Katie and Nate's Wedding Ceremony

A few months ago, it was discovered that my grandmother had several brain tumors. The expectation was that she would not survive them, and consequently I found myself traveling to Cooperstown's Bassett Hospital for what I thought was my final goodbye. My grandmother is still kicking, thankfully. While sitting in the cafeteria of the hospital, my sister and her then fiancé asked me if I would officiate their wedding. I was so honored. It was a landmark event in my life and theirs, and I just wanted to share an excerpt of the ceremony.

This is all so surreal. The events leading up to this day have all felt a bit like that moment the night before Christmas. The one where you and your siblings all sleep in the same room and promise your parents you are all going to bed. Instead, you spend hours talking out the anticipation and expectation of what tomorrow holds.

Well, today is Christmas come early.

Recently, a friend of mine who owns a few restaurants in Manhattan was lamenting to me about a weekend family trip. All the children, his included, were found sitting together on a couch at 2:00PM in the middle of the afternoon. The weather was perfect outside, the intention should have been there, but all the children wanted to do was stay on the couch clutching their respective iPads and iPhones. My friend, Michael, tried to explain that the only boundary that awaited them outside on that gorgeous day was their own imagination. None of the children responded.

It was in his infuriating moment that I found the comfort of knowing implicitly this would never be an issue for Katie or Nate. Imagination has, and will continue to be, the crux of their love.

What happened to imagination? Encyclopedia is simply a word we ask our children to spell to prove they actually existed at one point. No one publishes them anymore.

What happened to imagination? Meeting that stranger across the bar and introducing yourself is now a lost art. No one would dream of putting themselves out there to a total stranger. Now, we excuse ourself to the rest room to find out how many mutual friends you have on Facebook, and then figure out how to contrive conversation based on what we already know of that person.

What is imagination?
Imagination is this yard. The one my sister named Playland, our own version of Finding Neverland. This very space raised half of the people here today. Lost Boys and Girls reading the writing on the wall, which was always written in chalk on the board my mother bought us and kept in the garage. The theme, the costumes, the cast were all ever changing, but the imagination behind all of it still lives in the hearts of the two people for whom we are all gathered here today.

I imagine a life for Katie and Nate. A life where a cardboard box isn't a confine, but rather a vehicle to the next adventure. A life where a wheelchair symbolizes handicap to most, and to them, it is the best mode of transportation to get you and your friends around the West End of Oneonta. Said wheelchair also inspired some pretty exceptional outfits, choice accents, and, without a doubt, stories that continue to be told around a campfire, at the bar, or in my own living room.

Katie and Nate's life makes us all imagine what it's like to be the product of self-fulfilling prophecy. In a world where most anticipate failure, they come from families that thrive on the subversion of true love. Both sets of parents, Mary and Neal and Eileen and Rob, have set the bar of love so high the rest of us would have stopped before we even tried to jump. The bond between Nate and Katie with their siblings is steadfast and built on an inherent understanding and mutual respect. When obstacles make themselves evident, they are not evaded but rather invited. Through Katie and Nate's combined imagination, they find solutions that confound the generally accepted policies of love in the modern era.

Why imagine, when you can live the love you've always hoped for yourself?

That's what Katie and Nate are doing today. This is a marriage not simply of two hearts, but rather of two imaginations that refuse to compromise. Katie successfully passed the Tucker test, and now, she and Nate are being tested by Miss Molly: their new family. They have integrated their beliefs to create a communal understanding of what it is to laugh and love and never apologize for being happier than most.

May that happiness and beautiful imagination guide them, and the lives they touch, to the best refrigerator box/spaceship ride ever! May their aspirations never be so far out of reach that a few hours in the wood shop or some quality time with a glue gun keep them from creating everything they dream of. May they always remember the true power of imagination comes from the marriage of heart and mind, a marriage that, in this case, will last a lifetime.

August 2, 2014

When We Started Charging for Sauerkraut

Thinking about all of my family (extended and real) who have been hurt through ignorance. Let's make it better for the new kids.

Oh, New York! What happens when you come here having already found yourself?
I'm not looking for answers, but I didn't sign up to answer those of others either.
Under a full moon coming full cycle having seen all the people I wanted to see on 8th Avenue and beyond.
Dancing two-step reveries with the sirens of my past in a neighborhood about as southern as Siberia.
Commenting on the years not with tears, but rather as though they were tree rings we wear like engagements to every boyfriend past.
Every year, another love.
Every love, another promise.
Every promise, another break.
Unbroken and wandering the streets of Brooklyn realizing I smell really good.
And my profound sense of smell reminds me that this community isn't about to raise its voice at me and call me a faggot.
They are going to look at me and say I'm artistic.
My parents' generation called gays "queer."
Oh, how I wish we could revert to that enlightenment!
People watched Uncle Albert on Bewitched and thought, "Warlock. Queer warlock. Funny, queer warlock."
I want to be a funny, queer warlock wandering the streets and spreading my magic amongst the fairies of my generation.
I want to go to a dive bar in a straight neighborhood wearing a dress and high heels sporting a goatee and declare myself the queen, only to have them crown me with laughter and Fernet for a scepter.
Maybe that's a lot to ask.
Kid can't even go to Gray's Papaya without having his face blown off for wearing shorts on a 90 degree day.
So I'm queer, but who isn't?
You collected baseball cards with stale bubblegum strips packaged questionably within cancerous sleeves.
I collected Agatha Christie novels and snow globes.
So maybe I was destined to be gay. But maybe you were destined for bad teeth, and a dream you'd never come close to touching.
I've visited all the worlds within my snow globes and realized which ones were drawn to scale.
You've scaled a wall attempting to escape the police who chased you for your arrogance, and thought they were chasing you for that time we touched each other after Little League.
I never told anyone until now.
You broke our promise.
You came out when you sprayed your bullets all over the face of my friend.
My brother.
Whom I'd never met.
But we were connected.
We loved you, even when you wouldn't be caught dead with us at your lunch table.
We tutored you in Spanish when it was supposed to be your mother tongue, but you couldn't conjugate a verb to save your life.
And who's life did you save?
Who's life did you help?
You've scared all my friends into dressing like you.
It's hot outside.
I will not wear pants because that's what "straight" means to you.
I will wear what makes me happy, even if the synonym may kill me.
This is New York after all.
Another snow globe I know very well.
For as much as I've shaken it, I've never broken the skyline.
For as much as I've spent a night in the spare bedroom, I can't break up with it.
For as much as I want to believe this is a one-off, I will love this place and know that crazy comes with an invitation.
I just want the crazy to realize our RSVP requires a stamp and a sense of humor.
Not a gun, or a word of hate, or a moment of insecurity realized.
Be crazy, but remember we were once crazy for Pogs, and video games, and Ronald Reagan.
Things change.
Hearts shouldn't.

Tears of Joy

I wish I had a better rationale for writing something like this other than the world of rap finally recognizing our struggle, too. But I don't need one. The fact that anyone at all from the other side of the tracks heard OUR soundtrack makes me happy. Very happy. Ignore my tears, and listen to my heart.

I'm crying in a taxi right now
Alone, and heading to more alone.
But I'm listening to the man I always had a crush on since I was 7 talk about his childhood confusion about his own situation.
I cry because I thought he would hit me.
I cry because I thought he would out me.
I cry because I thought he might like it.
We're getting closer.
We're one less tear from hate.
We're one more song closer to acceptance.
Love is patient and kind.
I'm just hoping to patiently wait for my love to be kind.
I'm not going to cry anymore.
The feeling of spit slipping down my cheek will never dissipate.
The resonance of faggot in my ears will make me think of change.
I will listen to the man I thought would hurt me sing for my freedom, and I won't cry anymore.
I will smile.
I will joke.
I will rest easy.
My boyfriend will annoy me as much as yours.
Maybe more.
I'll always love him, but we'll commiserate over the compromises we make.
Together.
In union.
In unison.
In it.
Together.

Stephen's Bar: In Three Shots

I can taste the mistakes of my predecessors on the rim of this shot glass.
This Jameson smacks of Jody, Dylan, and Mario.
Jody was a sweet girl.
She wore grapefruit lip balm and leggings with a skirt on top.
Her only problem came when she confused the pool cue for a stripper's pole.
That's when she met Dylan.
He played pool from happy hour until someone like Jody walked in.
Four hours.
Three beers.
Two dollar tip.
One chance to convince Jody he wasn't a creep.
From the taste of this shot, citrus and salty sweat on the same side, Dylan was convincing.
He convinced Jody he rarely played.
Accomplice bartender plying both of their egos into sharing the same oversized pour.
But, just before their ambitions dropped to the floor, Mario licked his lips and conjured a better threshold to carry them over.
Mario washed dishes at Jody's bar.
He made the mistake of taking Dylan on in pool twice.
He came to this bar not because he liked it, but because they didn't ask for ID.
You could ask.
But he'd never have anything to show.
Other than scarred hands and a flush face, Mario's passport was riddled with heat blisters and minor cuts.
Jody never led him on.
She was nice to everyone.
And she was good with names.
She had no idea what her hospitality hosted or harbored in Mario's lonely heart.
Dylan was a scumbag.
Mario was desperate.
Jody was just looking for a good time.
One of them had to get hurt.
If only so two of them could feel pleasure.
Mario should have gone home.
Home never carded.
Home never had a posse.
Home never tolerated the empty promises of a tart.
Jody was anything but home.
She was a hole.
But not Mario's.
Tonight, she was Dylan's.
Or at least Dylan's charm.
He wanted to wear her confusion like a necklace.
She wanted to know what little spoon felt like.
Mario wanted to know the curves and caress of a woman secure and procuring his manhood.
All three would be let down.
All three should have gone home.
All three thought the dive was easy enough.
None were prepared for the reparations paid for not acknowledging the brilliance of a juke box rife with Sam Cooke and Prince.
Dylan waited in the restroom.
Mario perched around the pool table.
Jody talked to anyone who would listen.
No one left happy.
Everyone left.
Dylan went to Brooklyn and got up to teach 9-year olds algebra.
Jody went to Queens to meet her roommates and laugh with the immigrant bartender.
Mario didn't go anywhere but down.
He lost the opportunity to prove to Jody he could wash more than her glasses but rather polish her reputation.
Jody probably went home with a Greek guy questioning his sexuality.
Dylan felt his hand draw near, screamed in private ecstasy, and pretended that one worth marrying was on his right.
Jody just hummed a Portishead song knowing she was hummus and light years away from anyone's truth.
So no one went home happy, but few went home.
Those who did saw how destiny is created not earned.
Jody, Dylan, and Mario were destined to find one another.
At least two were destined to know pain.
All three did.
And then the pillow of a bar that barely wipes down itself seemed as good a place as any to take a nap.
We are awake.
We are not taking a cue from anyone.
We are a remix that everyone would pay juke box money for.
We are not lying to ourselves, or the ones who pay.
Give me Dinah.
Give me Etta.
Give me better than this pretend.
Hope Mario makes it home alright, if he ever wakes up.

Stephen's Bar: In 3 Shots

Next Stop

If they let you smoke on the train, I'd ride it all day long.
Life happens in the moments between stops.
People getting on and off and getting off to get it on.
I always wonder why people pay for television when the best shows are unveiled under the hospital lighting of the A train.
Relationships beginning and ending in the space between Columbus Circle and Penn Station.
I have fallen in love sometimes three times over in the span of one ride.
That boy that just came from the gym with a childlike nerve, knowing how good he looks with the sheen of sweat glistening on his brow, making eyes at you while he pretends to be disinterested.
Or the couple whose conversation had become tiresome somewhere between Jackson Heights and Hell's Kitchen, yet your presence now has them talking about the possibility of spicing things up a bit.
Then, there's the man so striking that you forget which was your stop.
You start to question how long you could follow him to see where he exits, and consequently how long it would take you to get back to where you were going in the first place.
It never happens on your day off.
He never gets off at your stop.
You never end up in the same coffeeshop moments later, attempting to work up the nerve to ask if this seat is taken.
And if it did happen, then taking the train wouldn't be as much fun anymore.
You'd have reached your final destination, and the fantasy is over.
You could ride freely without headphones or distractions because now you get on and off by memory.
Its obvious when you've been riding too long.
Close your eyes, and you're there.
Eventually, you open your eyes.
The coffeeshop is full of angst and 30 variations of the next great American novel in different states of development.
There's an OKCupid date heading to disaster.
And he's not there.
He transferred.
I guess that's why we have Missed Connections.
Maybe he's at another coffeeshop writing the same thing about you.
Maybe he's at a bar telling his friends how stupid he was for not saying something to you when he had the chance.
Maybe he's at Kinko's having business cards made for the next time he sees you.
Maybe he's sitting on his fire escape writing tragic poetry about how yet again he let one get away.
Next time, I'll make the connection.
What's the worst that could happen?
You compliment someone by telling him he's handsome?
He could be straight.
At least you're on the train and he probably won't hit you.
And if the embarrassment is too much to bear, all you have to do is wait for the next stop.

Back to the Scene

Remember what Ani said about the mistakes of our generation fading like the radio if we drove out of range?

Sitting here, having gone to both extremes of off the grid, I know now I want those mistakes.

My cranberries never tasted so sweet as when I picked them from the source.

It took a trip to California to realize it's not a red herring, but rather a mullet that's red.

And everything I've read, I've learned.

And everything I've learned has shown me that finding Orion's Belt in the night sky is truth.

I've tread each coast until my fingers, toes, and nostrils were raw.

Now, I'm in flight again.

My station and soundtrack are coming back into range.

Even through the static, I can still make out the encroaching beats of West African tribes, misplaced mariachi, 7th Avenue saxophones, and the angst of Alphabet City.

I'll make more mistakes before the song is over, but it's like Katie said:

"I needed to make enough mistakes to deserve something this good."

Baited

Maybe the next time I cast out, I'll reel in something other than the bait.

I could have sworn I felt him bite.

He was definitely tugging.

And then, we were hugging.

I felt the weight of him as we struggled to find calm in the sea of comforters.

Those were definitively fingers that tickled me, and not some rogue seaweed or algae.

This was not invention.

This was intention.


I want to be anchored to something other than a bar stool.

I want your heart to hold strong at high tide.

When thunder claps in the sky above, I want the crashing of our thighs against one another to echo back beyond the din.

I use the lateral scar across your chest to help me find true north.

Half a league up from your sternum and directly below your nose .

Those lips are Orion's Belt.

I could find them from any shore.

Some nights, when the clouds obstruct my view, I reach out and trace the Big Dipper on your left arm to navigate me back on course.

Then, I take Orion's Belt off with my teeth.


Often, I wonder if I've been at sea for too long.

Should I find a mooring and post up in a harbor of content.

But I like the taste of rain water.

The salt does wonders for my skin.

And my eyes are everyday oceans in which I hope you'll bathe.

I enjoy the comfort of swimming under the sea of comforters with you.

Because laying here with you, I am the bait.

This time, I couldn't get away.

The Fog on Cape Cod

The Fog on Cape Cod

September 2012

Some days the tide goes out so far you have to wonder if the ocean may ever come back.

All that remains are the clamshells and stench of rotting seaweed, the sandy floor a silpat stewing.

Cradled in an Adirondack chair and clinging to the last rays of Tuesday, knowing far too well that Wednesday will herald the end of one season and the beginning of another.

Yet, where I’m going there will be no marked change.

There will be apples and pumpkins and rhubarb, but the trees will still be wrought with leaves.

Only the remnants of baseball moving into football season will need raking.

And somewhere between the 7th inning stretch and halftime I’ll find myself asking where did summer go?

So many things I didn’t get to do before the autumn thrusts its comforters and afghans on me at night.

Not nearly enough corn on the cob or lobster rolls.

Too few the number of times I jumped in the ocean, naked or otherwise, keenly feeling the scratch of dried salt between my thighs.

One more bonfire away from being truly warmed.

Don’t make me put on pants, please!

Allow me the courtship between my legs and the Atlantic breeze.

There’s still time for banjos and claw hammers and washboards to sing out at sunset, putting the sun to bed and summoning the moon to fill the harbor with her brilliance.

The echo of giggles so sinful they could only live in the space between communion wafers.

My sex takes on a maternal heaviness that begins to weigh me down.

I can feel the apathy of the leaves realizing they will just do it again next year, for as much as I try to reason with them.

Next year could very well be different!

What if coulottes come back into style?

What if the best we get is a never-ending SoundCloud remix of Nicki Minaj for a soundtrack?

What if there aren’t enough oysters to go around?


But we can’t think like that.

As long as someone is willing to get up that early, there will be sunrise strong enough to burn through the Cape Cod fog.

The tide will come back in when we least expect it.

[De]Friend: The Longest Goodbye

[De]Friend: The Longest Goodbye
September 27, 2012

Where are you?

You should invite me over to commiserate, but I probably won’t come.

That was mean.

You know I always want to hang out with you.

I’m just being terrible at “coy.”

It’s a weird look for me.

I think about you too often.

I’m sorry if you’re confused.

Now, it’s time for you to stop playing coy.

Boy: you haunt me.

Like a pop tune that I unabashedly know every word to despite my tight pants.

I like laying in arms/with you in my arms.

I miss it often.

You’re appreciation of my use of colons is sweet, and “haunting” is not really the look you were going for.

So I’m going home in a bit.

Shit together or not, you affected me.

Colons aside.

You’ll be hard-pressed to be honest with me again after this.

So I’ll keep recreating momentary delusion with lesser-than misanthropes.

Take that!

She likes words.

I just like you.

But you know that already.

I’m not looking to join you on your liberation tour.

You talk too much.

Some of my favorite moments between us have only involved animal noises.

Boy: if you’re never going to be interested I’d rather hear it now.

Then, I can just put you in the friend bubble.

Otherwise, I’ll continue to think about us in wrestling garb pressing our bodies against walls and bad analogies until we shook with cum-stricken exaltation.

Your exaggerated exclamation marks said it all.

You’re a smart man, Boy.

I wear my heart on my sleeve.

While I’ve known for quite some time that you were never going to materialize in my life again as anything other than someone who drinks “Smurf Piss” alongside me at a bar, I have always hoped that one day we’d end up in a yoga class next to each other and back in an embrace.

I’m talking too much.

Clearly, I’m showing my Eastern upbringing.

Should probably go to bed and write a fucking poem about it in the morning.

I’m being unfair.

But I hope you understand.

Our friendship I value, but I just needed to remind you that I would happily entertain something more with you if ever given the chance.

You spoke to me.

I’m done now.

Get some sleep.

Sorry to burden you with my ramblings.

Boy: you’re ethereal, but I’m not going to Amy Winehouse/Eliot Smith myself over you.

I just harbor this weird feeling that one day you’re going to realize that you really liked me.

In the meantime, I’ll probably eat chicken nuggets and sriracha fries knowing that lesser-than men will love me even if you can’t.

It’s terrible, but at least it’s honest.

And sometimes I just think about how nice it would be to hear you call me “boyfriend.”

Those nights are cold like tonight.

I would change everything and nothing about myself for that.

I’m done.

I’ll expect to hear from you never.

Thank you.

I’m happy with your silence.

I talk too much.

I can’t believe you indulged me this much.

Have a good night, Boy.


And the morning after …

It’s official.

I have to delete you from my phone.

And Facebook.

And I should delete myself from the Castro.

I would say I’m sorry for saying all those things, but I’m not.

I’m mostly just embarrassed that you know them now.

So, now you know I never really wanted to just be your friend.

How I was a sniveling little puppy lusting around the Gayborhood trying to pick up your scent.

Honestly, Boy, I have liked the conversation and the friendship, but here’s the last colon: I’m done.

I’ll always be cordial to you if and when I see you, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I hope it’s not soon.

Sorry I ballooned what for you was probably something so insignificant into so much more.

You, very one-sidedly, meant me much.

Thanks for always being sweet, Boy.

Good luck with everything.

Cape Cod: Smiling (For Amanda and Tim)

Cape Cod: Smiling -For Amanda and Tim I was trying to picture the person I want to be when I'm older, and all I could see was you. I couldn't see your accomplishments or accolades. I couldn't see your body, or its fluctuations. All I could see was the smile on my face that you've carved over the years. It encompasses every other smile I've ever deigned. The smile you've gifted me has been the one of church giggles, Chaplin farce, the moment Dorothy reawakens in Kansas, my first home run, when she hit that high C, first time without training wheels, reading David Sedaris on the plane alone, and seeing a child walk with new feet. I'm smiling just thinking about it. And mostly about you. When I grow up, I don't need to be successful, wealthy, intellectual, able to finish the New York Times crossword, thin, funny, or an astronaut for that matter. When I grow up, I need to know you've grown with me. Then I'll lay down the mirror only to find my reflection in your beautiful face. Smiling. Grown up. Complete.

Filling the Dance Card

Bruises indiscript and earned, draped in pijama bottoms and tank top with a stole to keep warm against the impending fog. Traipsing through the concrete koi of the Tenderloin's sidewalks, picking up tricks and accents and pieces of "his"story. My story begins with love, and ends with love. And with love, we'll begin. No longer a beard, but rather a bow Sliding my chin up and down the fiddle of his body, chest to toes and back again. The music of our bodies drowning out the not-so-very-white noise of Hyde Street's harpies,fixated on fixes, and never repaired. Syncopated panting Joplin's itself from my window, down the fire escape and into the ears of dredges awaiting a bus that may never come. Next stop: Rio de Janiero. My body am abandoned American Spirit smoldering in an ashtray still as samba and smoking as a saxophone holding E flat. We touch as brush strokes on a high hat, Symbolically reminding the other that we intend to have the next dance.

Naufrago No More

I thought the twilight would never get here.
The moment when the snoring of Father Time syncopates the rhythm of the fog horn in the harbor.
That moment when it's still dark but one can feel the heat of the impending sun creeping just under the horizon.
This is when he comes to me.
Valor stripped.
Clothes, the same.
There is nothing visceral about this moment.
We are simply raw.
Club anthems and rarified DJ rants are hushed, and Joni and Van and Bob take to the stage.
They play so lowly they could feasibly be conductors on the underground railroad of our conversation.
We don't cheat anyone; ourselves or our lovers, when we speak like this.
This is rejuvenation.
This is good.
Our voices hoarse from a week's worth of drinking in one night and smoking cigarettes at a dangerous clip.
Skin shines with the residual salt of so much dancing.
His voice is a supple sweetness hidden inside the frightful pith of a pineapple.
I'm just fruity.
Easy fruit, with edible skin and without a stone.
This twilight talk is different.
This talk has garnered my tears.
This is the time I leave him, for once.
This feels good, shoe on the other foot.
This feels good, pushing him away.
This looks foolish, but it's the smartest thing I've done in years.
This sounds like an intervention, but it's closer to an exorcism.
It's about time for Joni to slide pick her way off to California, and my time to pick myself up, ragged and snotty, and away to bed with me.
His bed.
Not my bed.
Not our bed.
There are no more pills to be had, no more whiskey to be drunk, no more cigarettes to be smoked.
There are no more words, other than "good night."
His arms pull me in and my legs allow it out of exhaustion and custom.
His lips kiss the salt from my cheek, and I am resolute to stand there until his body disappears into the embrace of his new lover.
That's something we agreed upon in the settlement:
He gets the man.
I get the sunrise.
I got the better end of the deal.

Touch[Downs]

This is not done yet by any means.

Touch[Downs]

I don’t normally drink alone in my apartment. Ever. I’ve always been comforted by going out to a bar because at least then I’m engaging in what might be the lowest form of prostitution: I’m alone, and paying, at the very least, a bartender to comfort me in a moment of weakness. Tonight is a different story, however. Tonight is the 30th birthday of the man who helped me transition into kissing the mirror in front of me instead of breaking it to bits and cutting myself with its remnants. Tonight, I’ve walked miles of beach with couples, their dogs, and versions of relationships I may never know. Tonight, I talked to my little sister about men that have been inside me and meant something.
Tonight, I ran into Tammy and Tonya.
One could not ask for a more altruistic duo. Tammy has fostered more illegitimate and unwanted children than Brad and Angelina could ever aspire to. Selflessly. Unapologetically. Her husband died several years ago and it spurn her into taking on children the way that lesser-than heterosexuals take up crocheting or model airplane construction. She cooks at the local Methodist church for disenfranchised, disease-ridden miscreants, and occasionally persons the counter at their secondhand store.
Tonya is nearly 50 years old. She has DOWNS syndrome. In conversation, one can generally gather every third or fourth word but never a full sentence. She adapts her appliqué nail polish with the seasons, and dons sweaters that fit loosely and chronicle her travels around this grand country spreading the news of how upwardly mobile her tribe truly is. If anyone is to be considered “handi-capable,” it is she. Her only handicap is her supreme memory. When the rest of us are paying people to help us forget, Tonya revels in reminding us what awful human beings we are. Never malicious about it. She’s just glad we take notice of her haircut and strategically off-centered ponytail.
This is where I crack another PBR Tallboy and light another Parliament Light. This is where I get real. This is where I realize that I harbor envy for those less fortunate than myself.
Tonya met a boy.
His name is David.
I’m a jealous bitch.
Apparently, there is a dance held on Cape Cod that approximates mentally retarded adults against a soundtrack of cool/soft rock of the 70s and 80s and offers them ample opportunity to let their inner/outward wild child shine in a safe environment. It’s a ‘tard prom. If I hadn’t spent most of my life worrying about how all of my mentally retarded friends would feel about me using that term, I would have coined it ages ago. Their feeling: “You had a prom; why shouldn’t we?” My sentiment: exactly.
Apparently, at the Tard Prom, Tonya met her “sweetheart.” Monosyllabic words are often a challenge for her, yet she was able to utter a complex, compound word such as “sweetheart” when talking about her new found love interest, David. Going back a brief moment in time, we three are at a restaurant. Correction: Tammy and Tonya are at the restaurant, and I’m sat at its bar. Alone. Drinking a Manhattan. Shaken, when I wanted it stirred. Drinking bourbon when I wanted rye whiskey. Paying for a sub-par drink constructed to less than the standard to which I wanted it prepared.
Tonya’s in love.
I’m drinking an approximation of death.
But I’m thrilled for her. She waxes poetic about her love of this new boy, and even though I can only understand every fourth word, I know that she truly cares for him and he apparently thinks quite highly of her. It’s mid-January and her nails still have Christmas trees on them. She ebulliently tugs on my vintage leather jacket and says, “I like … soft.” Yeah, Tonya. I like “soft,” too.
My mind is racing at this point. I’m not drunk, and I have another mile to bike in the cold before I reach home. I mount my bicycle, mostly because I want to be home and drunk enough to understand how I could manifest such envy for an over-weight mentally retarded woman. I get home, open a beer, pour a Scotch, and do what every narrowly attractive, intellectual single gay man would do in a situation such as this: call my mother, refuse to leave her a voicemail, and then take the next-best-thing by calling my little sister and strong-arming her into an hour-long conversation that is at best a monologue punctuated by her occasional giggle or grimace at my inappropriateness.
I do what any sane individual would do at a time like this, and I quickly turn the subject around on her. While I would love to wallow in my own guilt around judging harshly the actions of a middle-aged mentally retarded woman, I, instead, insist that straight people don’t actually have sex but rather calculatingly violate one another. At this point I’m not even sure if I believe this statement, but I’ve made it so I have to go along with it. I begin to reference the number of times my sister has coquettishly

Don McLean's Paperboy

Bar full of conversation staler than its Chex Mix, collecting cobwebs and cumstains in the same Nicorette-laced breath.
Longing for a soundtrack much less appropriate and much more distorted.
Let them go deaf!
They're not listening to each other anyway.
They can GaGa-gag themselves with this shit.
Where is Fred Schneider when you need him?
Oh, masterful Fred, with so much gusto!
Where are you against all this vibrato?
The mahogany hums with so much grinding and so little fucking.
Anxious twitching causes palms to sweat rivers and crotches to bulge.
Why can't it get that hard when it's supposed to?
Dreams of one day being better paid than the vapid go-go dancer turned bartender who can barely spell gin let alone mix it.
I'm hip-tini to your scheme, mother fucker.
I want to stream my discontent the way queens upload their foibles.
Should have fucked that one.
Ended up fucking his friend.
Congratulations! You put one relationship light years out of reach by settling for an alternative: the one who said, "yes."
GOD DAMNIT, BOYS!
We can be monogamous, too.
Hell, we can even stay together.
We're not our parents.
We're fags.
But we can break the monotony of illustrious promiscuity.
We can love one.
Other than ourselves.
Not equally, but pretty damn close.
I'm about as interested in how many reps you did at the gym as I am in how many times my mother climaxed conceiving me.
(It was 3, by the way. We're tight.)
I will howl until someone hears my cry!
Not for my mother.
She got hers.
I want mine.

Flagging

Marking territory
With flags, piss, and leashes.
Sanity ebbing and flowing with the tide:
In comes the water,
Out goes his shit.
I am rosy skin tight shorts short of attention drawn singly to my ass,
A burial ground of boyfriends past.
Etched in cum across my back
The lyrics of some old Dolly Parton tune
A many-colored coat of men I've worn in and worn out and yet to win.
I do not whine because I drink.
I do not sink because I float
On this inflated sense of self.
In this mirror of oyster shells,
I am unbroken.
Mine was not to be yolked.
Strong backed, ox-shouldered
I carry the weight.
Heavy with so much chatter
Of from whence I came
And where I'm going.
I have feasted at the urinals of Madrid and found light
In the dank bowels of subterranean sex parlors.
I have outwitted the straightest of cock and watched it bend to my will.
A little more to the left, my dear.
I have stolen underwear and gum and cigarettes all in the same breath.
Rifling through medicine cabinets has no longer become a pasttime but a fact-check.
I still have wet dreams of Neal Cassidy jerking me off in the front seat of a Buick,
Under a September moon with Marlene Dietrich on the radio.
Instead, I settle for RedTube military dramas with Drew Carey narrating in the background.

I lied to be laid.
Now, I've laid down my lies only to find I lay down with liars.

Lie down no more.
Marked I may be,
But matched: never.

Feel the Music

I am a jazz riff of hurt right now and all you can do is scat in my ear about how happy you are in all your suburban glory; a fucking Ella Fitzgerald of excitement at the prospect of cooking dinner in less than an apron for a gentile man 20 years your senior with the personality of boiled cabbage and the stench to match.
Trouble is neither of you can smell out of those deviated septums of never-ending summer frivolity, let alone taste how salty your god damn cous-cous has become.
And here I am: Bohemia crying back with a call to arms.
TAKE YOUR LIFE AND SHOVE IT!
I am lentils and light years ahead of you.
Peasant food I may be, but pissant I will never be.
My band only needs one fiddle, and second chair I will not fill.
We will make music that brings the listless to their feet.
Old women in stockinged toes to tap and flap their gummy elbows together in a clap that wraps against the pane glass of storm doors.
Their cacophony will wake the sleeping children out of their naps and off their backs into a parade of disjointed jigs, giggles, and wiggles as they wrestle to interpret the rhythm.
Come as you are to our show.
We're not showing off.
We said fuck the Cotillion.
We came out when we were ready.
No RSVP necessary.

See Something, Say Something: Subway Stops and Goes

See Something, Say Something: Subway Stops and Goes
I
Subway platform catwalk
Hips sway with the confidence of so many polka dots against the monotony of New York.
Baby carriage percussion beats down the stairwells as the horn section erupts within each mini orchestra.
Waterlogged rats scratch their way into empty potato chip bags crumpled and discarded near the third rail.
The feeling of undercover lurid glances upon my ass is electrifying.
Just don’t mess this one up by turning around.
Let him come to you this time.
II
Country song reality,
Walking the city as a tumbleweed,
Losing cash and dignity as I spin down the avenues, careening into the streets only long enough to brush off some of the dirt that’s weighing me down.
I fall in love with the accents of Penn Station every day.
III
I am plucking at his torso as bass strings – an instrument I do not play, but I follow his freckles as chords.
My fingers have never felt so big.
They are eager.
In my eyes, he is a fava bean ready to be shucked.
I have blanched him with caress, and now remains only the supple skin between the green of us knowing the other.
At the thought of unveiling him, I spilt in two, only increasing the amount of surface area we have to cover.
On my lips there is a thin layer of honey, my skin itself a comb dripping with his essence.
I can smell the hydrangea and rhododendron tapped to produce this ardor on my face. My tongue languishes in the salt and sugar of our mouths pressed against each other in a vice of our own design.
IV
Wading through the fog of Harlem at four in the morning,
Sweater bespeckled with cigarette ash and Mexican rice,
My eyes lock on a beacon.
With cinder block feet and sloth lids, I magician myself to the streetlight spotlight outside my apartment door where my seat awaits.
Under the tertiary lighting of residents upstairs unable to sleep, watching so many infomercials and listening to hip hop songs of my youth to get to bed: here, I am sated.
My cacophony quiets only when I close my eyes and jukebox reveries start dropping as so many quarters from jackpot slots.
Mind of a woman, restless and strategizing.
I count on fingers, thumb first, to keep track of the meter.
V
Roller derby death march,
A pocket full of quince.
Treasure map of SoHo,
Street carts full of hints.
Mother on the subway refuses to put the brake on her daughter’s stroller.
She is picking at her nails as though she were in Alba foraging truffles.
She is truly a pig.
Daughter’s carriage bangs back and forth against the emergency door of the car, a pint-sized battering ram, chocolate chips flying behind her as so many splinters from a lumberjack’s thrust.
The ass of this woman as she exits the train reads like Braille, or tree trunk rings.
This girl was a mistake, and mom’s ass is a lazy, shapeless, sagging reminder of how futility manifests itself.
If desperation had a scent, it would be the shallow conversations of gay men in poorly fitting t-shirts on a damp Thursday in Hell’s Kitchen waiting to bump iPhones, if not something more.
VI
Rhinestone cowgirl saddles up to the bar at 4:30 P.M. in the afternoon.
She is 65, and goddamn it she is going to use it her advantage: Senior Citizen discount on Kentucky bourbon.
Maybe I do want to grow old …
When am I going to learn to open my mouth at the right time?
I flap my gums all day long, but never at the people I should.
This same gentleman has walked past me four times now, and I ostrich my head down every time as I were playing a game of hide and seek, party of one.
I’m hiding.
He’s done seeking.
But he was seeking, and I’m an idiot.
I want to wear him like a London Fog trenchcoat in Central Park in November.
My arms slide along his as butter on Pyrex.
We are baking a pumpkin pie with a bacon crust.
He fits like all the clothes I stole from my father: a little long, but well worn in and soft.

Waking up Blank

I am too young to feel too old at a bar. I can still remember clearly the first time I went out to a bar. I was 14, with three friends, and I passed swimmingly. The bartender even bought me a few beers. I wasn’t old enough to really have pimples, so I wasn’t pimply-faced.
What I was, was confident.
A bar felt like home. Strangers gradually moving from being strangers to becoming new friends. Personas amplified and ego non-existent. The soundtrack always varies. Jukebox, record player, iPod, band, karaoke contest. They’re all variations of wallpaper. Some are brighter than others. A few are so esoteric you wonder where they were even found.
Then, very rarely, that moment happens.
The one inexplicable moment when an otherwise sullen girl lets out a scream so fierce that sound barriers are broken, earth shakes and hearts dissipate into little puddles within your chest.
Lindsay happens like this in my life.
It must have been a Monday morning. I didn’t have to work, but I had plenty of work to do at productively drinking enough to remind myself that I was more interesting than the job I had at the time. It must have been a Monday, as well, because the night before I had gone to Noir. This unfortunate decision was always made because Noir was the wasteland of zombie drunks needing just one more hour of alcohol after the rest of the bars in Cambridge had stopped serving.
Entering through that beaded curtain meant checking your coat and your dignity at the door. Can one finish 4 beers, 3 Jamesons, and 10 cigarettes in 47 minutes? Yes, yes you can.
Lindsay wasn’t with me this night. If she had been, what transpired would never have happened. She was still living on my futon at this point, and had recently been joined by Usman, her slightly charming but utterly useless rouge boyfriend at the time. They were now sharing the futon. I slept on my bed in my bedroom which had no door, no curtain, and consequently no shame. After all, of the three of us now living in the apartment, I was the only one paying rent.
I went to Noir because I had to. Had to because I had been at Charlie’s Kitchen right around the corner for an hour or so; and it was there that I met the conversation that wouldn’t end. His voice was gruff, something I’ve always been drawn to as my voice is so distinctly not straight. It’s not that I’m flamboyant, I’m just undeniably gay. So when a man sounds like what I would imagine a lumberjack might sound like, I am immediately drawn to him. When he turns out to be gay, I’m officially salivating. When he’s rude to me and slightly offensive to me and everyone else at the bar, I’m already picking out our song and wedding bands. This evening was already written. I wrote it. There were no words on it, but we were going to do it. Live.
Most people require a name when a new character is introduced. I knew his name, I have simply chosen to forget it. We apparently went to college together. He was in finance. I could give a fuck. I remember how I badly I wanted to emasculate him. When we were in bed, I began to acknowledge certain parts of him that he might not have tended to regularly: knee caps, armpits, other parts. When I returned to his mouth – the one part with which he was completely familiar – he tried to deny my kiss. So bold was he that he asked me to go brush my teeth before he would allow me access to his mouth again. I became the anger of so many Loretta Lynn tunes. I took my left hand to the nape of his neck, pulled him close and kissed him deep with the taste of his asshole on my lips. “From one ass to another _______. SWAK,” was my response before getting up to finally brush my teeth before bed.
I assumed that when I returned to bed, he would have already left. The whole time, Lindsay and Usman slept in the living room being anything but full of life, their snoring alternating perfectly to create the effect of an air conditioner’s white noise. I puttered in the bathroom a little longer than I would normally, debating whether or not to floss to give this idiot enough time to collect his clothes and leave me be. When I reentered the bedroom, he was still there. Now, he wanted to cuddle. This was not in the fantasy. He refused to leave. Apparently, his Marlboro Man rasp was nothing more than the pant of a breathy, doe-eyed Tiger Beat fanatic, and I was now David Cassidy. Kill me.
But I let him sleep over. It was late, and I wasn’t up to the fight. I had just brushed my teeth, but I could still taste the whiskey on my breath as we slept. Or maybe it was his breathing on me that I tasted. Regardless, his was a condition I would address in the morning when the ethanol had run its course.
Only recently have I fancied myself an early riser. That morning, however, I was up like a shot at 8:45 A.M. It was precisely at 8:46 A.M. when I took stock of my situation at hand: ________ nestled against the wall on the edge of my bed, Lindsay and Usman still sawing away on the futon, and a floor that once existed as carpet now riddled with accordion-like suits made me quickly realize that everyone needed to get out. By 8:47 A.M., I was a whirling dervish in the apartment putting on an epic performance surrounding my imperative need to make it to yoga by 9:00 A.M. 13 minutes to find shorts, fill a water bottle, and eject one of the three clingers-on from my place. The clock was ticking.
__________ sat up and started to tell me how he needed to call whatever blood-sucking financial institution that signed his paycheck to tell him he was going to be late. I didn’t have time to tell him I didn’t care, nor did I have time to explain to him the nature of cell phones. I only had 9 imaginary minutes until I had to be nowhere but alone. In all this commotion, as _______ was crossing the threshold so both of us could make our exit, Lindsay perked up from behind still sleeping Usman and cocked an eye and a tit at the scene unfolding at my front door. ________ apparently woke up hungry; not for food, but rather conversation. He turned back to look inside the apartment, noticed her half awake person squinting to understand what was going on with such urgency outside, and without skipping a beat uttered a nonsequitor of epic proportion:
“Where you from originally?”
Now, there were four eyes squinting: mine and Lindsay’s.
At this point, there remained only 4 imaginary minutes before my class was to begin. A two-minute conversation ensued between ________ and Lindsay that made me wonder if he had in fact confused me for the woman of his wildest dreams. His voice was back, and he had resumed his role as prick of the morning. If he hadn’t already exposed himself to me the night before, I might have fallen back into like with him. But Lindsay covered her breasts, I threw my bag into my car, and told _______ I would see him around. He wandered up my driveway still talking. To whom I may never know, but I spent the 30 seconds or so that it took him to make it to Prospect Street watching him jovially converse with no one.
When he rounded the corner heading toward Union Square, I reentered the apartment to find Lindsay and Usman sat up straight on the futon. It was already 3 minutes into my imaginary yoga class, so I decided to teach a class instead. A bottle of whiskey, a pack of cards, two packs of Parliaments lights, and a soundtrack of the Velvet Underground, Wilbert Harrison, and Islands were all we needed to put ourselves back to bed an hour later to forget this whole thing ever happened. We slept all three of us on the futon. I found the comfort of their touch so much more comforting than the man that had just left my apartment. It was almost like being 14 again, when the bar felt like home. Now, the inverse was true.

Hide and Seek

Written at 13. Scary ...

Hide and Seek

Reminiscent of your way
Common of your step
Remarkably
I follow
I don’t know why
But I did
I can’t change
Or hope for solace
After what you did to me.

I’m being selfish
I should have let you strangle my soul
Or relish in the thought of my pain
But I didn’t
What was I thinking?
You always know best
I’m in the closet
Behind your darts
Hiding in the J.C. Penny display case
Hoping
You can’t catch me.

Opposite Eyes of Knowledge

A scholarly man requested my help
I acquiesced and pondered
He wondered what all his years of work would bring him
Simply he said that his life had been pressing
While his nights had been lost
Minutes were words, and words were books. Yet all the time his eyes glanced at mine.
Words became mumbled expressions of awe
Hands reached out, touching
One on a cheek
The other, a heart.
The man replied his many thanks and he wept.
I laughed in spite of it all.
I’d helped this poor man with the brush of my hand
Words again were mentioned
But only subconsciously for no one to hear
And I, the lesser intellect of the two,
Gathered my small brain into my deformed body
For the scholarly man had seen something in my eyes,
And yet I still look for the happiness it brought him in myself.

Ellipses ...

Dinah said it best: if I were a bell I’d be ringing.

She was a complete stranger.

“Do you have a significant other?”

“I did, and now I just have his stuff.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to leave you.”

Fuck.

He was significant. He altered me. And in thinking on it, maybe he doesn’t want to leave me. The last significant one took everything. That’s the thing about significance: it never leaves. It lingers. It stares back at you from the mirror. It punctuates every sentence.

Why has this one sentenced me to a life forever ending in ellipses?

I love the declarative. Period. Full stop. Definitive.

The subjunctive has never done much for me. It doesn’t tuck you in at night. It tells you it will be in a minute when the program is over. It asks you to dance in broad daylight in the company of strangers, takes the lead, dips you, and doesn't pull up back up.