Dykes & Gorgons, vol. 1 issue 1, 1973

JSTOR has made available a large collection of documents related to activism. As far as I can tell, the resources are free to access - I don't have a JSTOR account and I was able to open up some really cool old copies of The Gay Liberator, for example. From their website:

Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.

Independent Voices is made possible by the funding support received from these libraries and donors across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Through their funding, these libraries and donors are demonstrating their commitment to open access digital collections.

Content for the Independent Voices collection was selected through recommendations by scholars, librarians, publishers, and selected bibliographies. The copyrighted periodicals that are included in the Independent Voices collection are being made available by the explicit permission of the copyright holder, assignee, or transferee; which were obtained in writing by Reveal Digital home page.

Materials Available Without a Log-In Include:

Ain't I a Woman?

Amazon Quarterly

Big Mama Rag

Blazing Star

Come Out!

Common Lives/Lesbian Lives

Conditions

DYKE

Detroit Gay Liberator

Dykes and Gorgons

Echo of Sappho

The Furies

The Gay Alternative

Gay Flames

The Gay Liberator

Hard Labor

Lavender Vision

Lavender Woman

Lesbian Connection

The Lesbian Tide

New Gay Life

ONE

Outlook

Philadelphia Gay News

The Phoenix

SPECTRE

Sinister Wisdom

Tangents

The Tide

Up and Coming

CHECK IT OUT!

🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ Pride Mags #24: Dykes & Gorgons, May-June 1973.

"Dyke-feminist newspaper" published in Berkeley, CA that lasted only one issue. Great art and graphics, passionate political writing, poetry, personal stories, and more. From a manifesto stating the paper's purpose: "Just as the Gorgons terrorized the males of their day and waged a life and death struggle against the emerging patriarchal revolution, we, too, must revive their Amazonal spirit and fight for the right of the 'first sex.'"

See a complete issue scan of Dykes & Gorgons at the Independent Voices archive.

“Running gorgon from the ridge acroterion of a Ripe Archaic temple on the Athenian Acropolis.” Taken from a scan of Dykes & Gorgons, May-June 1973

sneak peek into a campaign im building

dramatis personae

Chapter:

Saul “The Grimstorm” Hendrik – past Chapter Master

Azkae Hatheril – Newly appointed Chapter Master

Isav Nasser – First Chaptain

Inquisition:

Gorgon Nimrot – Lord Inquisitor

Farlass Dyke – Inquisitorial entourage

Saadi – Deathcult Assasin

Deathwatch:

Ivar Frostfang – Deathwatch Paladin Veteran 

Eldar:

Anthrillien Morningchild – Autarch

// In this one I want to capture the spirit of what it means to be a Pirate that struggles to live in the wide galaxy thats against them. I want to establish how hard it is to keep everything running and that from everywhere comes hardship. For that I prepared a nice litle backstory including heresy, treachery, backstabbing and broken promises...also Eldar, the Inquisition and the Deathwatch. 

I erased the Grey Knights, instead the Deathwatch is now a Organization that works closer with all branches of the Inquisition. Proficient Deamon-Slayers obtain the title and rank of “Paladin”

characters who would call me a dyke

1. enji todoroki this man would call me every slur in the book. he'd call me the n-word even though im white as fuck i hate this man

2. mori bsd. no further explanation

3. mineta. this man would hate the fact that im sexy as hell but won't fuck him and scream slurs at me until i punched him

4. medusa gorgon. does this need an explanation

5. chuuya nakahara. he'd call me a dyke because i jokingly called myself one and then he'd turn around and go "you're a fucking dyke?"

6. william afton. just because

7. dimple mp100. he'd also call me the t slur and a r*tard

8. bakugo katsuki. he'd jokingly call me the f slur but then immediately realize im actually a lesbian and softly go "shit" and leave

A Dyke Named Lilith & Some Actual Blasphemy

And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. – King James Bible Genesis 1:27, 1611 Adam said: “You lie beneath me.” And Lilith said: “You lie beneath me. We are both equal, for both of us are from the Earth.” – Alphabet of Ben Sira 23a-b, circa 1000 [Corrective rape] is now used more broadly to refer to the rape of any member of a group that does not conform to gender norms or heterosexuality when the motive of the perpetrator is to “correct” the individual. – Sarah Doan-Minh, Hastings Women’s Law Journal 2019 *** The original sin had very little to do with apples. And I don’t mean that it was a pomegranate, like history nerds on the Internet will say to prove God isn’t real or whatever. God is real. And on the day that #MeToo was trending across Eden, He said, “But Adam has so much potential,” and cleared him of all charges. I lost the title of “original woman” to some doe eyed, goody two shoes named Eve. She was made from Adam’s rib, so she owed him her life. That’s why she was supposed to be better at obeying him. Better than me, specifically. But that’s just what happens when you’re made from the same dirt as the first man, I guess. Equality meant nothing to Adam. Patriarchy starts early in this story, and we all know what men high on patriarchy think sex should be like. I left Adam as soon I realized that God didn’t put the word, “No,” in his vocabulary. The Angels tried to bring me back and brought back a rumour that I ate babies instead. Angels are gossipy bitches. When Eve first arrived on the scene, I probably should have felt sorry for her. Making her out of Adam’s rib was a filthy trick. But, even though I watched her, over and over, trying to get his hands off her hips, I told myself she could do better. I heard her squealing “No!” in that vaguely polite voice men use to justify their lies, “I thought you meant, ‘Yes!’” so many times and still told myself she was an idiot. That if she really felt scared, she could just leave him, like I did. It was her own fault for staying, I told myself. See, I wasn’t really hip on the feminist theory until the feminists started calling me an icon. No, I used to hate on Eve. A lot. Lucifer and I would creep on her and Adam some nights. We’d lounge in the Tree of Knowledge, passing a joint, talking about how overrated they were between blowing smoke and blowing each other. I was always complaining about Eve. Her ass was too round, her tits were too perky, her skin was too smooth, her build was too tiny. Usually, Lucifer would just smile and nod. But there was one evening that was different. “Y’know, Lily,” Lucifer said. There was slowness in his voice like his words were swimming through the smoke to get out of his mouth. Really, his words were swimming through his hair. The man had a lot of coarse blond hair, and never seemed to care if it fell in his face. “What, Lucy?” I growled. Lucifer glared at me out of the corner of his eye as he passed me the joint. I raised an accusing eyebrow at him from behind my wavy brunette bangs. He sighed. He looked back to the gap in the branches we were peering down through. “You got the hots for Eve or what, Lilith?” I coughed on the smoke that was tickling the back of my throat. “Little Miss Perfect? You’re out of your mind.” I practically threw the joint back at him. The fallen angel chuckled and took a deep drag. I squirmed on the hefty branch I was perched on. I kept my glare as steady as I could. When your best friend is a sass master and King of Hell, you don’t give him any clues he might be right about anything, ever. Especially not this. “Who the fuck do you think you are, saying some shit like that?” I said, overcompensating. He grinned. The sharp corners of his mouth nearly pierced his ears. “I’m the asshole who scares The Big Man upstairs. I say what I want.” He dramatically brought the joint towards his lips like he was in one of those French movies. There it was; the sass. I snatched the joint from him before he could breathe in. “Hey!” he whined. “You know what I mean,” I said. “Okay, Lilith, come on,” Lucifer said, holding out an open hand. I sneered and slapped the joint back into his palm. He looked me right in the eyes as he blew the smoke into my face. My sneer became a grimace. He laughed. “You’re obviously obsessed with Eve, Lilith. You never stop staring at her, you never shut up about her…” “Which means I’m in love with her? Get over yourself.” I reached for the joint, but Lucifer’s hand dodged mine. He held it above his lazy body with a delicately bent wrist. “I’m not talking love. I’m talking obsession. More to do with Asmodeus than The G Man.” “You think I want to fuck Eve?” Lucifer gave a toothy grin, licking his lips in a pure mockery of seduction. “Don’t you? Don’t you just wanna have her all to yourself for a night? It could be fun, like that orgy you have with the Gorgon sisters and Perseus in Greece. Or maybe something more sensual, like what you have with Donatello in the Renaissance. Something kinky, maybe, like the fling with Mary Shelley from the 1800s. Or maybe…” He brings a thin finger to his cheek and gazes at me with a doe eyed expression that looks as disturbing on a demon as you probably think it would. “Maybe there’s a reason you used the L word. Maybe you want something more special with Eve? Something long term? Maybe… a commitment?” “Shut up!” The shout barely made it out before Lucifer pressed a hand to my mouth. He glanced cautiously to the space between the leaves. I shook my face free from his grasp and, scowling, looked as well. I realized my mistake. I caught a glimpse of Eve glancing with innocent intrigue towards the Tree, just before Adam demanded her attention again with a firm grip on her shoulder. His face was more suspicious as he looked back in our direction before walking away with Eve in tow. I looked at Lucifer who was, to my surprise, laughing silently. I raised an eyebrow. He leaned in to whisper, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t Shakespeare me before he’s even been born yet.” “But am I wrong? Why would you care so much if there wasn’t something you wanted? Don’t you want her? All to yourself, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do you part?” He motioned a hand to his heart as he recounted his irritably dramatic parody. I rolled my eyes and pursed my lips as I looked back towards the naked figures below in the Garden. The evening light was dim, but Eve’s skin glowed with a disturbing perfection. I told myself it was disturbing, and, yet, there was something about that kind of visual softness that made me wonder about her physical softness that made me wonder about— Lucifer stumbled slowly to his feet, balancing on a branch as lanky as himself, and motioned for me to follow. “Tell you what,” he said. His voice seemed more sincere than before. We slithered between the branches and made our way down the trunk and out of the Garden for the night. As we did, he made his suggestion. “Why don’t you talk to her? See if she ‘sparks joy’. And if she doesn’t, well, that’s that.” “You want me to talk to her?” I scoffed. But then, after a moment, as we returned to the Gates of Hell, I thought about what he’d said. Pausing to give Cerberus a scratch behind the ear just inside the Gate, I asked, “How?” Lucifer’s eyes glimmered with Hellfire and mischief. He curled a finger towards me, urging me to hurry up, as we made our way to the white picketed lawn and up the driveway to the quaint little house. Lucifer loved making Hell look like a nuclear family lived there. It made the real nuclear families that lived there, in the River of Fire, feel uncomfortable. That was the point. That day our home had a charred wooden “Welcome” sign on the door, and a picture window that overlooked the riverbank brimming and bubbling with damned souls. Lucifer hung his keys on the hook by the door and sashayed from the entryway into the open concept kitchen. Swinging the fridge open, gesturing towards the crisper drawer near the bottom, he said, “Pick your poison.” Lucifer had this theory that fruit could do anything. He won’t admit it to me, but he’s probably responsible for vegans. Anyway, I snorted condescendingly at first. But the more I looked at the bright, fresh produce, the more I wondered if it was worth a shot. Lucifer must have seen the shift in my expression. He walked away, leaving the fridge open. “That’s my Lily!” he called over his shoulder. “Lilith.” I retorted. Then I bent down to see what we had. It had to be a peach. Eve wouldn’t get it, obviously, there was no cell service in Eden. But there was in Hell, and in Hell we sexted with enough desperate and horny 21st century college seniors to know that this would be hilarious in 6000 years. I smirked, thinking about how fun it was going to be to tell Lucifer I gave Eve the butt emoji. But picking a fruit to seduce her with was the easy part. Getting to talk to Eve, that would be harder. Eve was sometimes near the Tree of Knowledge, but rarely alone. Adam would sometimes be with her, but she was more often accompanied by a swan or wolf or some other creature. The animals of Eden were dangerous. In the age of Genesis, they were God’s most loyal disciples. An outsider might see them as harmless and innocent but, let me tell you, every bug in that Garden was up to something. And that something was usually to keep Eve from poking her nose around the Tree. Left to her own devices, Eve might explore every inch of Eden, a sense of curiosity that she probably passed down to women like Alice and Dorothy. That’s what the animals were for. Eve would follow them away from trouble, skipping light on her nimble feet, to safety and obliviousness. Eve trusted the animals. It was late afternoon one day when I saw Adam and Eve dozing off in the pale light a few trees down, heads resting on the laps of lions. The lions appeared to be falling asleep, but their ears were still perked up. I waited. And as I waited, unmoving, I watched the sun begin to set and the muscles in the lions’ ears relaxed. This was my chance. I ascended the Tree of Knowledge, curving my long spine side to side. I folded my limbs into myself and grew soft scales that wrapped around the peach in what was once my hand. I extended the fruit towards the Earth as I dangled from the lowest branch. I flicked Eve’s name off the tip of my tongue. “Eeeeeeeve,” I hissed softly. “Eeeeeeeve.” The woman stirred. Her eyelids fluttered. At first, she seemed to be going back to sleep. Then she shook herself awake, eyes widening as she saw me. She gasped and I said, “Sssssshhh.” She looked reluctant and moved as though she was going to wake Adam. “Don’t!” I said. I let my true voice slip out for only a moment but assured myself she was too dull to notice. “Snake?” she said softly. She pushed herself to her feet and began tiptoeing through lions’ paws towards me. “Yesssss?” I said, drawing out the S for as long as I could. “Snake, I haven’t seen you in a while, I thought you left with Lu—” Eve raised an eyebrow. There was an expression in her that I hadn’t seen before at the distances I’ve watched her. This wasn’t an expression of curiosity. It was one of intelligence. “You aren’t Snake, are you?” she said. “Of coursssssse IIIII—” That look. That suspicion I didn’t know she was capable of. I was caught. I released the grasp my tail had wrapped around the branch and leapt to the ground, feet first, flesh taking the place of scales. My thick curls fell around my face as I landed, fist clenched around the fruit in my hand. The juice dripped from my fingers. Eve tilted her head. The suspicion in her eyes softened and she reached her hand towards me, slow and steady. “Who are you?” she whispered. I stepped back quickly. My heel hit a root, but I kept my pain to myself. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed. I hadn’t completely shaken the snake voice yet. Eve lowered her hand and nodded. “Okay. I won’t,” she said. Her compliance made me angry. “You think you’re perfect, don’t you?” I growled. Eve’s eyes widened, but she didn’t look offended. Only confused. This made me angry, too. “You think that because you’re so gentle and agreeable and you’ll do anything anyone says that you’re perfect. You think that you deserve this, don’t you? You deserve to be the ‘original woman’ more than me. Well that’s just fine. You can have Adam, you can have God, you can have the perfect life with the perfect family in the perfect Garden. But not all of us want that, okay? Not all of us want what you have. Not all of us are jea—why are you just staring at me?!” I could feel myself heaving for each furious breath. Eve stood facing me, breathing more calmly, but her chest still rose and fell in synch with mine. The silence was unbearable, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. At last, she did. “Lilith,” she said. “Are you…? You’re Lilith.” I scoffed. “So, he mentioned me, huh?” Eve’s eyes seemed locked on mine, no matter how hard I tried to shake her gaze. Looking up, down, around, every time I glanced back, she was still there staring. “Not that you were beautiful,” she said. I glared at her. “Don’t make fun of me.” “I’m not,” she said. She didn’t insist, as though she knew she didn’t need to. “They said you were a demon, but your hair, your skin, your breast… They’re so much like mine, yet somehow more stunning.” She broke eye contact with me to look me up and down. “What’s that?” She pointed at the remnants of the peach. I looked down at the crushed fruit. I frowned at the exposed pit in my fingers. “It’s a peach, duh,” I said. “I see,” said Eve. “Is that what grows on this tree?” She glanced at the Tree of Knowledge behind me. I let my head fall back to look up at the leaves. The branches were bare of fruit. “Nothing grows on this tree,” I said. “Just leaves and bark.” When I looked back at Eve she seemed confused. “But the Lord said not to eat the fruit—” I laughed. “Your ‘Lord’ lies to you all the time,” I said. “‘Thou shalt not eat the fruit of this tree’ really means ‘Thou shalt not associate with the whore and devil who hang out there’.” Eve blinked. “You? But why? Why would He say that about you? Why would He call you such things?” “Why do you think?” “Why are you here?” Eve asked abruptly. “I thought that you had left the Garden.” She took a small step towards me. “I thought that you and Adam didn’t get along, so you decided to walk your own path.” I stepped backwards again, closer to the Tree, my spine leaning against the trunk. “Is that what they told you?” I caught myself looking past Eve to Adam’s sleeping body in the distance. I hadn’t been this close to him in a long time. I pushed the feelings of terror and regret and rage deep down into the pit of my stomach where they could storm without me. My attention was drawn out of my own thoughts when Eve whispered, “I’m sorry.” “What?” I said. There was a solemn, knowing look on her face. “He hurt you, didn’t he?” My mouth fell open and I stuttered. “What makes you think…?” “The way you look at him,” She took another half step towards me. She lifted her arms and asked with her eyes. “It’s how I wish I could look at him, if no one was watching.” After a moment, in some spur of poor or good or some kind of judgement, I nodded. She leaned in and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, into the crook of my neck. “I’m sorry that he did it.” My body shook. The feelings in my stomach had spread to my heart and were coursing through my veins. Terror, regret, rage… and sadness. My body shook as it tried to understand what it was feeling. I felt Eve gripping me tighter, as though to keep me from shaking myself into pieces. I felt her chest move as she breathed. I let myself sink into Eve’s arms, feeling us breath together, and I cried. Eve pulled away. I felt myself leaning towards her body to try and keep the feeling of us breathing together on my skin. But she kept her hands on my shoulders, and, for now, that felt like enough. We stared at each other for a moment. Eve smiled gently. I let the last of my tears fall silently down my still face. “I’m glad you came to me, Lilith,” she said. “I understand that kind of pain can be hard to carry alone. I’m glad you confided in me.” I looked at her sincere expression and I felt comfort. But it wasn’t alone. There was another feeling. Guilt. I didn’t come here to confide in her. I didn’t come here with pure intentions at all. Eve interrupted my thoughts, chuckling. “The truth is, I thought you were here to tempt me,” she said. “Tempt you?” I laughed. “Why would you think I was here to tempt you?” Eve smiled. “Well,” she said, “there is the fruit, and the Tree, and—” “Well,” I said, “if I was here to tempt you—hypothetically—what would you say to me?” My eyes darted away from her. I tried to hide my shame. “Would you get pissed and tell your God to smite me or whatever?” I joked. “No,” Eve said sternly. I looked back at her and saw that her expression was just as serious. I realized I had seen her face go through more emotions in this moment than in an eternity watching her in the Garden. “No, I wouldn’t. You know why?” She took my hand, pit, and all, and lifted it to her face. She leaned her lips toward my index finger and whispered, “May I?” I nodded, and she kissed the juices on my flesh. “Because I trust you, Lilith.” “You shouldn’t,” I replied automatically. “Why not?” Eve asked. “You are the first in the Garden to show me fear. That kind of vulnerability is courageous, and genuine, and unusual, in a place like this. You are the first in the Garden to show me that you don’t believe in Adam’s perfection. I thought I was the only one. I thought I was crazy. But, Lilith, if he did to you anything like what he’s done to me…” She averted her eyes. Another emotion I hadn’t seen in her before. Sadness. A sadness I knew myself. “Run away with me,” I blurted out. I don’t know what came over me. I felt as shocked as she looked at my words. But I couldn’t stop. “Run away with me, Eve. We can get away from all this. Together. No Adam, or God, or even Lucifer—that annoying bastard is my best friend, but I’d leave him in a heartbeat just to get away from… everything… with you.” She stared blankly at me, and, for once, I couldn’t read her. I felt the tears coming back. “You understand me, Eve. You understand me like no one has, like no one will. I live my whole life at the same time, Eve, I can see it all. Every person ever born, from the Creation to the Rapture and I just know… you’re the only one who will ever understand me.” Still, she was silent. I saw her eyes glisten with tears for just a second before she leaned in and hugged me again. “I’m sorry, Lilith,” she said. “You are so much more than I could have imagined.” The breath of her words felt like daggers on my neck that stabbed through to my heart. I knew what was coming was bad. I knew I wouldn’t want to hear it. “Lilith, you’re—” “Just say it already,” I sobbed. I tried to force a voice of anger, but it came out sounding pathetic. But Eve didn’t laugh or make fun of me. She simply said, “I love Adam, Lilith.” She nuzzled her face deeper into my neck. For a moment I hoped I misheard, that she would stay there forever, but then, “I can’t leave him,” she said. “I won’t tell him you were here. I’ll—” I placed my hands on her chest and pushed her away. “I don’t care what you tell him,” I said. I refused to look at her face. I couldn’t predict what I’d do if I looked at her face. “Just go.” “Okay,” said Eve, still standing there. “I will, but will you be alright—?” “Go!” I shouted. I didn’t wait for the sound of the lions’ roars as they awoke, or Adam’s shouting as he ran towards the Tree. I swung around the trunk and folded in on myself, hoping that I could fold in far enough to disappear. But I didn’t. I just turned into a snake again. So, with disappearing off the table, I slithered up the Tree and across the branches. I left the Garden and through the Gates of Hell, leaving Cerberus to whimper for pets as I passed. I ignored the screams from the River and burst through the door of the house with the white picket fence, my emerging legs still partially covered in scales. Lucifer was laying on the ugliest couch, in a black satin robe, reading a 1960s edition of Playboy, circling the names of article writers whose souls he would collect. He glanced up at me, twirling his ballpoint pen between his fingers. “How’d it go?” he asked in a sing song voice. I stormed past him to the stairs, still shedding scales as I marched up to my room. “Fuck off,” I said. “Okay,” he said nonchalantly, looking back at his magazine. I heard him shuffle to his feet shortly after I reached the second floor. Before I could slam my bedroom door, he called up to me, “Lily! Lily, I know you’re moping, but do you know if we have any apples?”

Alistair J. Cusak

26 novembro 2020

Setlist *setlist-roteiro: a ordem das musicas em sua maioria são definidas ao vivo durante o programa e sofrem alterações de ordem

Crass - Systematic Death Potential Threat - A Show Of Strength Dirt - Democracy Action Pact - Suicide Bag The Brat - Leave Me Alone X-Ray Spex - Genetic Engineering Amsterdamned - Traditie Amme Balle Grýlurnar - Betri er limur en limlestir Pink Champagne - Stålmannen-Kvinnan Flirt - Dont Push Me

Screaming Sneakers - I Cant Help It Edith Nylon - King Cobra Hans-a-Plast - Polizeiknüppel Tappi Tíkarrass - Skrið Kandeggina Gang - sono cattiva Jo Squillo Eletrix - Skizzo Skizzo TNT - Razzia SIB - My Secret Life 3D - Desorientada Vulpe SS - Inkisicion Fatal Microbes - Beautiful Pictures Devils Dykes - Fruitless Avengers - The American in Me Noonday Underground - Simple Man Chin Chin - Dead Life The Dishrags - Tormented Nasty Facts - Get To You VS. - Magnetic Heart The Mistakes - 16 pins Livin' Sacrifice - Mentalsjuk The Cosmetics - 9-5 The Bags - Babylonian Gorgon The Slits - Vindictive

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson: #MeToo Series

market value

 in 1988 in the thompson street pool

and  anywhere else downtown nyc gave us cover

i told alice exactly how

and where to touch me,

my skin’s newly sentient landscape, in this streetscape --

out of the thick surveillance of home

and its nonexistent doors ---

quick becoming a refuge, a resistance

 it was brooding benjamin

at commie camp

in massachusettes circa 1993.

there: in the boys bunk,

behind a tree,

under the stars looking the other way

skipping swim class, feigning cool

i learned to leverage the only thing that was mine to give

it seemed a fair trade for the stories

i returned to eighth grade with like a golden ticket in my fist waved high like a bowery news boy

 “strawberries” “extra extra” “i told you i was someone” do you see me now? the awareness of other on and in my body

not always pleasurable, consenting

or kind, but yet

proving its existence

as electricity and pain

came and went from flesh

the handfuls others wanted

mapping value onto abandonment

an absence made real by what felt like desire

the void where worth should be

so long longed for

as to be entirely mistranslated

readily, as this junkyard equivalent

 big tits, i talk a big game, slur myself for them

slick rick lyrics and liz phair the bitch was strong, the kids was gone

fuck and run, fuck    and     run

on young tongues and walkmen

our dangerous swagger leaving a scar tissue wake of necessary forgetting yet

even as i buried myself

i began to make that dirt into a form

of my own choosing

until the priest tasked with my saving

and the harsh lights of planned parenthood

on second avenue

and the clinical sting of termination

and everything it doesn’t say

were mere bumps on the road

to a salvation written in my blood

 flesh house with my own name

on the door

i am not the “daughter”

you built a cage for

 i am mine on any stolen time i can find

i am smoking pfunks because the

recessed filter leaves less trace

on your fingers

and i love calculus and philosophy

and i put in my pocket

an equivalence I touch with my eyes closed

a sweaty dollar of knowing someone wants to fuck me

and i am holding on to the horizon like a buoy shame and fear burnt on the retina like a bleach stain

i compensate with complexely wrought justifications

and spin love stories with everyone

who touches and grabs, making shows of the romance

 danny’s housekeeper looks the other way

during all the fucks, all the faked little deaths

that fit between classes

in the spring of 1997

 it’s my first time

for totinos pizza rolls and delivery he pays for

in a deluxe apartment with a doorman

and i am elated, conflating this kid and his anxieties that bore me

with knowing i can turn the water i was born into wine

if i play my cards right, and i am learning to grift

to hustle with my body bait, my only chip to ante

 i can get out of dodge

i can live like this

 i can make myself out of spit and the lint

in my pocket

i close my eyes and grit my teeth

when the script calls for more

than i had planned

i fashion a future i imagine

can only be made by their hands

guided by mine if i’m lucky but

this is about survival and

the line where desire, safety

money, escape, and the body’s preference blurs

has long been indistinguishable girls didn’t come with deluxe accomodations

so they were the bathroom at woody’s bar

after the rugby game on the dance floor

in her dorm room or mine

sorry, heart, but i’m still here primarily for the golden ticket

and i can’t take a risk on this horse

but you were first and you will be always and maybe someday

i’ll get top surgery and find myself under there

not sure if i want to be or be with the bull dykes i lust after

but my mouth and mind don’t know this language

because it’s 1999 and we just got the internet and

this is the self i know how to sell

 i learn to wield facepaint, fabric and a heel like an alchemical reaction

you’re born naked and the rest is drag

feel power like i never thought could be mine and i

am on my way to totino’s and park views

am on my way to frequent casual vacations

mentioned in cool conversation without missing a beat

blase

patagonia and cocktails at lunch

because fuck you i made this

 i can taste it

you say salty milk

i say dreams

and when i say love

i believe it

 i dont know yet i love everything

and i am scared and lost

and breathing onto the glass

of other people

to make sure i’m here

 i cannot see another path

i don’t know how to turn report cards

into apartments and i need a back up plan because

only forward motion

has ever been an option

i’ll sell my body before my soul

i look the other way and

throw myself into the fire

 my threatened animal

had a plan

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson (she/her/they/them) is a nonbinary queer interdisciplinary creator, cultural scholar, and educator. Lynne is the founder of The Operating System, a radical open source arts organization and small press, and serves as visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute. Recent publication credits include Wave Composition, The Conversant, The Philadelphia Supplement, Gorgon Poetics, POSTblank, Vintage Magazine, Live Mag, Coldfront, the Brooklyn Poets Anthology, Resist Much/Obey Little: Poems for The Resistance, and “In Memory of Feasible Grace,” part of the Panthalassa Pamphlet series, among others. Her performances and work have appeared widely, including recent features or projects at Artists Space, Bowery Arts and Science, The NYC Poetry Festival, Parkside Lounge, Carmine Street Metrics, Eyebeam, LaMaMa, Triangle Quarterly, Undercurrent Projects, Mellow Pages, The New York Public Library, Launchpad BK, Dixon Place, Poets Settlement, SOHO20 Gallery and many more. They are always still beginning.

Dykes & Gorgons, vol. 1 issue 1, 1973

Dykes & Gorgons, vol. 1 issue 1, 1973

Dykes & Gorgons, vol. 1 issue 1, 1973