bulldyke

i was at a lesbian reading.

i wasn't a lesbian but I thought maybe I could be,

given the right lesbian;

the right pair of tits,

the right ass.

there were six in all,

the majority femme:

long hair, lipstick,

tight t-shirts with muscle cars and dinosaurs printed across the chests.

and while they read

i stared at them:

at their red mouths and tits,

their mustangs and t-rexes.

i thought about fucking them

and them fucking me.

i thought about falling in love,

about dildoing someone other than myself

on a regular basis;

about how that might feel.

fourth up was a big bulldyke,

short with buzzed hair,

jeans and a white tank top.

she had five or six poems

written in longhand on lined paper.

she took a deep breath

and we moved to the edges of our seats.

this dyke had something to tell us

and we wanted to be able to hear.

she started out with a bang;

a poem about fucking some femme bitch

in a hotel room in vegas

an hour after meeting her;

about being introduced

to the femme bitch's stripper ex-girlfriend

and fucking her too.

it was good; she was good:

loud and commanding,

unapologetic and real,

the way I liked poets,

the way I liked people;

the opposite of phony,

the opposite of me and you.

she read a couple more,

about fucking femmes and transes,

about being a bulldyke

and a woman,

and I thought,

what a life!

to be fucking all those women;

eating their pussies,

fingering their cunts.

there was a romance to her poetry,

to the lifestyle it depicted.

and listening to her rap about it,

about the seedy motels and nine-inch strap-ons and women who loved women,

made me want to find a little piece of it myself;

the way reading the beats had once made me want to

shoot smack and hitchhike across america,

the way reading bukowski makes me wish

i had a dick.

the last one she read set a different tone:

quieter and less humorous,

agonizingly vulnerable

and raw;

it talked about relationships:

making them work,

allowing them to fail.

and I found myself thinking of you:

you in our aftermath,

you with your dick in your hand,

and my eyes became perfect, little wells.

i thought of her strengths

(and by contrast: your weaknesses);

they were already apparent,

in the words she chose

and the way she chose to say them,

in the manner in which she looked at me:

unflinching, without regret.

i watched her and thought of you—

your lost chances, your failings,

your limp dick and afraid heart,

and it became obvious

that this woman could love me the way you never will:

fearlessly, unapologetically, without shame or remorse or guilt;

that she would fuck me the way you have so far refused to:

unselfconsciously, ruthlessly, without hesitation,

like a man, like a philistine,

like bukowski himself,

like a big bulldyke.

and I would welcome her fist,

her nine-inch, plastic cock,

her willingness to hurt me,

and her indifference to being hurt.

i would welcome it all,

if it would stop me from thinking of you,

for twenty-four seconds or two and a half hours,

if I thought it would make a difference,

if anything could.