Dreaming of Lesbos

tatiana de la tierra

I can enter the morning with traces of an eternal dream:  to live on a planet of women. we sing in the fertile forest, caress on lavender hills, bathe beneath cascades of clear waters. and just like that, nude and wet, we mount each other’s bodies. our desire is a whale that searches for calm in the depth of the sea.

I smell sex in my hair when I awaken.

the dream perfumes all of my days. I go to the post office and look for stamps with etchings of flowers and fruits so that I can send letters to the women who loved me in my sleep.

we are in a world that is not ours. what do we do with the dreams that touch our consciousness in the nude each night?

our planet of women is nothing more than a dream. who knows how many of us bathe in the woods or which ones of us have wings that let us fly with our flesh? it’s not for anyone to know. fortunately, we always dream paradise, we make it ours. there, we find each other and live in our collective memory.

and so, I smell sex in my hair when I awaken.

---

Originally published:

de la tierra, tatiana. For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology / Para las duras: Una fenomenología lesbiana. Buffalo: Chibcha Press, San Diego: Calaca Press, 2002.