Saturday, June 23, 2012

Beauty Marks


She’s wearing that little black dress
You said she looked so beautiful in
Though she never believed you then

She examines her body in the mirror
Bruises all over her arms; a scraped knee
She’s a mangled tigress
In a sea of picture perfect kittens
Wearing fancy party dresses
Their little bodies in tact

She doesn’t wear shoes
She can’t run in at any given moment
She examines oceans of flawlessness
Only to stare at the scar beneath her chin
The motorcycle burn on her shin
She’s earned every single stripe

She consoles herself; licking wounds
‘cause domestication’s for the tame
She always colors outside the frame
She’s learned to scan every room
For any movement resembling her own

Still she’s only met a couple with that wilderness
A few with a will too strong to harness
Like her, they’re hard to hold onto
Disappearing when the night wind blows
Endangered species learn to be unreliable
A heavy adaptation to ensure their survival

So she stalks her loneliness
Balks at the emptiness
Learns to sit still in the darkness
She seeks a hunter
Someone of her kind
Not to tame her
Not to maim her
Not to capture or contain
But maybe to see the beauty
Outside the frame

For now in her little black dress
Waiting for the night’s wind to move her
Finally believing she too, is beautiful
Through the scars and the marks
Each indicating from where she came from
And how far she’s come

After all,
Her hunter will know her
By her stripes

Thursday, June 21, 2012

We Found Love in a Hopeless Place...


I was out with some friends hitting up various nighttime establishments.  At the end of the night, I wound up at this upscale lounge; the type that has bottle service and the women’s skirts barely cover their behind wearing shoes they can barely walk in not to mention dance in.  Not my type of joint, generally speaking, but a kind stranger handed my friend and I a vodka cranberry each as we walked in so we thought we’d go with the flow and make the best of it.


That is until I went into the restroom and overheard the conversation.  Some young woman was discussing getting her third boob job and I looked at the bathroom attendant and whispered into her ear: “I’m so sorry you have to listen to this bullshit all night.”  She chuckled and I went back upstairs.

I found my friend and then the exit and as I am waiting for a cab the bathroom attendant comes out and she thanked me for what I said; that it was hard to hear these women complain about their lives sometimes and that her best friend just lost a baby yesterday and that she was just so tired…

All I could do was hug a stranger on some street corner at 2:30 a.m. as my only reply. 

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Chicago Project: Biking Naked


Ah, Saturdays in the summer.  How I love you.  This summer I’ve been keeping my weekends as clear as possible if only to fully enjoy the freedom of the moment.

This past Saturday I enjoyed what some might say is ultimate liberation – baring it all in public.  After letting the wind blow me from Pilsen to Ukranian Village and then to Edgewater Beach I biked back to the West Loop to participate in the best bike ride of my life…naked.

Okay…okay…so I wasn’t completely nude, but close enough.  I also wasn’t alone; there were hundreds of us and possibly a thousand closing down the streets downtown biking naked.  It was thrilling, scary and absolutely joyful to see people’s reactions to us biking down in the buff.

Things I loved:
  • All the body positivity surrounding the event – participants weren’t there to judge your body – you felt accepted no matter what you looked like
  • So many different people from various walks of life: old people, young people, big people, small people, black people, brown people, yellow people, tattooed people, white people…just wow. 
  • “Less gas; more ass!” chants (even though I feel so crude swearing in chants so I obstained from actually chanting the word “ass” in public)
  • Feeling my bare skin against the night wind
  • All the body paint, creative masks, costumes and boomboxes attached to bikes

Things I didn’t like:
  • When a guy strikes up a conversation with you by saying “nice bike,” you’re not really sure that he’s looking at your bike…
  • All the people on the streets taking photos.  I almost yelled at them to just experience the moment with us rather than constantly try to capure it, but I didn’t.  It must have been the lack of liquor in my body.

So I was a little shy about taking my clothes off at first and biked a little less than half the ride with my tank top still on until a beautiful burlesque boy starting talking to me as we biked together.   “You should take it off,” he said.  “Really?  I dunno…”  “Yeah, you’ll feel so free and good, just do it.”

I did do it. I removed my tank top and revelled in the moment.  If my mother could only see me now (nope, she just gets to read about it) :)

I laughed a lot, smiled at people and felt so much joy at being the highlight of so many people’s  crazy weekend stories.  I wasn’t going to go home to call my friends to say, “You’ll never guess what I saw today!”  No I was going to tell them: “You’ll never guess what I did today!”

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Poetry to read to your lovers

You can thank me later. ;)


I don’t want to seduce you
I want to love you
I want to fill you with me
As though you were the pages of my journal
I want to draw my poetry
All over your skin
I want to spend my nights
Breathing you in
I want to fall asleep
In the crevice between
Where heart and clavicle meet
I want to sing you all day long
Feel your skin touching mine
From dusk until dawn
I want to kiss you until
We are 4 sore lips
Hearts pounding; minds asking
“is there anything
better
than
this?”
I want to love you so completely
That every other woman you meet on the street
Could never hold a light to me
Sweep you into a whirlwind romance
I will be the gentlest tornado you’ve ever seen
Lifting you 40 feet off the ground
While you look me in the eye
Never noticing your distance from the earth
Our dance a weightless one
I will love ALL of you
Graze my lips over your scars
Know the darkness in your heart
I promise I’m strong enough
To keep you safe and sound
On the earth or 80 feet above the ground
I do not fear space or time
So long as you know
That you’re mine
When the fiercest winds blow
I’ll let you look up my skirt
I will make your heart flutter
Pure joyfulness at each batting of the butterfly’s wings
I want to explore you
My never-ending labyrinth
I’d stop and smell the flowers
I wouldn’t jump at shadows
Because no, I don’t want to seduce you
I want to love you
God please give me the wisdom
To know the difference