★★★ To be Me ★★★
If only out of vanity i have often wondered
what kind of woman i will be when i am well past
the summer of my raging youth…
Will i still be raising revolutionary flags and
making impassioned speeches that stir up passion
in the hearts of suited liberals dressed in
navy blue conservative wear? In those yearz
when i am grateful i stil have a good, steady
bladder that does not leak on digestive prune
juice into diapers (no longer adorable), will i
be more greatful for that than any forward
movement in any current political cause and
will it have been worth it then?
Wil it have been worth the long hourz of not
sleeping that produce little more than reems
of badly written verses that catapulted me
into little terrorist spasms but would not even
whet the appetite of the 3 o’clock crowd of the
least respected New York poetry cafés?
Will i wish then that i had taken that job
working at the bank or that one looking after
that old lady drooling over her soft boiled
eggs and telling me how she waz a raging
beauty in the 60s, how she could have had any
man she wanted but she chose the one least
likely to succeed and thatz why when the Son-
of-a-bitch died she had to move into this
place because he was government subsidised.
Will i tel my young attendant how slender i waz
back then, painting pictures of young-me more
beautiful than i ever was if only to make her
forget the shrieveled paper skin, the stained
but even dental plates and the faint smell of
urine that tendz to linger in places specially
built for revolutionaries whose causes have
been won or forgotten?
Will i still be lesbian then or will the Charter
family finally convince me to marry some man
with a smaller dick than the one my woman
uses to afford me VIOLENT and MULTIPLE
orgasms!? Will the staff smile at me and
humour my accentricities to my face but laugh
at me in their private resting rooms saying:
“She must have been something in her day…”.
And most days? Most days i dont know what i
wil be like but everyday, EVERY SINGLE DAY I
KNOW WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO BE NOW…
I want to be that voice that makes Juliane so
scared that he hires two butch, black
bodyguardz. I want to write that poem that
the New York Times wil not print because it
might start some sort of black, or lesbian or
even white revolution. I want to go to secret
meetings and under the guise of female
friendship id like to bed the women of these
young and eager revolutionaries with too much
zeal for their cause and too little passion for
the women who follow them from city to city in
separate rooms. I want to be 40yrz old and
weigh 200 poundz and ride a motorcycle in the
winter time, (with) 4 hell-raising children and a 110
pound female lover who writes poetry about my
life and my children and loves me like no one
has ever loved me before. I want to be that
girl your parents use as a bad example of a
lady. I want to be that dyke who likes to fuck
men. I want to be that politician who never
lies. Id like to be that girl who never-ever
cries. I want to go down in history in a
chapter marked “miscellaneous” because the
writers could find no other way to classify me
in a world where classification iz key… I want
to erase the straight lines so i can be “Me”!
- Staceyann Chin
