Magpie Poem

magpie,
magpie, they call me in the morning
catching and keeping as more than catch can
building a nest for no one in particular
and when they pass they ask
“who ya craftin that fine looking basket fo’”
that’s what they say
and I say
say
“fo my damn self, now move on toothless grin man”
sweat pouring while I’m building and tacking and painting and nailing nailing nailing
MY muthafuckin sweat
ya no count bum
in my head and out loud
but I don’t mean it
when I say it out loud
but really
I am building a house for me and no one in particular
I steal the pages books for warmth because the house is made just of spit
sweat
mine for sure
the fluids are rich and mostly my own
dripping like ichor down my chin and into my very own nest
hardening until it looks like something
and I’d like to see you try to unstuck it from the place I got it fixed in
just try to pry off what I done
ya been gone so long
and now have come to pull loose what I done
in the name of something bigger
a nest that hangs like a placenta over water
made of things I passed while flying over
and I will never eat quick when I share with friends
because I will know that there will be enough
I paid for my abundance in spit, and sweat and other sturdy waters and potions that I’ve been oozing by my lonesome
and you just jealous cuz you couldn’t quell the flow,
Ms. No One In Particular
I have sacrificed the 7 years of bad luck to get my place pimped out with flecks of mirror
and in the cracking and tearing of unintentionally filleted copper flesh
added my own blood to the mortor that keeps my home standing
firm
if unhappy
fixed and reliable
if sagging

skanky slutty femmes unite and take over!

and now for the real post…

i changed the name because i am realizing more and more as i understand my own gender better that one of the first thing that people notice about me is how little clothing i wear on a day to day basis. it is interesting that queer groups don’t often view that as a target of gender policing. not in the old fashioned, tired as hell, played out line “men can take off their shirts in public, mom, why can’t i do it too.” although i think that is a part of the story.

i am currently at my job, ya know, the library. stacking, shelfing, bitching and moaning being the majority of my goals for the position, it is good that i am usually alone during my shifts. well accept for cracked out div III’s and the dreaded imposition of the mid spring tour group.

tour groups are the bane of my existence! imagine a loose semi-circle of aging hippies mulling around stupidly with their over eager spawn touching everything in sight and speaking at the top of their lungs in a place that they are wholly unfamiliar with. as though this sight were not magical enough, there is a somewhat disinterested college student at the helm of the mob lying through their teeth about hampshire’s illustrious amenities.

today as some of my ankle biting future peers meandered past in confusion, two of the above mentioned aging hippies and one of their crazy Birkenstock wearing, patchouli bath taking, menstrual blood painting kids stopped behind the column in front of the desk. in what they assumed *incorrectly* was a whisper they said “the librarian is wearing a belly shirt, what a skank.” now, i could have proceeded to a.) layeth the smack down on their candy ass for talking shit their carter era politics would not back up. b.) gracefully told them to shut the fuck up because they were in a library, imbeciles! c.) cried softly to myself and create a desire to change the offending article of clothing. or d.) written about their idiocy in my own femmity femme blog.

i chose options b.) and d.) as all of those who know me understand i would have.

ever since i was littler i have been called nympho, slut, whore, fast and easy. i have coded these insults in tons of different ways because of my past *see archived posts for more info if necessary* the father of an ex once said that i looked like a hooker (wouldn’t be a insult, except that he said it as one), and used it to justify the reason that i was racially profiled in a restaurant. everyday people use my skimpy clothing to justify to touch my body inappropriately, feeling my exposed thighs most regularly. when i walk out of my house someone invariably tells me to go back in the house and put on more clothes. one could ask (and some have asked) why i don’t just dress differently, or assume that i do so because i seek the sexual attention of others (which i think is the reason that most people dress the way they do, who in the hell wakes up in the morning and looks in their closed like “ what should i wear so that absolutely no one wants to fuck me?”) and if they do, they need a self esteem implant.

i choose not to dress differently because part of the way that i see my gender is tied with sluttyness and skanktivity. part of transgressing normativity in femininity is challenging arbitrary rules about the amount of clothing needed in order to be respectable or worst even the new way to say “better than you” empowered. i’m smart, most people who know me know that, so why in the fuck can’t i quote plato in booty shorts? who decided that i couldn’t and why should i listen to that dumbass?

so, slutty skanky femmes unite! let our ample thighs and happy round bellies hang out over our tiny shorts. show our hairy armpits in a tube top, enjoy your body and your life, but white Christ, quit being such a prude.

back, furreal this time.

ok, so i changed the name of ze blog as i’m sure you can see. as we all know, summer is a very special time in the life of the compulsive perfectionist college grrrl. a time where there is well…time, time to read things that weren’t written by prune faced dead white men, a time to tan ( or burn, depending on the day) in the hot hot sun, and most importantly, a time to continue writing in my beloved, although neglected, blog. i miss blogging, particularly because it’s a really great time to focus my thoughts and think about the idea of wit. so, i’m back and shit, so read my fuckin blog, mmkay?

bronze

most of the time
when I try to tell you the small things
the words leap from my lips too soon,
suicidal in their quickness
and as I see them drop
off of some precipice unforeseen
I recognize that they are as stunned as I am
particularly
at the moment of impact with the ground