OUTliar

Bastard
Masturbating a glitter,
He wants to be loved.
—Plath¹

On a whisper or a whim, from
inside a cycle unwashed an airing of
linen dirtied with introspection comes a moment
buzzing. A muddying finger tipping off a
scandal sheet’s editor that this was his,
a chance for once to become what
everyone else gossiped he had been since
some beginning cobwebbed with invented mystery dew
misted with alluring glint, silvered strands live
as downed wires enticing to talk his
walk’s audience, swish incandescent tension sizzling in
its flickering the blooming to ruin this
bulb bursting as a bubble does, brimming
as a witching cauldron did when unlidded
by inquisitors his confession scalded, born to
be read and repeated until the heat
of wasted breath left him humiliated. Ravenous
winter, since coming out of his den,
hare-hearted warbler unease apprehends, how he, never
after then shyer than before wanting to
know as any flâneur does at first,
thrown hard toward strangely familiar cold, those
roads over which wander lone lovers offering

ii.

coded touches to blushing hunters his own
somehow had known would devour its flesh,
this heart of his against which angst
like lips on frosted windowpanes in streetlit
distress pressed. And a brisket behind glass
pains of delicate ribs, its hunger ticked,
his poppy-petaled blood drooping to fainting swoon
waiting to be licked until crushed by
burglarized innocence. Fast forwarded, experience lived again
and again and left neglected his cinematic
grift, acceptance by those men whose essences
with televisionary glitch he fuzzed until static
with twitching stasis he drank in, drenched,
saturated fizz dripping rivulets of regret the
only one of them he let depict
his misunderstanding of love icicled abuse as
if hitting the switch changed the myth
his flesh channelled, that he deserved it.
Exiled from this gravity’s center, without the
bruise of his edge not one of
those with whose concept of being bent
the kid’s brand of queerness he exhibited
conflicted, would have existed. In some sense,

iii.

he was needed. If only he could
choose the misadventure of believing it. Instead,
only one choice persisted, to not lie
about his life’s alternative society says is
a choice itself to live. What bullshit!
And why, ponders our wanderer, ever since
he left that closet, does no belonging
present any evidence or comfort, such that
those of his gay brothers from whom
his interests and appearances differ, come across
as more prejudiced than the others whose
labels they claim to resist? A revolution,
then, this turning inward, this introspective bitterness
taste dictates his pen commit to page
what he tongues when questioning why so
much hate separates ones whose love speaks
not its name unless it pays dividends
investing in someone among them so different
is worth befriending. Any wonder, then, the
outlier’s suspicion of approaching men? From ruby
wounds flow sapphire streams of consciousness, caution
costing him more than his richness of
perspective can afford to defend from them.