Dyke Privilege
By Roya Marsh
is a homophobe’s sworn enemy.
A uterus trapped in a block of cement
trying to escape the wrath of the male gaze.
Dyke privilege is repetition.
Is No, sir.
No. Sir
I’m no sir.
Dyke privilege is no, I don't wish to be a man.
Is yes, I have been with a man.
Is a memory of the men who laid me flat like a baby
back when I was a baby.
Dyke privilege is watching white gays swallow
whole the Black femme
while I’m just butch
enough to burn alive.
Dyke privilege gives new meaning to strong Black woman.
Meaning I don’t fit.
Meaning rescue myself in silence or die trying.
A double standard
Dyke privilege is being born
fit for a casket.
My body the first burial.
My name a tombstone.
My legacy an abomination.
Dyke privilege is a game
of cat and mouth
Unworthy until a man deems me fuckable.
what good is a pussy he can’t pipe,
too clogged with another woman’s fingers
and tongue
and time
is all it takes
for him to scissor his way into my bedroom.
ready to cum without an invite.
another reason
to stray far from the mens’ department.
to stand clear of the closing doors.
to lock them behind me.
Dyke privilege is for girls like me
The ones that don’t get hashtags.
Don’t get no tender love,
no praise as god of the whole damned world.
They’re praying for me not to be me no more
Even if not being me means I am no more.
The harder the girl
the softer- shorter the life…
A Bronx, New York native, Roya is a nationally recognized poet, performer, educator and activist. She is the Poet in Residence at Urban Word NYC and works feverishly toward LGBTQIA justice and dismantling white supremacy. Roya’s work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, Flypaper Magazine, Frontier Poetry, the Village Voice, Nylon Magazine, Huffington Post, Button Poetry, Def Jam’s All Def Digital, Lexus Verses and Flow, NBC, BET and The BreakBeat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic(Haymarket 2018).
In Spring 2020, MCD × FSG Originals publishedRoya Marsh’s dayliGht, a debut collection of experimental poetry exploring themes of sexuality, Blackness, and the prematurity of Black femme death—all through an intersectional feminist lens with a focus on the resilience of the Black woman.
