She used to get a kind of
crazy look in her eyes when I dolled up with
burgundy lipstick, chunky black boots
pants riding low around the hips of my bare skin
with a cross round the ring on the lip of my navel
pointing like a neon sign straight down towards my pantiless pussy
there was a clear switch
when love and appreciation turned into
the creepy ogling of my grandfather
or los vatos que me llamaban
that would cruise by me slowly
playing the oldies loud in their low riders
that jerked low and high like some kind of weird mechanical fuck machine
She never understood why I’d pull away then
after spending an hour or more to get the perfect San Francisco fem-butch don’t you wanna fuck me look
And I couldn’t figure out how
after waiting 30 damn years to love a woman
I was
One More Fucking Time,
relegated to the back seat like some cheap ass Southern California
love me from the outside chick ‘cause there ain’t nothing going on inside
this head
this heart
this hollow called a soul
I didn’t understand then
how I gave her the same power I had given
All
Those
Men
and made less of myself so that she would
love me
want me
make me feel like I had purpose for being
because of what lay between my legs.
And now,
skirting round the edges of 37
I know the Difference between loving
a man
and a woman
ain’t nothing until
I
make it sumthin
© Sabrina Santa Clara, 2001
First published in Inspiration for LGBT Students and Their Allies, ed. Anthony J. D’Angelo (2002), pp. 94–95.