DREAM
A longsofthaired girl, and I was lying with her on the cushions,
and kissing her.
We became somewhat frenzied,
hands sliding over each other's back like windshield wipers,
clutching for our lives at each other's shoulders.
I felt an itch in the root of my groin,
the blood flooding in in a torrent,
I knew that I wasn't going to stop.
The room reeled. I began to take off her clothes
as we rolled on the bare foam rubber cushions.
She pushed me away with the suddenness
of electricity shooting up one's arm.
It was not the girl I had been trying to undress,
but a black boy in a dark blue windbreaker
whom I had been admiring earlier that day on the bus.
We got to our feet and went silently downstairs.
and kissing her.
We became somewhat frenzied,
hands sliding over each other's back like windshield wipers,
clutching for our lives at each other's shoulders.
I felt an itch in the root of my groin,
the blood flooding in in a torrent,
I knew that I wasn't going to stop.
The room reeled. I began to take off her clothes
as we rolled on the bare foam rubber cushions.
She pushed me away with the suddenness
of electricity shooting up one's arm.
It was not the girl I had been trying to undress,
but a black boy in a dark blue windbreaker
whom I had been admiring earlier that day on the bus.
We got to our feet and went silently downstairs.
- November 23, 1970
Another closet strategy of disavowal: it was a dream. I wouldn't actually make out with a guy, it was just a dream. I had admired the kid in the windbreaker on the bus earlier that day, but he found his way into my heterosexual dream. Not my fault!
Still, I was testing the limits of what I dared to say. And I admire the layering of reality/dream here. What was really happening? I was dreaming (and this was, I believe, an actual dream) of undressing a handsome African-American youth in an upstairs room at the student-run coffeehouse where I hung out and performed in those days, but my unconscious wasn't quite ready to let me have even the dream yet.
Another closet strategy of disavowal: it was a dream. I wouldn't actually make out with a guy, it was just a dream. I had admired the kid in the windbreaker on the bus earlier that day, but he found his way into my heterosexual dream. Not my fault!
Still, I was testing the limits of what I dared to say. And I admire the layering of reality/dream here. What was really happening? I was dreaming (and this was, I believe, an actual dream) of undressing a handsome African-American youth in an upstairs room at the student-run coffeehouse where I hung out and performed in those days, but my unconscious wasn't quite ready to let me have even the dream yet.
