Haiku

Free Verse

Prosies

If you like me,
you'll like them too:
Annalisa
Bitter Girl
Dooce
Feministe
Green Fairy
Jay
Jeanette Winterson
Jen Langley
Maganda
Sooz
Zeldman

This time of year sews my mouth shut. The light comes down. The light stays down. The woman rolls over in her bed, begging for another hour of sleep.

She is despondent. She is looking for work. She tries not to worry.

She makes onion griddle cakes for dinner, because she cannot afford to buy meat or fresh vegetables. And she is sick of salmon patties.

Snap out of it, Frances.

Am I poor or not? Poor in spirit? No. Poor in bank account? Yes. No layer of fat/butter/porkflesh between me and my overdraft. I am living on faith, hope, and the promise of tomorrow.

I am partnerless. But not friendless. Not loveless. I have clothes on my back, a full tank of gas. I have marketable skills. I have a computer that works. I have heat.

My cell phone service may be temporarily suspended, but the cable modem and the land line still work.

There are two pieces of media I wish to share with you today. The first is about meat. You will need audio capabilities, Flash, and a familiarity with the movie "The Matrix" in order for it to make any sense:

http://www.themeatrix.com

The second piece of media I wish to share with you is an article in the Boston Globe:

SJC: Gay Marriage Legal in Mass

The Supreme Judicial Court today became the nation's first state supreme court to rule that same-sex couples have the legal right to marry.

Please note, however, that the SJC did not, in fact, award marriage licenses to the seven gay couples who sued for the right to have their marriages legally recognized.

There were 41 pages of reader responses to the ruling. While many of them read like so:

Hooray! Welcome to the 21st century, Massachussetts. Today I'm actually proud of my home state, and it's progressive views. But what do you expect from the same people who fought & died for principles like "Separation of Church and State". It's unfortunate that it's taken this long to realize that a religious doctrine should not be endorsed or enforced by our government. But I'm optimistic that other states, and eventually the Fed, will recognize this too.
—Gene , West Newbury, MA

or this:

It's about time! As a former employee of MA-based Lotus Development Corp., the first publicly traded company to offer medical benefits to same-sex couples under CEO, Jim Manzi's direction 7 years ago, I'm proud to be part of another first --a resident of the first state to say that a ban on gay marriage is unconstituional. Let's hope the MA Legislature can come up with an equally courageous solution and allow same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses. All couples deserve to share the same rights that my husband and I do. I can't imagine being denied access to him under medical conditions, etc. just because we couldn't get a piece of paper delaring us "legal". Committment goes far beyond that but if the law says the piece of paper is necessary then every couple should be able to get one.
—Pamela, Gloucester

Many of them also read like so:

Yet another gross embarassment for the normal core population of the state. The bleeding liberal element in this state is spreading like a virus and herein lies a disgraceful result of that. The rest of the country has a pathetic enough view of Massachusetts for good reason. The worst part is what are poor kids are being exposed to through all of this.....................................
—Stan, Wellesley

I guess now instead of swearing upon a Bible to uphold their committment to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, they will simply hold up a rainbow flag and skip to the tune of We Don't Have Morals and We Don't Care About Decency!!! The moral fabric of this society, this country is very quickly dwindling away. Political correctness and outsourcing overseas will be our downfall. This is just another chip stacked against what this country use to be. For the highest court in the state of MA to endorse and support an illness as normalcy is reprehensible. Are we now going to have the "gay tax" pulled from our paychecks in addition to everything else? God is watching. You may have won a legal battle here, but, good luck when you have to answer to Him.
—John, New York

As for me, I'm glad, of course. But it's just a battle. It's not the war. We had a similar victory in Hawaii a few years back, and conservatives pushed through a constitutional amendment that nullified it. They were narrowly prevented from doing the same thing right here in the Bay State this November. And I'm sure that they'll be rallying around it again real soon.

If you're queer or straight and you care, I strongly encourage you to take some action on this matter. Sign up for the Action Alert at Equalmarriage.org, and write to your bloody elected officials! Don't just tell your gay friends you support us. I'm really, really, glad you do. But telling me isn't going to prevent a DOMA amendment from passing in Massachusetts. Telling your representative just might.

On a personal note, I heard the news with a mixture of joy and sadness. If things had worked out differently, Quick and I might have been able to take advantage of the ruling. Instead, all I feel is grief. And guilt at being in love with a man. And anger that someone told me I should feel guilty about it. And anger and pain that people—all kinds of people, gay, straight, brown and purple—seem to think that the gender of my partner defines my sexuality.

I was having a conversation with my roommate the other day, and he mentioned that some of the roommate ads he saw specified that people be "gay-friendly."

"Well, yeah," I said. "This one did, too."

"But it is not an issue here," he said. "There are no gay people living here."

Mind you, this very same man has witnessed a female come to my house, disappear into my room with me, and appear again the next morning. He has seen me gather this very same female into my arms and give her a very un-sisterlike kiss.

But because the current co-occupant of my bedroom these days is of the male persuasion, there are no gay people living in our house. According to him.

*sigh*

The sad part is that my female partners have had pretty much the same attitude, only in reverse. The question was always there: "Why do you insist on saying you're bisexual? Are you going to go out and fuck some man someday?"

The darkness sews up my mouth. I'm so tired of this diatribe.

But in short, no. I insist on saying I'm bisexual because that is what I am—or part of who I am, anyway. I'm not heterosexual. I'm not a lesbian. I am a strong, powerful, lusty, capable, intelligent, bisexual woman. When I am with a man, I am a bisexual woman. When I am with a woman, I am a bisexual woman. It doesn't mean I need to sleep with more than one partner. It just means I can fall in love with people of many genders.

And contrary to another popular myth, this is not a phase. I've felt this way all my life, and have been openly bisexual since about 1996.

The darkness is trying to sew up my mouth. But I'm talking anyway.