Dad, were you wondering how I got here? How I went from that tree-climbing skinned-knee ragamuffin girl to this prettyboy? … I never was your tomboy daughter, never got in fights with the boys in the neighborhood, never stood up to the bullies of my younger sisters. I was the artistic one, moody, on my own. Studying my peers as we metamorphosed into our adult bodies.

She never leaves my side at parties. People come up to talk to me or her or both of us and she has impeccable control over the conversation, a complex harmony of our varied voices with a beautiful baseline that she keeps with her heartbeat. She knows when and how to release us from a topic or person. She does most of the talking. I listen. I like it that way.

She leans in to give me a peck on the cheek near my ear and whispers, “I’m watching the clock. We’re leaving in thirty minutes so you can take me home and fuck me.”

On October 6th, 1998, Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming, beaten, and left for dead - because he was gay. He was taken to a nearby trauma hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, and died on October 12th.
I lived in Fort Collins at the time. I was not out, I was living [...]

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What’s in your box of darkness?
[ Leave a comment, or write it up on your own blog & leave a link. ]

The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me a
box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
Mary Oliver
from Thirst

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If I could speak with my own voice _______________________

[ Since y'all seemed to like that last one, here's another writing prompt for you. Leave a comment here or put it on your own blog & leave a link.]

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Thanks for all the comments & requests on the whispers, after poem - I’m glad to provide the audio of me reading the piece. Download it here: whispers, after mp3.
I’m most definitely not a recording engineer, and I get pretty impatient with the edits, so it’s messier than I’d like it to be. But I’m [...]