this isn't the poem i set out to write

queer-with-a-pen

i have been on testosterone

long enough to grow more of

a mustache than what my father

shamed me into waxing and

bleaching when i was a 

middle schooler

 

him and i have been no contact

for much of my eighteenth year

(after he, like my mother, threw me out),

and so i ask a man that is not my father,

but felt like one for a time,

to teach me how to shave

 

he is patient with me, 

handing toilet paper to blot at

the cut on my chin, and spends

so long rubbing beard oil into my

freshly shaven skin that his

wife, watching us from her spot leaning 

against the bathroom doorjamb,

lightly scolds us for making us

late to dinner 

 

and for a time, 

i was known by them,

i was loved and seen,

and i saw them in turn

 

i still think of that

moment, a snapshot in the

back of my brain, like a picture

that curls at the edges from being

kept in my wallet too long

 

i miss the man i remember

him as, and wish it could have

ended differently

 

but this is one story that can’t

be rewritten, and i have no desire to try

 

and so i remember this man,

who felt like a father to me 

for a time, with white-knuckles and

open arms in equal measures 

and hope he remembers me

more fondly, than i now

remember him 

Comments +

Comments2

  • sorenbarrett

    There is more than romantic unrequited love and I hear it here. Well written

    • queer-with-a-pen

      There could be romance here, through a certain lens, though that wasn’t my intention.

      I was hired at the same restaurant my mother had worked at for most of my life, as a dishwasher when I was 18. The couple referenced in the poem were the owners. We really were good friends for quite a long time, and the husband really was a father figure to me until I was in my early 20s and could no longer excuse their continued homophobia and transphobia.

      I miss the husband as my best friend from time to time, but have no desire to ever reach back out. (Unrelated to the poem, but funnily enough, my first job no longer exists. The whole building is up for lease right now, and will likely stay that way).

      • sorenbarrett

        Understood

      • Tristan Robert Lange

        My friend, this speaks to parts of my own journey in ways I can’t ignore. Being truly recognized, even briefly, changes us...and losing that recognition leaves its own particular wound. Thank you for writing this. 🌹🖤🙏🕯️🐦‍⬛

        • queer-with-a-pen

          Thank you for reading!
          It’s been a few months since I’ve written anything, to the point MPC emailed imploring me to come back. Quite proud that this is what I had after so long.



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