nothing refined

he/him butch boydyke lover, wannabe farmer, poet

[spookysockhop]

if you send your ex a picture of a t shirt in goodwill,

he's going to ask you how youre doing.

if you tell your ex how you're doing-

he's going to want to give you a bonsai tree

and if you let him give you a bonsai tree, you're going to have to meet up with him at some point,

so you may as well grab dinner and talk face to face instead of over text.

but if you look each other in the eye you're going to have to step outside for a cigarette, and it's so damn cold outside that you go sit in your car,

and if the engine is already running, you may as well go for a drive-

and when you make it back to that spot by the train tracks with a sled in your trunk and the rolling hills of the neighbor's cattle pasture,

you're going to want to hop the barbed wire fence and slide down the iced over hills.

and when you do a bad job of pushing him through the grass, laughing and tumbling, you'll slip and fall into him and when you inevitably end up looking down

he'll look up at you with those big green eyes and grab your collar and ask you to "remind me again why we don't work?"

there are a million reasons why, and you know them all inside and out. it's never enough.

[bigshandsomelesbian]

Ways of looking at my Honda Odyssey

Front side: 

She has a paint chip missing on her top 

And a crack in her windshield.

The windshield wipers hardly work anymore,

And there is plastic that drags underneath.

Past:

Grandma pulls into the driveway after daddy pulls out.

“I’m taking you home”

Right side:

Gas gets put in on this side.

After school:

Grandpa is driving,

The children beg for ice cream

The children get their ice cream.

Left side:

Mother once almost got run over 

by a bison. She jumped back in the car

Let the automatic door close

And grandma drove mother,

The children,

And grandpa,

Away.

Back side:

Bumper stickers line the car 

of the places she’s been. 

Now:

I drive my Honda Odyssey across the country

To see a massive, beautiful,

Hole in the ground.

Inside:

There’s stars drawn on the ceiling

From when I was little,

And the ones I put up just

The other day.

I am small

I am big

I halfway live

In my Honda Odyssey.

[bigshandsomelesbian]

Joy is a green thing

It’s a thing of groggy summer days by the lake–

Mosquito bites – water in your nose

And the green, it spreads–

It marches its way

into your bones–

Green things are beetles

That crawl through your skin

Its little nymphs overtake you–

[bigshandsomelesbian]

sweet yellow candy

in the yellow room over the static

i used to tell you bedtime stories 

until you didn’t talk anymore and 

all i could hear was your breathing, 

soft on the other end of the line 

i told you about birds and cows and the hippopotamus 

i told you about the sweet things we knew together 

in the park i told you about the adventures we would one day have

and in the car i told you about our children — just twinkles in our eye

and all the sweet things existed in those talks 

even if we can’t have them now 

we cherished those sweet things like candy 

and i hope they never quite turn sour

[bigshandsomelesbian]

On Butch Love

You ever seen butch love?

Butch love is contrary;

flowers and body hair 

and b.o. and 

longing stares—

and butch love is gracious;

it gives time to think to

cry to be 

                 or not to—

and butch love is kind;

it’s dinners at night

chewy mac and cheese bites

and fritters (store bought)—

and butch love is soft;

it’s cushy bellies and soft backs

tracking freckles and 

forgetting what one lacks—

Butch love is curious;

it is watching for lightning and stars

knowing the names of constellations

Picking out mars-- 

and butch love is gentle;

it carries you up and away 

with big, strong arms and a place 

you call safe—

So I ask you this:

How could one forsake

Butch love?

[bigshandsomelesbian]

Expert from an essay I wrote:

Fanon says that revolution, “Cannot come as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding,” (36) which is close to something a director might say about an upcoming performance. The act of putting on a play is an active process, one of coordination, frustration, and love. Plays require resilience and community. What else are these things that are required by the performance of a play, other than acts of protest and resistance to a world that wants us to forget our neighbors and our cultures. Fanon describes revolution as, “A program of complete disorder,” (36) and for people who have been behind the scenes of a play, they will know that the art of theater is exactly that.

[thatgarden]

You know what, despite the horrors, at least there's still butches.

[bigshandsomelesbian]

the way a butch does

i wish i mourned my hair the way a woman does,

but instead i find myself

the night after

losing my golden locs

lifting my lovers chin

watching their body spread out

and starting the nights work.

[bigshandsomelesbian]

"i want to see the gray volvo dog"

oh lover how i wish i could have shown you.

I wrote down the quick snip of gray volvo, dog because when i saw it I could imagine you in my passenger seat wide eyed and grinning at the car that's a different, duller color than yours with a big dog in the back. Standing up. Gazing out.

i never did get around to writing you much about that scene, but i think the email about the cowgods made up for it

[bigshandsomelesbian]

my lover and i agreed that we weren't going to do much of anything special for valentines day. We were both working all weekend, and knew that, and knew we needed the money. It's a consumerist holiday anyways.

My dad called me the night before, Thursday, the 13th. On the 25th he's probably going to prison. He's never done that before. He believes he's innocent. Maybe, in a way, he is.

I didn't sleep. My lover held me through the night.