I didn’t have a picket fence
Or two parents
Or a childhood home
I knew love but not constancy
Putting things in order
A little piece of peace
Candy colors in a row
Eat them by the number
She licked her lower lip
Like there was something to suppose
A question not so often asked
Of chubby girls or loose women
Is it contained between chaste thighs
The sweet innocence of always?
Can knowing what we know
be a woman’s wrath at redemption?
The confusion is not within
We know we are both, not other
A sin is only a sin when defined
A lover must be loved by another.
Oh men…
The strong ones subjugate
And the weak ones prostrate
And the lack of equanimity
Leaves me at a loss
Oh women…
The powerful ones manipulate
And the quiet ones regulate
We are our own enemy
In the game of equality
Oh me oh my…
At times I’m girly and silly
Or boyish and rough
Or womanly and gentile
Or manly and strong
Oh gender role…
The world is hard enough
Without your restrictive decree
My gender may be female
But my personality is made of me
Dull thud
As the brain gives up
In a fit of lazy
It oozes down
Softly pooling as mushy grey
Undimpled ignorance
Its not natural
A lack of intellectual ciriosity
The synaptic silence
Inertia is inevitable
But comes more quickly
When unchallenged
She always knew she’d get married
but was unprepared to be divorced
The end came out of nowhere
After a slow road of decline
They felt superior to other couples
Like they shared a special secret
All their faults were somehow perfect
They were a match like no other
The dream felt permanent
When she was in the middle of it
She knew he loved her like no other
There was never a doubt of her in him
Until the day when he was different
When she felt alone in his presence
And the love she knew for certain
Was shadowed by heavy doubt
No girl dreams of divorce
No woman hopes to end up alone
None of us try to imagine
What comes after forever
The surprise was after the end
She didn’t enjoy being divorced
But she liked not not existing for him
Being for herself was enough.
I’m an ordinary girl
I tell myself
Just like any other girl
Everyone feels like they don’t belong
That’s what they say
The grand them of authority
The nameless dominance of normal
It all feels like a lie
A lie from them to calm me
A lie I’m supposed to tell myself
A lie my true self rejects
At least one thing is true
everyone around me
is too wrapped up in their own shit
to notice me losing mine.
My fat is political
I dont restrict calories
I don’t talk dieting
I have no plans to change
If you think fat is a personality deficit
If you can’t get past appearance
If you are simply repulsed
Then my fat is a barrier
I won’t bond over self hate
I don’t buy into the shame
I refuse to fight my body
I’m not spending my life hungry
I deliberately defy convention
I eat in public
I wear cute outfits
I’m bright and smiling and fat
My body is a protest
My personality a gift
I accept my size
I love myself
I wish the same for you.
Struggling for breath
Flemmy even then
Used to wail to be fed
Mom’d serve me
Choke on my snot
Throw up what I ate
Mom cleaned me up
And I’m wailing again
Babies don’t choose
Breath or hunger.
Fat, sick, poor, slut
Accepting my nonstandard body
Living within physical limitations
Finding joy in simplicity
Embracing my female power
Happy with who I am.
I never wanted to be a layover girl
to fill a space in your bed
while you waited for her
She’s the one you want
that girl you haven’t met yet
the perfect ideal of a girl
you think me easy
that I’m eager to keep you company
while you’re waiting
but I want to be special
A girl above the rest
not a body to fill a space
I deserve more
Than to be here for your comfort
and to make you feel at ease
I’m not a tossed away thought
or a comic side story
for you to tell later
so I’m not gonna hold your hand
and be your inbetween
while you dream of the right one
because I’m somebody elses girl
Who want’s more than my layover
I just haven’t met them yet.
If only manly traits
Were sexy in a woman
I’m smart, funny, and confident
I have a job and I’m ambitious
I’d make a great husband
But, as a woman,
I’m perceived as bitchy
And pushy and weird
I’m not pretty enough
I’m not docile enough
I’m not an object of desire
The flip side?
Being unattractive
Means I’m not prey
Men don’t catcall
They don’t leer
They don’t stalk
At worst they ridicule
But I’m confident enough
That I don’t care
I’d rather be happy with me
Than try to be someone else.
It hurts when you question
My perception
While it’s true
You may know fact better
You can’t know what I feel
Or what I experience
Better than I
No one can dictate
My subjective perception
I own that
Just the same
As you know you
My memory is muddled
Like a dirty pond
My conciseness affected
Flirting with delirium
I’d rather know what’s true
That to stubornly act right
I never did understand
How admitting our mistakes
Is taken as weakness
Bravery is asking for more information
Confirming what you do or don’t know
I don’t live in black and white
Fact is proven theory
But theory can be disproved
Additional minutia can be discovered
A theory can be proven again
The details make a difference
My apple may be green
Your apple may be red
Were both talking about apples
And yet one is tart and the other sweet
If I take a beat
Admit to my limited scope
Review my assumptions
Ask about your apple
Maybe I could learn
Maybe we could communicate
If I still think you’re wrong
I can always build my case
Show the proof of my position
Or I could choose to back off
Because it’s not my responcibility
To make you right
Knowing what’s true often means
Admitting I’m could be wrong
And being open to learning right.
No once chooses their trauma
Or wants to be always set apart
The idea that rape is a lie
Or disability is a lie
Or inequality is a lie
Is a misunderstanding
A lack of exposure
A lack of experience
We disenfranchised
Are seen in extremes
Either saintly courage
Or sinful weakness
The extremes make us seperate
Place us outside the norm
Some of us wear our label proudly
To refute the silence
To refuse the loneliness
Despite a lack of reward
Making it known is judged harshly
When, in truth, attention seekers are rare
But are no less damaged
Because no one chooses their trauma
No one chooses to always feel apart
If we are lucky find self-acceptance
We find others who make us feel normal
We make the best of what we didn’t choose.
Money won’t make you happy
But poverty will make you miserable
Struggling to survive is the worst
But excess is too much
The median is where we do best
People can’t make you happy
But loneliness will tear you down
We are hard wired for companionship
And, yet, can feel lonely in a crowd
We need those deep connections
Priveledge can’t bring happiness
Any more than being disenfranchised
Most of us carry some burden
We can try to see what we have
and acknowledge what we dont.
The lesson I learn, everyday,
Is happiness isn’t a destination
It’s bright moments on the journey
We can adjust our attitude
We can embrace fleeting moments
We can choose to recognize our happy
The grass is greenest where we water it.
I know you don’t understand
I’m not sure you ever will
This isn’t something you can teach
Because this isn’t teachable
I struggle even to explain
Your privaeledge is in the way
But i don’t hold that against you
No one wants this experience
No one chooses this reality
It is forced upon us unlucky
And there’s nothing fair about it
I’m sad my truth is in the way of us
I’m resigned to the distance it creates
But I’m also proud of myself
For being honest about my world
Even if that makes you uncomfortable.
You won’t understand
Because you can’t
And it hurts my heart
To know it
The sacrifices
I make for myself
Are the least I expect
From a partner
Seems so small to me
This simple expectation
It’s hard to understand
How you could refute it
But I see it’s undoable
A reality unreal
You can’t even imagine
Not in your realm
So much hope
A future unsung
Seperate truths
A sad ending
I wish you the best
I morn my loss
As we move on
Forever apart.
We remember the exception
Not the rule
Despite all the good things
And all the kind people
It’s the one asshole
That sticks in our memory.
Oh, you fickle flirt
You made me feel good
With your sexy words
But only in passing
My teenage reaction
To your digital visage
Left me wanting more
I want to eat you up
But I guess I’m too bold
Scaring away the skittish
With my forward demand
To see you in person
In this shallow pond
You may be a catfish
A sexy illusion
But my hunger is real
I’m not up for the game
Virtual affection can’t satisfy
Must have my cake
And eat it too
I suppose that’s my purpose
If you’re not bold enough
To stand beside me
Then best you run now.
There is no pine in me
I do not wait around
For the move of another
I surge forward
And fail where I may
Yearning seems futile
Why not ask the question
True answers dont falter
And I’d rather stand alone
Than not be wanted
There is little tact in me
I corageously blunder
Blurt out my intent
Let the awkward sprout
See what will bloom
Often I am rejected
This is a game of many losses
One you can’t win unless you play
So I keep failing
So I keep trying
I won’t know the answer
Without asking the question
I fear the silence
More than rejection
So in ask
Do you want me?
.
Mystery doesn’t do it for me
Fantasy and role play are so banal
You know what’s really rare?
The vulnerable truth
I never did get grown up games
Why we put on a mask
To capture a mate
It’s such a fruitless pursuit
Reality seeps in eventually
And there’s always a loser
When the one you want
Isn’t the one you have
You know what gets me wet?
When my parter opens up
When they show what’s real
When I see their exposed belly
There are a million reason
Two people might not match
Why make it harder
With lies and obfuscation
So…I’m gonna be the real me
And keep sorting through the fakers
Hoping to find a sweet and real guy
who’ll share his warm vulnerable heart.
Words hurt
Like thinly sliced wounds
Like a punch to the gut
Like an unexpected slap
It may be surface
My analogies of pain
But words wounds linger
They are slow to heal
I don’t deserve those words
The subtle little stabs
The mean biting jabs
The outright ridicule
I didn’t enter into
A loving relatinship
For the mean spirited banter
Who would make that a goal?
I want the sweet words
The kind expression
The gentle forgiving
The abject understanding
I am no one’s punching bag
I refuse to launder your frustration
I will not accept your ridicule
It’s not my job to suffer you
If that’s too much to ask
I cometely understand
I can move on
You can go to hell.
Social discomfort
Mixed with arrousal
Uncertain and akward
Primal courtship begins
Blood rushes downward
Depriving the brain
Flushing nether regions
Urging action
Desire pushes foward
Indecisive movements
Animalistic urges
Push past anxiety
Bodies combined
There is no thought
There is no worry
There is only us
Naked and spent
Aware of the pleaure
Satisfaction derrived
From not normal love.
I deserve to be loved
Publically and openly
I am no one’s secret
Refuse to be anyones shame
I deserve to be adored
Not because I’m the ideal
But because I openly adore
The people I love
I deserve to feel secure
To know I am not alone
Not to doubt I am wanted
Or to wonder where I stand
I dont deserve to be compared
To someone that came before
Or to an ideal that doesn’t exist
There is no one like me
Maybe I’m not perfect
Maybe we are not perfect
Maybe I want us to be happy
With our imperfect together
I deserve to be the one
Because I AM the one right now
There won’t be better
Until I’m gone.
Girls are taught to yearn for a prince
A man to sweep us off our feet
To take us to their priveledged world
I overheard this priveledged man
Argue against government assistance
Argue that poverty is a personality deficit
I listened as he dismissed the poor
As his friends agreed on our lesser worth
I felt impotent in the reality of this prince
My girlish fantasies cracked
Shatter like a looking glass
Under the weight of his words
I’m of the impoverished masses
A pesant born and bred
And I refuse to be seen as lesser
My mundane troubles define me
I can’t imagine loving someone
That doesnt understand the same
And, let me not forget,
I’m a woman of feminist ideology
Who isnt looking to be rescued
Reality is a harsh mistress
It doesn’t alow us childish games
It took away my fantasy
Fuck the prince and his worldview
I don’t need shelter or rescue
…even if I idly miss the idea of it.
Dry humping on my bed
Mom’s in the next room
This memory flashes
In a meeting at work
I fit around you like a glove
Tight and warm and eager
I’m desperate for your touch
At the most inappropriate times
We’re full grown
You might even say old
But I feel like a hormonal teen
The moment we’re alone
On my drive to work
I smile like the Cheshire cat
Images of the night before
Make me wet and squirm
Can’t wait to see you again
Your smell, your taste, your touch
They haunt me deliciously
I lust after my sexy boy
Distracting me at work
Inspiring me when we’re apart
You make me feel like a teenager
I can’t wait for the next episode.
“You try so hard to be liked”
I’ve heard this before
A passing observation
Usually given without mallace
But with an undertone of judgement
Translation: “Stop carring what others think”
The funny thing is I don’t
I expect that people don’t like me
I’m a wierd girl in a nomalized world
I don’t have a problem with liking myself
But I’m realistic about others perception
From an early age I was loved
Mother reinforced my self-worth
I am priveledged with self-esteem
My self-love is close to narcissism
How is it that people don’t see that?
I think what they see is that I’m nice
They hear me passing love around
Because love is easy for me
I’m not looking for external self worth
I’m looking for external acceptance
Does this mean I care what others think?
Of course! Who doesnt! I’m curious.
Does this mean I will change for others?
Not for strangers. Not for aquaintaces.
But relationships require compromise
I care what the people I love think
I want to know they accept me
I don’t want to do things that hurt them
And I can change minor parts of myself
I’m open to conpromise and negotiation
I suppose some of what I do
Is try to give external self worth
Which is kinda silly, I know
I can’t make someone love themself
If you must judge, aim for this futility
Dont mistake me, I dont I like everyone
I’m choosy about who I share myself with
I don’t think everyone can be my friend
I don’t WANT that many friends
I just want the people I love to feel loved
I smile at at strangers so they’ll smile
But I don’t waste more than a smile
I consider my attention valuable
Investement of my true self is rare
I “try hard” with the ones I “truly love.”
Some wounds stay with us
We carry them around
Covered by scar tissue
To show the battles survived
Sometimes those scars ache
Touch the skin near and we cry
Seems like we’ll never stop hurting
But time makes scars shrink
The pain is less intense
The longer we survive
Sometimes a loving touch
Can inflame the scar
Even worse than a bump or slap
But if we can push through the pain
If we can focus on the caress
Joy can speed our healing.
If the feeling is there
You don’t have to wait
There is no learning
It either is or it isn’t
I’m nobody’s placeholder
I value myself too much
To cling to something that isn’t
Done there, been that
I will work on us
When the work is not alone
But I won’t adapt
when I’m the only one
You could be my king
I’d make you feel loved
Appreciate you everyday
If you’d do the same for me
One sided love
Is never gonna work
The song sings true
No more explination needed.
You’ve infected my brain
A sickness I court
I feel my tempature rise
A pleasurable delirium
Flashbacks of our intimacy
Strike me in mundane moments
Is this fantasy my reality?
Is this love my hallucination?
I care little of my condition
The symptoms become comfort
When we are apart
You are within me
Passing time
Awaiting my next exposure
There is no remission
I wish no cure.
A single point
Focus severe
Tension immense
Feelings so dear
Twisted up
urging release
Wanton abandon
Falling deep
Paralized
Sinking slowly
Still acceptance
Accepting defeat
This is love
I hate it.
You are on me
Lingering in me
A delectable ache
A muscle memory
Nerves echoing
Vibrating aftershock
The faults of my body
Still in a quake
My nose knows
Our skin infused
Your scent and mine
An aura lingering
The rich flavor of us
Desert of pleasure
The taste and texture
fresh in my mind
I feel addicted
Yearning for a fix
Your sex is my drug
I’m a junkie for you love.
I crave you
Soft cream of your skin
Against my eager fingertips
Rough prickle of your scruff
Tickling my tender skin
Gentle weight of your body
Hovering above mine
Firm seek of your cock
Traveling to my warm core
Suddenly you are everything
Thrusting, pounding, encompasing
There is only feel
Our sex is estatic
I am wet at the thought
And yearn for the reality
I crave you.
I do not smell
At least not well
My olfactory sense
Is impeded
My nose is inert
It doesn’t work
Unless the stink
Is quite pungent
It tickles and twitches
When the air is dusted
It drips dew drops
A trail of clear snot
I do not smell
This noses impaired
A failed organ
Sitten on my noggin.
Bake me a man
A kind gentle soul
Who doesn’t depend
On what the rest know
Spin me a lady
A sweet gentle soul
That sees deep into me
Feels what I know
So much education
Priveledge of health
How they miss me
Blinded by themself
Dr. Doctor
Listens selectively
Sees only the obvious
Compartmentalizes neatly
Science knows what it knows
I don’t doubt the facts
But in practice science isn’t caring
only a person can do that
Maybe I need more than a doctor
Maybe I need someone to hear
Maybe I want someone to trust
To share this unhealth I bear.
Boys call us crazy
Men doubt our veracity
Doctors send us to therapy
Secretly, they think we lie
Ever evolving emotions
Taken as inconcistancy
We must not know ourselves
If our feelings can change
Ladies don’t challenge the norm
Don’t question the authority
They think they know us better
Than we know ourselves
So I don’t trust them
Because I trust myself
If this is my hysteria
I define it, I defy them.
I don’t need to be saved
I refuse to serve
If I had my way
I’d stand beside
Raised by women
I know feminine power
Didn’t realize the divide
Until I dated men
I am not a concubine
Or a doting mother
But I am feminine
A confident woman
We can save each other
We can take turns as slave
Let love reflect respect
Let man be equal with woman.
Sure, I have a type
Short busty brunet girls
Tall lanky blond boys
But the ones I want
don’t want me
Im not a pretty girl
I don’t excel socially
Not slutty enough
To have indiscriminate sex
Not moral enough
To bow down in submission
But, you know,
Attraction isn’t neccisary
For sex or companionship
You don’t have to be pretty
To feel comfort, to feel pleasure
You just need someone that cares
I dream of a comforting relationship
With someone I share interests
And can talk to freely
I dream of someone
Loving who I am
Not what they see
One sided love makes me crazy
Literally mentally unstable
I’d rather skip the crazy
And wish for peace instead
There is no win
No approval to be had
So often you’re wrong
Which you rarely admit
I think this is about you
You’re mad at yourself
And I’m just present
For your rampant disapproval
Why do I care?
You’re anger is so silly
So useless in its purpose
It’s not like it improves you
Except I am present
And aware of your ire
I feel it infect those around me
I feel it infect myself
The discomfort you spread
Is so fickle and unfair
I didn’t earn it
I don’t deserve it
I try not to engage
Duck my head once again
Make the best of things
Until I have other options.
Inertia has me in its grip
So many things I could do
Yet none of them done
I wonder if I sleep all day
Will my longing run away
Or will I continue to hunger
Something has to be done
Removing myself from listless
Make of myself something useful
Give me a moment
And I’ll get up
I tell myself
Yeah…right.
Elizebeth Turnquist 