An ode to the women I could have been:

The lawyer wears good suits and shaves her legs twice a week. The last time she was outside for more than twenty minutes was last March but I envy her collection of high tech sex toys on her bedside table.
The festival goer has done acid twice and pays for her hobbies by selling tarot readings. She feeds herself with her parents' money and she's not sure what's next.
The one who went to grad school to study classics hasn't worn shoes or a bra since high school. She can quote the entire first act of dante's inferno but she prefers the purgatorio. She creates colorful fantasty worlds in her head but her thesis always feels dry and emotionless. Her grand parents are rather proud of her.
The farmer gives the best advice. Her back is twisted and she doesn't remember the last time her muscles didn't ache. She hosts a monthly story telling event in her small community. She falls asleep as soon as she lies down in bed.

The one who went on birthright is still in Europe. She au pairs with a family in France and hasn't been back to America since Trump got elected. She cries when it rains and she loves to dress up and go out clubbing. 

The one who stayed in her home town lives with her two best friends. She spends a lot of time staring out the windows and she never learned to dance but she hosts themed dinner parties. 

I wonder if I could learn how to live from them, or how not to live. Eighty years, one hundred years, seems so short; not long enough to fit all their lives into mine. Not long enough to fall in love, to lose my keys, to study, to write, to make art, to stare out into the rain and cry. Not long enough to visit Europe, return to my home town, hitch hike cross country, live in a big hippie house with all my friends and lovers, go broke, get rich and do it all again.

I never knew them but I miss them in the quiet seconds. And I love them. I hope they love me too.

A haiku for those who manspread on the subway:

Close your fucking legs
You inconsiderate ass
Think of someone else

Written while mastrubating

“Im not sure I want to be with you. I just want to fuck you.”

She murmurs in his ear.

Because tonight she’s the queen of the fucking nile and men are lining up to look into her coal lined eyes for just an instant and what’s the harm of a few casual lays?

Because when she unrolled the carpet at Ceasar’s feet he got on his knees and begged her for mercy.

She didn’t ask him to invade Troy for her

Just asked for a few minutes of pleasurable respite

Because if she were goddess born,

Doesn’t that make her fucking holy too?

She just wanted to get laid, she never meant to bring Troy to the ground.

She wanted to grab fistfulls of pomegranate seeds and let the juice drip down her chin.

She wanted to rip the apple off the tree and devour it seeds and all.

As it says on the battle march from the subway to my office,

“God < Cum”

If I were a goddess

What would you leave at my shrine?
Leave ticket stubs from trains you missed and just passed test scores. Line my temple with used up lipstick tubes and pens you stole from somewhere; you can no longer remember where. If I were a goddess you would leave the goofy condoms at my shrine. The ones with the pictures of endangered species that say things like "Fumbling in the dark?/ Think of the monarch." Leave keys you found in the street and uncompleted to do lists.
Leave not quite used up metro cards and not quite enough canadian money to make the exchange worthwhile. You would place pretty gold pins
In my temple, the air would smell of bitter citrus from all the orange peels you would leave in offering. And instead of incense you would burn hope and let the smoke waft up to the domed ceiling.
If I were a goddess people my temples would be small. Just one of those little things sandwiched in between rows of tenement housing. But in the winter there would always be a wood fire burning and somehow the light of the day would shine in, summer and winter, through the cracked windows patched with duct tape.

My temples would be bus stops and rail stations and street carts. 

And sometimes in my temples you would be visited by drag queens and grandmothers. Librarians and teachers and farmers. Sex workers and artists and poets and migrant folk. Pay attention to these visits. You have been blessed by a manifestation of my spirit, in a form purer than me.
You would leave bits of yourself, or other people. They would be a torn photograph or a page from a diary. You would leave green things and growing things. Arugula, nasturtium, bean sprouts would grow in a menagerie of pots and jars around my shrine. Tree of heaven would surge to life from the cracks in the sidewalk outside and virginia creeper would caress the walls and ceiling. 
My shrine would have no place for sickly looking orchids or delicate bonsai trees but bunches of rugged kale would curl up in odd corners and in the summer stray sprigs of goldenrod would litter the open floor. 
You would leave your lost and my shrine and you would leave your found at my shrine. You would lament, weep, and fall in love. You would sing loud songs of abandon in worship and you would fuck for the pleasure of it and that would be sacred. You would bring the smiles of the cashier and the homeless man playing guitar on the f train and you would leave the grief you felt when your first true love left you. And you would take my love.
When you leave my temple in worship, pockets empty, heart full, my love would walk you home. 

Sad song

I cried that night, like I haven't cried
In years, contorted around my grief
To shield it from the jagged shadows
And cruel world, but I couldn't find relief.
There were no more words to wring out of our
Over tread conversations. For all my
Guile I couldn't find a way to tell you
I no longer loved you. I just cried
Until my tears were an ocean on the
Gray carpet and I tried to float away.
That night there was no light, no color, no
Respite. I suffered until dawn came and into the day.

Edit: I realize this is post #100! That's pretty cool. I'm pretty impressed with myself.

My heart belongs to another

And other things I wish people would stop saying to me:

"Not all men"
"All media is biased"
"We're looking for a fun girl to complete out triad"
"Im not a racist"
"I'm not racist but . . ."
"Is it your time of the month?"
"It's just how they were raised."
"That book is just a product of its time."
"They isn't a single use pronoun."
"Don't get hysterical."
"You're just being emotional"
"Let's be rational here."
"Being poly would make *me* miserable but I'm glad it works for you."
"You look so pretty when you smile. "
"I just shave because I like how my legs feel against clean sheets."
"I feel hurt when you generalize about white men. "
"When you generalize about white men, you're being racist."
"Affirmative action is racist."
"I can't be a feminist because I don't hate men."
"Why do you hate men?"
"There are only two genders."
"Young people today are just confused. "
"You date men? I thought you were gay."
"Why are you on birth control? I thought you were gay."
"Aren't you gay?"
"Aren't you straight?"
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Not everything is about politics, you know."
"I try not to get involved in politics"

Unsettled

Do you know the feeling in the pit
Of your stomach? You named it dread and
It made it's home among the un-
Digested bits of last nights dinner.
It hammered at your ribcage and
Twisted your intestines into some
Sailor knots you wish you knew how to
Tie. Do you remember how your feet
Could never seem to quite find a
Solid place on the ground and when a
Chipmunk rustled the bushes you would
Jump sideways, skittish and thinking of
Snakes, your eyes wide and your racing
Up your throat. Dread and you were always
Close, each whispering secrets to the
Other in your too small house, trying
To be heard over angry shouts. Dread
Walked you home when on one was there
To pick you up from the train and kept
Watch over your shoulder to make sure
No one followed you home. Sometimes dread
Is the most familiar face at
The party, more of a friend than a fear.