has always been my favorite time of year and it’s no doubt for many of the same reasons as the rest of y’all: cooler weather, the change in foliage (if you live somewhere where this happens), and of course the transition to a different and, in my case, better wardrobe. for years my summer wardrobe was a sorry excuse for clothing and i’m sure that was in relationship to where i was in my head as far as body image. i grew up with a pretty fat positive mom, but still one who enforced some sort of “sleeve at all times, on all shirts” rule that i later tossed out as being total bullshit. my summer clothes have evolved into something i no longer dread, including skirts i’ve sewed myself in recent years and new and thrifted dresses. oh, and tank tops. and tube tops. lots of them. behold! a fat person with fat arms! gasp! how unusual!
but fall? fall is my joint. say it with me: sweater weather…mmm. and this is ironic because i’m not huge into sweaters. going to class and teaching in colleges and universities, as well as several office buildings in between when i lived in d.c., made me a fan of layering: cute camisoles, light sweaters, carrrrdigans (drool), and shrugs. jeans, of course too, pencil skirts, dresses, but with tights. this season, because i’m hopelessly flawed in keeping tights for long without running them? black ribbed ones, deep purple, turquoise, and gray! fall equals jewel tones after all, no? oh, and scarves! fall is scarf weather and thanks to a grandma with fast crocheting fingers, i am a queen to many lovely, homemade ones. my favorite is made of a deep red wool that is of the same skeins my grandmother knit my baby blanket.
oh, fall aesthetic! you are, of course, not just for the femmes either. the butches and bois, the transmasculine folk, this is button-down shirt and sweater weather. argyle sweaters. wide striped sweaters. sweater vests. tweed pants. boots. plaid wool scarves. swoon! the fun of thrifting with a butch for a fall wardrobe. or merely just observing their dashingness from across the street…with a wink!
fall, it’s about time you got here. last night, you had me dreaming of houndstooth and herringbone.
i took this picture in northampton, ma two weeks ago. the trees there are already so stunning. my foot? maybe not quite as much!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blah, butches, exes, femmes, love, memory, nolose, the ex: cohen
Filed under: butches, chicago, crush, dynamic, femme, femme conference, lust, swooning | Tags: butches, crush, dynamic, femme, femmes, lust, swooning, writing
“are you two going to kiss?” the man who stumbled before us asked. he was drunk and wobbling on his two long legs in a way that suggested too much alcohol had mixed with a heart too weighted to keep balanced, to keep the body stable.
but i barely noticed.
because when you started to walk across the sidewalk to me, before he showed up swaying and destroying lazy-to-arrive-but-so-glad-you-finally-fucking-got-here moments like this, my vision tunneled to you. a body deliberate. calculated, intent on reaching, on doing, you sidled up to me mumbling some words about how it had been some twenty minutes since we’d talked and hadn’t that been too long? i searched for a response from a brain too tired of producing witty banter for you all day. see, those past 24 hours, saw me in a contest with myself, racing to see how fast i could make those crevices in the skin around your mouth deepen and turn darker as your smile stretched further every time. found me delivering package after package to you of smartly wrapped snark and flirt all wound tightly and made ornate with knotted heart strings for bows.
so i just smiled. and for once in the whole day, despite the frenetic swirl of drunk, happy queers tapdancing on cigarette butts outside the barroom door, allowed a bit of quiet between us. maybe my body sensed what was about to happen, knew that if it didn’t curb the firing of my brain’s synapses, i’d make some joke and we’d erupt again in a series of guffaws that of course felt good, but that didn’t end with the mingling of each other’s sweat on our upper lips.
when your hand found the bend in my waist that gives way to my hips that roll strong but pliant when you pull them just right, i knew silence had been the right choice. knew it twice as hard when, in seconds, there i was three inches from your face staring into eyes that wouldn’t release my own unless to quickly survey the state of my mouth which was, on this night, stained scarlet and heavy with the anticipation of you.
did you feel the drop when we fell into the vacuum of each other? when things around us slowed almost to the point of nonexistent as we considered the idea of halving and then obliterating all together the slowly shrinking space between us?
i remember i was thinking about your glasses and about the angle at which i’d bend my neck to avoid any sort of minor calamity of frames smashed into browbones or lenses fogged to the point of visual impairity when his voice, loud and sluggish with booze, slammed our feet back down on the concrete. i swear now that there were tiny spider-like cracks around our shoes from the impact of so brutally being forced to once again find the ground.
“are you two going to kiss?” he slurred with whiskey breath.
but we barely noticed. we didn’t even speak. not even to each other.
Filed under: butches, fun, haiku, strap-ons, yay | Tags: butches, fun, haiku, strap-ons, writing, yay
haiku about strap-ons. because they’re fun, it’s friday, and why not?
1.
you: new to strap-ons
me: so not interested
bruised cervix? no thanks!
2.
jersey femmes bring it
lipstick perfect, hair teased right,
nails that match your dick.
3.
harness in your drawer:
two-strap, white leather, studded
makes this girl say “ohh!”
Filed under: butches, dynamic, exes, love, lust, memory, stone | Tags: butches, dynamic, exes, love, lust, memory, stone, writing
with your lips to my ear and your fingers on my skin, you deftly trace across my body the lines and boundaries you have drawn for your own. “like this…” you say and with your mouth crushed against my cheek, your palm cups the side of my neck, slowly but decisively making its way past the top of my chest to the space between my breasts. your hand rests here, avoiding the flesh that surrounds it, flesh that you usually cannot resist to feel with hands and mouth. but tonight is not about this. tonight, with touches applied to my skin so that i might begin to understand your own, you teach me what “stone” means to you.
channeling the steady hands of a master cartographer, your fingertips pull channels down my abdomen, flowing free and unchecked against the soft roll and lower expanse of my belly. with palms wide and flat across my sides, you work harder, rougher, to push aside my ripples of curve so that the depth, the marrow of my bones, will remember the contrast in touches the sharp angles of your own hips demand, will retain the memory of distinction between my body and yours. when your hands reach my thighs and then skid along the tops of their inner slopes, you fall still. and with a deep breath settled in your lungs, you draft for me with the mere tip of one index finger the minefield of this place.
tomorrow, with you asleep next to me, i let my eyes follow the shape of a body recreated under the tightly wound ropes of sheet rolled over and passed over one hundred times in the night before we both stopped long enough to catch our breaths.
Filed under: arg, butches, cancer, dad, death, exes, memory, mom | Tags: arg, butches, cancer, dad, death, exes, memory, mom, the ex: cohen
this afternoon, my mother called me from the hospital in nj. my dad has been admitted for vomiting, dizziness, shortness of breath. he’s undergoing some tests, specifically an m.r.i. of his head to see if there is anything to be suspicious of there. my dad’s had cancer for the past several years. it started with his kidney, which was removed and he enjoyed about a year and a half of remission before it crept back up again in his spleen and liver. through chemotherapy, those tumors wound up shrinking significantly, but it’s always been made very clear that there’s no more opportunity for him to “beat” cancer. it’s more just a waiting game of where it will pop up next and with what kind of vengeance. earlier in the year, it was discovered he had a spot on his spine. it wasn’t particularly large or intrusive, but once cancer hits bone, especially spine and its column of connecting fluid, it’s not the best of signs. needless to say, it seems the dr. is going straight for scans of his head to see if there is any brain tumor or lesion to be found there.
i’ve always feared this moment and i’ve been pretty realistic in knowing it would probably come soon, at some point. spine and brain are so connected and usually once one has had a taste of the cancer stuff, the other is next to follow. all the reading i’ve done has told me that brain cancer is a quick and slippery slope with fatal results. it’s strange to write these words. my father’s and my relationship has been so strained my whole life. there have often been times since his diagnosis several years ago, not to mention times before that when he was still a healthy man, that i’ve thought of how it would be easier, especially on my mother, if he passed away. and now, with that reality staring me in the face, part of me regrets ever thinking it and the other tells me not to forget the long history of emotional violence that stems from him.
but what really gets me every time i worry about him or start to contemplate his death and what that will be like for me, i almost always lose sight of the reality, the right now. i eventually, without fail, always wind up overlooking him and land up at the fact that i will take care of and console my mother, what’s needed anyway, but who will take care of and console me? every time i think of his illness and his passing, i come back to this right here…and i miss you terribly; in ways that make me clutch my gut with the pain of your absence. because despite everything we went through and regardless of how you never knew what to say when i was upset over his illness, you were and still are what i think of when i think of comfort. when i consider all that i might need when his final decline begins, it’s only you that comes to mind. you, the person who struggled most with knowing what to say to me in times of sadness. you, who thought i needed more than just your silence and support or the physical strength and safety of your arms and shoulders. i have every reason in the world not to trust you and this won’t change that; this won’t find me dialing you aimlessly at 2am needing to hear your voice. yet still, it’s your absence i’ll cry for right now and not the eventuality of my father’s.
you were my safety net despite all of your fears that you were never strong enough for me. did you ever really know that?
Filed under: arg, bigotry, butches, fail, fatness, femme, femmes, genderqueer, over it, queer, reciprocity, resistance, the gays, trans guys | Tags: arg, bigotry, butch, butches, fail, fatness, femme, femmes, genderqueer, oppression olympics, over it, queer, reciprocity, resistance, the gays, trans guys
after a fairly successful weekend of fun, i was visiting my usual online haunts before getting ready for bed and came across the most recent vlog by resident youtube butch, AJ on her sister channel, the Beaver Bunch. i don’t know how popular AJ, of Ask AJ Anything fame, is amongst us tech savvy queers out there, but basically she gives advice and makes a lot of “top 10″ lists. i’ve never found her much to write home about, but that’s just my opinion.
anyway, this week’s vlog was about sharing coming out stories, which was all well and good until about 4minutes and 45seconds in when AJ starts talking about being visibly queer and how she can never not be “out” because of her appearance. shortly after this, she relays the following message that has had me fuming for the past hour. basically, this: femmes have it easy. maybe my anger is misdirected. AJ is only one of many butches i’ve heard voice these sentiments in the past few years and i’m officially over it. so, to AJ, and all those who might agree with her, here’s my rant:
so, check it. unfortunately, most of us who are queer have had homophobic speech slung at us at least once in our lives. whether it was directed to us individually, as part of a couple, or with a group, the impact is still the same. for me personally, this usually isn’t what i get called out on the street for when i’m on my own or with a group a friends. if i’m going to be heckled in broad daylight in the middle of downtown, it’s going to be because i’m fat or, the way i like to think of it, because i’m a hot fat girl who defies every convention of what it is i’m supposed to do – cover up every inch of skin, wear dark colors, talk quietly. basically, do everything i can to keep attention away from me, to fade into the woodwork. though truth be told, assholes on the street would find me there too.
when i’ve been the target of queer bashing though, it’s always been in the company of others. a big group of my homo friends at a non-queer bar or arm-in-arm with someone i’m dating who, because i always date on the more masculine end of the gender spectrum, tends to be more visibly queer than myself, thus drawing attention to us. those times have mostly been scary, some downright terrifying and, later, when safety is certain and blood pressures have resumed a normal range, angering for everyone involved. never, though, have i sat down afterward with my significant other or with my friends and deliberated which one of us motivated the attack, who’s most queer in appearance, or who has it easiest/hardest…and i, frankly, can’t understand anyone who would!
i know all about the differences of visibility and invisibility when it comes to butch and femme (or anyone queer who doesn’t pass as straight and anyone queer who does – the labels don’t matter here); i deal with what it means to be invisible to a straight world, and even a queer world sometimes, on a regular basis. for example, there are few things more infuriating to me than my lack of recognizability as queer and the swiftness with which that changes based on who my partner is. far too often, my entire gender and sexuality become about the gender identity of the person i’m dating rather than anything about me. all this being said though, i also know that i’m privileged in passing because my queerness is rarely a visible target of staring, behind-the-back whispers, or violence, and that those are things butches and other masculine-identified, female-bodied folks are forced to deal with constantly. i don’t deny AJ, or any other person who exhibits female masculinity of any kind, the fact that their visibility is always more dangerous. the ways in which they bravely navigate that on a daily basis will always have my utmost respect and appreciation.
my frustration instead is about the need to make this comparison, to attempt to outdo eachothers’ experiences of oppression. i would never say to a butch, a trans guy, someone genderqueer, that i experience discrimination worse than they do because of x, y, or z. i realize, in the case of visibility, their identity puts them in a different place, a more volatile place even, than myself, but i’m not going to tolerate them or anyone else telling me that i have it easy. this is not to say that differences in experience don’t need to be acknowledged. of course they do! and in the particular case of discrimination as a result of visibility, i know who has a roughter time. but what’s the point of sitting around contrasting whether the attack on your queerness is greater than mine? what gets accomplished in that? and more so, what significant information gets erased in this attempt? what about the particulars of space and time? or the specifics of the person and the variety of other intersecting identities like race and class and size, amongst others, that operate simultaneously with queerness and how we experience discrimination? are we really going to spend time figuring out whose feelings were hurt more or who was treated more unjustly when a stranger called you a “dyke” and me a “fat bitch”? or are we going to acknowledge the fact that it sucked in a bunch of different ways for both of us, but we learned a bit from each others’ experiences as a result?
if we’re queers and know what that means to us and understand the politics and investments of using that word beyond an identity of being G, L, B, or T, we need to learn what it means to be allies to one another; to be supportive, caring, respectful, self-reflexive, and to know that finger pointing and pitting ourselves against each other is futile. acknowledging the different ways we experience our lives and our identities is invaluable, but the pissing contest of who has it easiest and who has it worst seems to be a game with no actual winner.
