Fractured Genders
Jude writing as a woman

I was probably 14.
That awkward age of self-discovery.
For a girl and perhaps also for a boy.
I guess confused.
I guess troubled.

In my daydreams, I always saw myself
as a boy.
A strong virile boy.
Saving  beautiful princesses from
prison towers.
Fighting dragons
With only a sword.
A smaller skinnier version of Xena.

That's when I asked myself the biggie.
Am I a lesbian?
Do I want to be a man.?
I dated and kissed teenage boys.
The more i kissed
The less of a lesbian
i would become right?.

At college, I kissed a girl for the first time.
It was not what I expected.
Her face soft and lipstick was fire red.
She drowned me
with the smell of gardenias.
Where was the stubble
the smell of sweat
The faint taste of stale tobacco.

Then I met him
He was beautiful and toned.
So gentle he made  me cry.
We hit it off right away.
He fixed up the small apartment i had.
He placed flowers in every room.
Washed and ironed my clothes.
For my birthday
he baked me a chocolate cake.

I lay next to him in bed
I wanted to tear his shorts off
But he would not let me.
I am not ready he said softly.

After a while I became
the daydream power  boy again.
Would you rather date boys i asked ?
In an effort to break the ice

He looked at me with his
beautiful gray eyes like ice.
I have never met one
that I like enough, he said softly.
Well do you think we could
find you one together?
My ivory tower prince  needed rescuing.
Well he said softly
I am rather in love
with you right now
If that's ok with you.

That night we made love.
I fell for him so deeply.
And I became the sort of
a power figure in the relationship.

I wore sweats and jeans cargo shorts and
He did not care.
We made love every night.
And I knew we had both
got fractured genders.

But we were in love
And love does not care
about genders or
how differently
it is expressed.

It is just love
And love always
takes
Exactly what it wants
From all of us.