Things that don't exist:

Never
Forever
Utopia
Ideal
Perfection
Binary gender, sex, or sexuality
God
Satan

The Only Woman in the Room

Every smart and powerful woman who dares to challenge the status quo in a male dominated field will find she must endure room after room filled with men in power, many of whom are fundamentally undeserving of such a position, who will be vested with the authority of passing judgment on her accomplishments. Any time she wishes to proceed another level upward, she will encounter another room (or series of rooms, more likely) full of those men, and in every one of them she will find at least one small brained, insecure man, who would sooner burn the institution to the ground than to feel himself emasculated by her; to see his abilities and evolution eclipsed by her success.

Within the walls of these rooms he will exploit the collective fears of men, capitalizing on the implicit trust they share with one another, the same trust they deny the female sex. It is in this way that the achievements of women are usurped and erased by lesser men. To compete with men in a male arena where judgment is passed by men, a woman must accept that her ideal outcome should be modified to incorporate this reality. Whenever possible it may be prudent to realign one's goals so as not to be in direct competition. When that is not possible and a direct comparison must be made, a woman must take every measure possible to load her arsenal with strategic firepower. Generate channels of influence. Invite feminist allies to represent her. Create a team, or better yet, a following.  Keep transparent intentions and obfuscated plans of action. Do not let them see her become emotional. Do not let them antagonize her feminist sensibilities. She must keep her head down and do her work. If she is extremely lucky, perhaps her ideas will be accepted by mankind, but not before assigning credit to one of their own (men).

Such is the way of this patriarchal world. For centuries the accomplishments of women have been rewritten, stolen, lost, and/or destroyed. If woman is to ever find a way out of the supporting roles in the great machine of humanity, she must first accept and understand its current assembly.

Real Magic

The sky was ominous that day

A portent for the natural destruction

That would topple a power line in the mountains

And turn our friend's labored storytelling into

A type of ghost story

We used our modern appliances

To illuminate your garden

To play music that drowned out the violent nature beyond

Lattice protected in climbing ivys

Sheltered us from the winds that brewed

With us in the cauldron

We listened to a tail of woe so alien to my ears

That when at last he finished my hands found his

And my eyes met his

And I offered words of thanks

Gratitude that he felt safe enough to share

We sat around a tabletop littered affectionately with the spoils of pleasure

Rolling papers and lighters and a dusting of tobacco and weed

Bottles emptied of their spirits

And then the song played

The song that would lift us all from our seats

And we danced

We danced like no one was watching

But we did watch each other, did we not?

For a few songs this went on until our friend made a polite exit into

The still dark early morning

And it was only moments after that you led me to your room

Few words were exchanged

Perhaps because nothing needed to be said

We both already knew

So much good humor already shared

Trust and understanding accumulated in genuine conversations

Sunsets

Afternoons languishing in the sun

Shared spliffs and quaffs and meals

And then at last this perfectly magical night brought us alone together in the dark

There was an unspoken knowledge

We found each other's edges and they interlocked like puzzle pieces

Shapes 

Shifting together

Breathing labored but rhythmic

Love overflowing

Spilling out onto the sheets

And into my dreams which came so easily

Wrapped up in your space

Folded carefully together into a tiny bed

Until morning came

And the magic still present in the room

Was hidden when the light and power returned

A truly supernatural connection

That shone brightly on the eerie night to illuminate a darkly electric evening

I left your bedside knowing

We had performed sorcery that night

The Idea of You

I remember every detail of that first night
When you turned your full attention on me
My surroundings blurred into the background
Your caramel eyes shone
As your intention revealed itself

I was caught in your enchanting spell

That night, there would be

Glittering plankton illuminating our waking reverie

Moonlight dancing on our skin

Eyes beaming as we relished in seeing each other

Nude

In both the physical and philosophical sense

We swam in that dark night in the Aegean Sea

Approaching one another's mystery

Pausing to catch our breath just outside the gate

More nights with you and

I remember how

You sang so sweetly to me

Spellbinding me with your stories

Lips painted with red and a trace of blue glitter

Changing dresses

Multilingual flirtation

Filling all the plates on a buffet of both intellectual and fetishist desires

You reawakened my instincts to hunt

I let you work your magic on me

I wanted it

I wanted your magic

To dose myself on your potent remedy

To feast upon your flesh with a Dionysian appetite

However

Your magic was sadly

Not what I imagined it would be

Quite early on I got the sense that our story

Would be a tragedy

Looking back, one can see plainly

The foreshadowing was more than obvious

But I was blinded by hormones

Blinded by your enchantments

Transfixed by your steady, heady gaze

I was so intoxicated that I

Prostrated myself and ignored my own needs

To accommodate the particularity of your situation

Accepted your inaccessibility

And remained hopelessly oblivious as the warning signs began to appear

Then one night early on in our exchange

I walked into a dangerous scene

We were drunk when you put a strap in my hand

Asked me to restrain you

And slipped on a blindfold

I'm sure you already warned me

About this pattern of behavior

And your aftermath

Before I myself became a player in your production

Still the blindness

I am so grateful for my instincts that night

You willed me to abuse your body

Enthusiastic consent tasted so sweet

With the utmost of self-control

I revealed only a brief glimpse of my inner sadist

You were warned previously that this was not a simple task for me

That the aftercare is special for repentant sadists

But I choked on the bitter fruit of its absence

And later on your shaming of me for needing it

This scene became the site of our undoing

The beginning of the end

You characterized my earnest and most heartfelt needs

As demanding praise

You punished my tender female masculinity

Worst of all

You insulted me in the way that hurt the most

By telling me it wasn't enough

Perhaps that should have been the end of the story

But I refused to see reality

I continued to abuse myself for your attention

While you continued to deny me access

Refusing 

To see me

To accept my compliments

To let me cook for you or buy you dinner

To leave gifts at your doorstep

Yet still wanting me close to you

To walk you home at night

To sleep in your bed

To hold you and never ask for more

Amazingly I gave you everything you asked

And you still didn't want me

You began to seem

Rather impossible to please

And the more you avoided me and withheld

The more I compromised my needs

At last we were able to reconcile that fateful night

And you told me then that it was done

In more ways than one

And yet somehow I found a shred of optimistic hope

In the closeness we shared for those final days

On that mountainous island

Walking hand in hand

Climbing and photography

Dining and sitting close

Dancing together and having fun

It all meant so much to me

You even bought me a very special gift

A charm that still pitifully makes me dizzy

For thinking of you now
Like a horcrux

(I need to get rid of it but I have not yet)

But that final night when I walked you home

I at last had to walk out the doorway of my illusions

I asked you for hope

And of course you withheld

So I left you there to begin my journey home

To return to myself alone

It was not quite over though

You had one final stone to cast

Just in case I had any lasting good impressions

You made sure to give my heart one last stab

Apparently I was too familiar in social media chat

Speaking too frankly

Too late

How dare I bother you with my feelings after all that has passed?!

You were so hurtful

You told me we are not that close

Your tone so condescending I gagged on it

And even after all of that

I have been unable to relieve myself of you

To rid myself of this burden of psychodramatic warfare

When I really let myself think of all these painful scenes

And even your passive aggressive instagram memes

For which you later accused and unfollowed me for doing

All the while it was you who was truly mean

Oh the crippling irony!

So I process and I process

I can see this pattern clearly playing out

Through my romantic history

This clinging to past dreams

When clearly they have disintegrated completely

And at last my moment of clarity

Came to me just this morning

I finally see exactly what I have been doing to myself

Somewhere in my mind remains the naïve hope

That the person I thought I met

Is still in there

That our friendship could survive

That all of these innumerable offenses can somehow be rationalized

And my idea of you

My idea of what we could have together would be realized

Alas I think that ship has sailed into the sunset

Past the fisherman who sold fish we would never eat together

Away from the bus stop we saw being vandalized

Beyond Sappho's Face and the mountain we climbed together

Across the Aegean

Smuggling away my idea of you

Leaving wakes that could cause a man to lose himself at sea

Goodbye.

Crush Blindness

Do you ever wonder what is going on in your brain when you have a crush? I have been wondering about that lately, because I was recently reminded that crushes are the brain's hallucinogen. You see things that aren't there, you act against your own nature, and you ignore information that might otherwise divert you from your current path.

I did some research, and what I found is that hormones are once again controlling everything. When we feel lust our brain is awash with what is essentially adrenaline and pleasure. Some research has also suggested that lowered levels of seratonin are a part of the cocktail, which incidentally are similar to the levels seen in patients battling with OCD. So next time you ask yourself why you cannot stop thinking about someone you barely know, remember that it is likely your brain has taken you hostage! It is actually a normal physiological reaction to get nervous around them, and think about them more than you would any other new relation, because your brain is basically drowning in thrilling happiness juice.

So, in short, you are crazy for a time. The symptoms were literally referred to by one article I read as a "temporary mental illness" that can last up to two years.

What does this tell me? Hold the commitments back for at least two years when you are dating, because you are just plain not in your right mind when you have a crush.

Open Letter To My Fellow Butches: Stop Dating Straight Women

Growing up knowing you are gay has a way of forcing you to learn some interesting coping skills. One of the first things I remember having to cope with in relation to my queer sexuality is crushing on straight women. At my large high school with a student body of roughly 3,500 students, even back in 1998, I was one of few people who could be visually identified as queer, even before I ever contemplated the word "lesbian" or "bisexual" as a label for myself. What that really means is there were no other women around like me to help me learn about myself. Instead I was able to see and be seen by a couple of flamboyant young men, and a couple of male friends who were still in their adolescent closet but would come out soon enough.

During this developmental age when most kids are busy mooning over angsty teen romance, I was alone. My increasingly less frequent interactions with boys my age were fraught with disappointment, and my interest in women swelled like a prize winning fruit in summer...and yet, there was no one for me to even crush on, so I allowed myself to lust after the only women around me, who were, at least back then, 100% hetero.

Next year marks my 20 year anniversary of completing high school, and it has taken me a long time, but I've finally added heterosexuality to my list of romantic dealbreakers.

How can a lesbian date a straight woman? Honestly I'm probably not the one to answer that, but I assure you that it happens. I could wax poetic about the allure of her curiosity and the ego glory of giving someone truly proper sexual satisfaction for the first time, but that is not what I'm writing about today. The allure of curiosity is a trap, and at my age I no longer relate to women who spend their whole lives without getting to know their own bodies.

Furthermore, if you are butch like me, you must know by now that you are a rare breed. As I explained earlier, a lot of butches from my generation started out alone, not knowing if there was anyone else in the world like us. For the younger generations, I think it is a different kind of pain; they grow up knowing there exists a fierce subculture of bull dykes and drag queens and queer femmes and bears, terrifying and brilliantly bold as brass, but they must wait in isolation to access the majority of it.

You are that rare breed, that beacon to mankind which exposes the error of binary thinking where it relates to humanity. Just by existing you challenge the status quo, and you owe it to yourself and your community to withhold all that makes you a unicorn from the unappreciative.

Why's that?

Because you are magnificent. Somehow you managed to escape all of the "girlifying" and "pretty making." You play with the boys and win. You get dirty, and clean up handsomely. You walk with a sexy strut. You are not afraid to wear a tie and suspenders, even if they hang differently around your breasts. Still, underneath all that toughness, you are purely female; all softness and curves, and only the right woman can unlock the gates and penetrate your walls. (shameless entendre, I know)

Of course all or none of these may apply to you in particular, because butch is not defined by clothing, but by attitude and an unyielding lack of cooperation with being treated subhuman because one was born without a penis. Regardless of what butch is to you, merely being yourself is precisely what makes you so interesting, and although you may not have found any butch loving queers yet, trust me when I tell you there are loads of them out there who can't wait to meet you.

You know what is better than curiosity and beginner's sex? Meeting a woman who takes one look at you and knows that you are a certain type - HER type. She swoons at your big hands and muscular arms. She wears that outfit that makes you check her out all night. She works for YOUR attention, and not any male gaze. She is thrilled to let you open her door, not because you're a butch and you act like a man, but because it is both polite and sexy to do things for someone.

So! Stop chasing straight women. Let the discovery of her fundamental heterosexuality turn your blood cold. Let the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Let your stomach churn, and your spidey senses send you running from that situation like it was a house afire. Let it repulse you in any manner necessary, as long as it saves you for those lovers who TRULY SEE YOU at first encounter. Do not let a person's fear of being outed dull your fabulous gay shine. We are the special ones. We glitter like gold wherever we go. Let them suffer. Let them wish. Let them fantasize. And when they can't take it anymore, let them come out and join our rainbow family. If they cannot do that much, they do not deserve you!

Communication Expert?

The truest test of your communication skills is being able to speak effectively with someone who has none.