The last few weeks

Phone rings baby cries TV diet guru lies
Good morning honey
Go to work make up try to keep the balance up
Between love and money
She used to tie her hair up in ribbons and bows
Sign her letters with X's and O's
Got a picture of her mama in heels and pearls
She's tryin' to make it in her daddy's world
She's an American girl
An American girl

Slow dance second chance mama needs romance
And an live-in maid
Fix the sink mow the yard really isn't all that hard
If you get paid
he used to tie her hair up in ribbons and bows
Sign her letters with X's and O's
Got a picture of her mama in heels and pearls
She's tryin' to make it in her daddy's world
She's an American girl
An American girl

Well she's got her God and she's got good wine
Aretha Franklin and Patsy Cline

She used to tie her hair up in ribbons and bows
Sign her letters with X's and O's
Got a picture of her mama in heels and pearls
She's tryin' to make it in her daddy's world
She's an American girl
An American girl
She's an American girl

Gay Bar

It's dark here, hot and smoky like an old-school description of Hell- but if so, then it's a Hell where I am one of the demons. I can feel the smoke getting into my sinuses, irritating the contacts I've taken to wearing again, but it only adds to my mood.

Over my shoulder as I walked in hung the Moon, her sharp-edged smile the inspiration for my own. I'm androgynous tonight, the boy and girl in my head sharing equal space, but even as a boi I'm a child of that bright orb.

It's loud here tonight, the bass is pumping through the walls, up through the floors and buzzing into my feet and every throb is like a violent heartbeat.

Violence. It's what I want tonight, what I crave, and it's why I've come here tonight, flagging heavy top with my leather pants and blood-red tank top. Androgynous as I am feeling, I still savor the curve of my breasts beneath the shirt because they are bait even for gay boys, drawing them into me so that the violence that I want can be possible.

I want more tonight than can be found in the straight clubs, with their careful lighting and watchful dungeon monitors. I want the gay bars, where force and cruelty are wielded like loving weapons, side by side with kisses.

I want force, violence, the red-eyed streaking of tears down some hapless boy's eyes while I'm hurting him. I want my hands tonight, want to press him into the wall while he smirks, confident of his ability to take anything a 5"3 woman can dish out. I want to press my knuckles into his sternum, watch the first bloom of pain in his eyes like nightshade and see him sag into the knowledge of his mistake, of his realization that I will hurt him tonight as deeply as any of the muscle-bound men around me.

I was born in a woman's body, into the world of men. I know pain, and humiliation, and I will give it tonight with the skill born of intimate knowledge. My hand on his throat, my knuckles in his breastbone, my thumb in his wrist. My fist in his stomach, doubling him over while he looks at me with wide eyes, this unknowing boy who offered himself up for my pleasure.