The way I expressed it didn’t fully
make sense to my dearest
who only likes men.
It's never sat right to me
the pride of a parent in their straight child's love life,
the "don't ask don't tell" for a gay daughter
I used to see red as a fad that
had passed and a warning that I’m
not desired;
But I’m seeing clearer now,
Rose-colored glasses might
actually bring life into focus.

We're all fruity and nonconforming
girlfriends and boyfriends and partners each
Others cringe hearing "queer"...
Yet there’s something more in it:
We don't have an explicit gaze,
We have possibility, and the subversion of male eyes.
So I’ve always been nearly regal like The Lady of Shalott, or Lady Lilith,
The Birth of Venus,
Flaming June,
The Accolade— and I
like *** and I
feel wanted and I
am a commodity--

Don't a man look at me but
I will take a boyish girl's gaze
only her eyes focused on my *******—
Sleep over after the first date, for a change,
And remain soft in shape
She murmurs a lover’s desires:
Wear your identity on your sleeve,
In the curve of your back, on the scent of your hair and upon your hips, which invite her hands.

Once, I said "let's make it cinematic
Like that one *** scene that's in Mulholland Drive"
But now: "Touch me, baby"
It's finally the normal way.

my hips, my ***, the insides of my thighs
Don't need to give her tips
because they're true, already tried,
And she asks without a word
(i never knew consent to be so smooth)
I've never had a lover
just a love
Now *** is never 'wrong'.

Then there I was, excited-
The question hit me straight-
"are you queer now?"
No, I'm with a girl, she's lesbian bait;
Don't criticize her anatomy.

A face I once knew disintegrates before me.
You hold before me a mirror of the person I once knew,
but it is no longer you who is looking through.

Your eyes morph to stained glass silhouettes
as of the flame of your being flickers to embers.
The greater my cries,
the quicker our demise.

A cast of the woman I once knew vacantly looks through,
and yet my heart still beats for you.