My poetry is going to be published!

I just got and email that said "One or more of your poems was accepted for publication in Sanctified. " I don't know if just one or both of the two poems they have are going to be published, but it was kind of fun to hear. I forgot they even had my poems, since it was quite a while ago. It's for a christian GLBT poetry anthology.

The two poems they have are below. The first one is about coming out, or about the days, weeks, years before coming out. The second one is called virginity and it's about how some in the christian community tell me I have to stay a virgin the rest of my life. Or just generally about virginity. It goes with the who owns my body blog post from October.


Poem: The Cocoon between what crawls and what flies

(from the title of a Thomas Merton Journal Entry)

I refuse to go back to crawling.
I am terrified of being seen flying.
So I live in a cocoon, a holding environment.
The cocoon between what crawls and what flies.

And when I feel it coming off, I pull it back around me.
And when people tell me how to fly, and where to fly,
Or that I can't fly forward, or should fly backward.
I go still, and pull the cocoon around me.

And then I rumble and grrrrr.
Angry, still, glaring at the world.
Because they keep me from flying
But do they? And I get even stiller and pull the cocoon around me.

But the damn thing won't stay on!
My wings are fully developed
I am bigger than the cocoon can hold
I have to face the vulnerability and judgment of the sky.

No. I'm not ready, I don't want to.
But cocoons are not meant to be forever
And there are too many living-dead already
In cocoons between what crawls and what flies

So I'll snuggle in one more day and maybe tomorrow
I'll think about, thinking about, leaving
the cocoon between what crawls and what flies.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Poem: Virginity

My virginity is NOT a thing to fix, concur, lose.
Damn-it. It just is.
My virginity, is NOT pen-ultimate, like the church says
with it's years of paranoia, making sex into more and less than it deserves.
And to "you know who you are" ms. indiana
My virginity needs no help, just contextualization.
So you rule makers and rule breakers
You who call at me from books and steeples
From dates emails and you match-up peoples.
STEP OFF!
None of you have it right.
There are no cl "first time" ad's in me.
And you, "church", throw out your "why wait" videos and
pandora's box preachers.
That unleashing is a fleecing.
You are speaking French to those who read in braille.
Me, I just waited, not for a why, but for the elements.
Don't save me from my future or force help me into it.
For you voices from the pulpit and from Ms. Indiana.
I am already saved and helped.