By Sam Brighton
Weeks after California first legalized queer marriages but before the voters snatched them away in 2008, my girlfriend introduced me to the dyke march. Women of every kind gathered in Dolores Park to lounge about the hill and drink liquor and crack “lick her” jokes. There never were so many nipples. Blankets and coolers and lesbians covered every inch across an entire city block. We idled atop dense grass, my head resting in her lap as she leaned back on her palms, our own nipples under layers and sweaters. Chilly winds fingered through our hair. We snacked on grapes, supple and exploding with juice, as we considered the logistics and budgets of our dreams. Pregnancy, children, and higher learning. The fog was clearing, and the sky was immense.
As sunshine dropped behind the buildings up the hill, we rendezvoused to march the streets. The Dykes on Bikes ripped by, leading the way, two gals to a bike, bridal veils drifting behind. Loud-as-shit motors rippled inside our chests over the constant song of women’s voices. Spectators hung outside windows waving rainbows. Lesbian haircuts bobbed everywhere. She squeezed my hand. I grew up with nobody like me in my life. Here thousands of us crowded together, our bodies close and sweating, and I was with her. I would marry her someday. I loved her with all the kinetic energy rocketing up from this ruckus. We rumbled the tectonic plates below our feet, no doubt, but they held us, all of us together.
Sam Brighton’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Cleaver Magazine, Memoryhouse, and The Exposition Review. She lives in Portland, Oregon where she works as a nurse.
Photo by Markus Spiske via Pexels
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