It's just that seeing Sybil Lamb read and hearing about her various antics reminded me just a little of my first girlfriend, who was also a terrifying genius, who I was afraid to be around because she bullied me and drove drunk, blowing through red lights in lower Manhattan, and started fights with huge cis dudes on the street and wanted to kill the president and wanted to know where I was every minute of the day, but who I hung around for six breathless months because she published slash fiction about PJ Harvey that freaked out a whole web forum and recorded an entire electronic music album on her computer about Super Mario and wrote semi-erotic poetry about her dog and took photographs of road signs and the moon. And who was almost six feet tall although not an actual Tall Girl.
It was a weird time in my life. I was a graduate student of creative writing at a conservative, Catholic football school in the Midwest (why???) and was living with my ex (because we were too co-dependent to do anything different), and she pushed all my boundaries and questioned many of my long-held beliefs. For example, beliefs that I wasn't all that interested in illegal substances. Which turned out to be true, but there's something to be said for testing our own theories now and then.
Anyway, J, if you're out there, I'm glad I knew you and I'm glad I don't know you anymore, and I hope you're still fucking shit up and making someone rethink everything they thought they knew.
Poem for a Mean Love
While on date with me,
Makes out with strange dude in bar.
"See? I ain't no dyke."
