Performed by V Kingsley

Accusation:   Alpha Femme.

Been called a baby doll, a bitch, a bombshell. A brat a bride and bruised.

And it’s true.

I’m cool. Occasionally.

And other times

I call out cat-o-nines into your skin until the caustic cadence of my cackles cut the composure of your calm cachet.

Delightfully daring but discreet – dropping details of the dirty dyke inside the drop-dead dress.

Are you diva? a dork? A dom? A damsel in distress?

Yes. Yes. Yes and Yes!

Are you elegant or evil?

A fragile flower or a fierce femme?

Yes. Yes,  I am.

Both the graceful girlie girl with the glossy glam glitter and the grateful grinning grant-holder of another day made of gravy,

Yeah I  grappled with the grim reaper.

Does that make me haughty or humble? Who is to say?

Happiness is having hours in the day to harness the heat of my heart

and hone it into art.

Am I the helpful homemaker or just high maintenance?

A hussy or High Femme?

Yeah - yeah, I am.

Insecure or an icon?

I am all of these.

I am all of these and more than the eye can see.

I am a jiggling juicy jewel who, when played just so,

ejaculates with jagged magic that echoes from my soul.

There is no dichotomy between kind and kinky.

A woman can be both kissable and spiky –

sometimes in the same day. Sometimes at the same time.

That’s what makes me a Lipstick Lesbian, a lover of life full of laughter and losses. Delicate little Lady AND slutty libertine,  I lure and lash and undulate – depending on the lyrics.

I was once the main mistress of a minister and now I’m a Mama, a moaner, a monogamous mischief maker who muses and uses music to mark moments in my marriage.

Numerous niches I need to fill –  none necessarily nice or not –but rather nestled somewhere in the nuanced nest between naked and dressed.

If I could offer only one holy open poetry of power and pain  - it would be for this: politics and practicality.

So that people could peek at a puzzle like me.

Questions answered: Yes I am the Queen and quick to obey. Often considered Queer,  I’m not quintessentially quiet and have quite a story to share.

Sex worker, incest survivor, breast feeder, straight A student.

I shined brass and kicked ass at selling perfume scents.

I sold pieces of my skin for school tuition

and saw so many peers transition.

I sold beads and sold weed and packed silverware in plastic.

I salvaged quilts, and sought props for television and stage.

Showed sages in their last stages how to share their last wishes. 

I served baseball players playing the Red Sox savory room service dishes. 

I've so far sidetracked cancer and am willing to answer questions posed often

about staying sane while facing the coffin.

I relish being a sister in sin who seeks salvation within.

I was once a Stone Femme –a receptive vessel of steel.

Such is the life of an abuse survivor searching how to feel -

staggering steps with a stone butch before his transition to “real”.

But now I’m such a sassy siren - no stopping my secret desires! I sing praises for my sobriety and for surviving life’s unsettling catastrophes.

Un-schooling and studio sewing and sowing seeds in the soil -

I am a both the steadfast mother and the spicy lover who can bring my stud wife to a boil.

Now I am a teacher, a temptress, a teller of true tales of triumph. I take the trail so many have traveled and twist the threads into twine for rope

so that femmes all over can trust and hope

that we do not need to be trapped into the tight boxes of dainty or tough.

We’ve had enough

of this or that.

White or black. 

Tall and thin

or too much to fit in.

You see V.

But do you know me?

I could describe myself as:

Vivacious, Victorious, Valiant, a Vixen with Verve,

often Vivid,

a Volunteer, a keeper of Vows, a Voter and Very,

Visionary,

Voracious, Vorticose Vulnerable, Vicariously shy

a wearer of Violet and Velvet and Vintage lingerie,

Vulgar, Vice-loving, Versatile, Variable in speed

Voluptuous,

a lover of Verbatim and possessed of a certain Velocity,

I put the V in deviant, inviting, devotion and survivor.

Oh - and did I mention that I am Very? I am. Ask anyone.

So when I weave these words to a wounded world – I work to win back all the wide-open spaces we need to be the women we were meant to be.

I explain with complexity and simplicity.

Generation Next calls me x-core

because I explore.

I extricate why - why the answer is yes.

Yes I am.

I am a zany zaftig princess who is rocking the Zone.

I am telling all you femmes you are not alone.

We are all shades of colors between black and white.

We are all sizes and all styles and we cannot lose sight

that we are

A to Z

and

every

letter

in

between.

V Kingsley 2007,

www.alotoflife.com