I saw my first lesbians when I was 6.
She was short with spiky hair,
She was tall with curly hair.
They held each other tenderly,
Floating blissfully in the swimming pool,
Absorbed in each other and unaware of

The shaking head of my father
And his outstretched arm
As he shielded his children from the happy couple.

When I was little, I held weddings for my Barbie dolls
And I couldn’t understand why my parents made me stop.
It wasn’t until they bought me a shiny new Ken doll
That the weddings could start again.

A few months ago
Mum discovered her friends were lesbians
And I beheld in her eyes the mixture of wonder and disgust.
Wild-eyed recounts of intrusions on quiet embraces
And the fear of the unknown heavy in every word.

How disappointed they would be now!
To know that I dream of my head between a woman’s thighs.
That I remember with fondness
The feminine lips that have pressed against mine.

I am what you fear.
The hell-bound filthy sinner
Bent on destruction and lust.
Sneaking into your society, poisoning your children.
I am the monster you hate, the wretch you pity.

But maybe you would understand
If you saw how sweet this ******* is.
If you knew how it feels
To see sweet contentment and bliss
In the arms of a woman.

Mona Lisa, mona linda,
O emblem of western beauty!
A hundred greedy eyes rest on you,
Drinking you in.

Crowds and crowds gather
To feast on your unsmiling face,
Your stiff posture, your
Lifeless gaze.

Within the golden frame you are
Frozen in time
And unable to escape those relentless gawks.

Life imprisonment
With an audience of 2 million.

Adoring fans, passers-by
Cry out in praise!
“Beauty, beauty, beauty!”

Do they know what they see?
Bland Western beauty standards served up on a plate.

Fresh from Ireland and ready to eat.
Dreams of wealth and success
Wrapped up in pale white skin
And short blonde hair.

The sun sets on Ireland,
patchwork fields illuminated by the august light of
abiding memory.

Misty hues spilling
over the mountains,
glimpsed through a mist of tears
fighting not to be shed.

The last sunset
of a brief glimpse of manic happiness
and friendship
and love.

The fields flash by,
each one transforming into a rose-coloured memory,
and a tsunami of melancholy threatens to
knock me down.

Heavy sighs and
knowing looks and
held-back tears and
one last caress of your sun-kissed skin.

The sun sets on Ireland
And opens into a bright new tomorrow.

no tongue could ever render intelligible
the perpetual idioms of the mind.

You cry the name of your god in vain;
Holy blasphemy from the depths of sin.
Praising my *** with his sacred name.

Turn now.
Turn and worship at my altar.

I am the goddess, enthroned on your lust.
I am the image, graven on your chest.
I am the calf, forged from your gold.

What have I done to you,
Oh man of God!
Lead him not into temptation, but deliver him from evil.
Deliver him from me.

slow and sweaty
sleepless summer nights
trapped in my room and
tortured by thoughts of you.

from the wrong side of the sea
i hear your soft moans
and i see your golden body
poised and yearning.

it doesn’t matter if you evade my arms
when the screen can imprison you
and my dreams can immortalize you.

I would wonder if there be
A hidden portrait there of thee
Which bears thy sin and guilt and shame
While outwardly, thou art the same.

If this not be, then let me write
A poem to bring this all to light.
Let these immortal words then be
That true and twisted sight of thee.

oh the perverse desire
to tear off my skin
to slice my tender flesh
to carve and chop

oh to feel the cool air against my bones
to be fully exposed
to be grotesque and unlovely

oh to rip my chest open
to be
unrestrained by ****** borders and
finally free

oh sweet freedom!
see me as i am;
vile and dying, in constant pain
a broken slice of hell

amen.

I've been lying here for 3 hours now
Staring at the wall
Stravinsky plays, but I don't listen
My eyes are glazed
My mind adrift

and I am in limbo.

Somewhere between fantasy and reality
Somewhere between elation and despair

Here I lie,
Suspended in time and space
Not quite sure how to exist
And ready to go home.

two lives
two moralities
two vices i can’t give up

two bottles
two pound entry
two am and i’m stumbling home

two bodies
two moans
two people trying to feel alive

too broken
too chaotic
too hard to make this choice