10 – Pride

You pride yourself on being friends with boys. You pride yourself on how you dress, how you act, on how you cut your hair. Not flamboyant. Not in everyone’s face. You’re not one of those gays, you’re subtle. Unsuspecting to the naked eye and every passerby. That’s just not who I am, you say. I’m not one of those.

Parades and rainbow vodka seem too much. You’ll never live in the Village or go to those bars or celebrate the wrongness inside of you. I’m just a homebody, you say. I like to be alone. 

But you don’t. Everyday you smoke your cigarette at lunch and hope that somebody will stand beside you and occupy the same space. You’ve acknowledged the queerness in your pulp, but can you stand it? I’d rather be alone, you say. But thanks anyway.  

You thought there was queerness in your pulp, but there’s shame in there too, floating around like dead flies in a pond. How long can you hide between your sentences? How long can you water yourself down?

>I can take it.

>It’s been too long already.