for her quick mind and ready smile,
said, as we were completing a delivery together,
that she thought
lesbians
only went that way because they couldn't get a man.
She said it as an observation
without any rancor
and without any idea who she was talking to.
Then she looked at me to agree, the way women do.
I thought of my then-girlfriend
and how she knew me like a crow knows its nest.
I thought of her blackbird eyes,
her sure touch and drag race temperament.
"That's not true," I told my co-worker, who remained
unconvinced.
It's death by a thousand cuts, this living on the outside,
but we are warriors--have to be--and we keep on.
Later that day, I read about a transwoman who was murdered
by her boyfriend, who felt
he'd been lied to.
Listen, you brick-dumb motherfucker, I thought,
the woman beat herself up every day,
all her life,
until she found the stupendous guts to live as herself
and living as yourself
is always the stone cold truth.
The next day, some god squad evangelist
told me the bible says how I love is an abomination.
All I know is,
his squeaky clean Sunday jesus
wouldn't last ten minutes--
would be curled up fetal-style in some vestibule by the mailboxes,
sucking his thumb and begging to go home--
if he had to live where we live all the time.
_________
for real toads "women's freedom".