Poppers

I am losing interest. Fucking: it’s afternoon, I don’t go to work until later, and I arranged my work schedule so I could fuck from 11 am to 3 pm and after I get off work at 11 pm. Today it’s indoors. I skipped the park. The display of “you want me” I reject, “I’m …

departures:arrivals

Water is the first thing in my imagination. – Dionne Brand He has to take most of his men away from here in chains, 6 men chained together by the neck, because they desert before starting – Francis Hall Before I learned to love the sparseness of acacia trees, my memory was green. Before I …

Confession (draft)

I tried to write something tonight. In sentences that seem knowing. It felt as it should feel: cold. But I don’t want to feel that. So now I’m thinking about you. Always with a sense of something I dare not call regret. I saw a picture of a man who reminded me of you. And …

Sessions IV of X (work in progress)

You ask if my fear of heights prevents me from loving. Falling is not inevitable, I reply. Fear is more necessary. It is an old conversation, strewn with hubris. Love slays. It comes unexpectedly. It happens when we are not watching. Yet we choose to cross streets, ignoring traffic signs, and I am attuned to …

Hetero-Kenya

He was the kind of guy every guy wanted to suck off. He inspired fantasies of teabagging. His ass inspired fantasies of rimming. * I have been thinking of ways to make evident everyday heteronormativity as an expectation linked to desire. Initially, I wrote, “he was the kind of guy every guy wanted to fuck,” …

Current Obsession

To the Harbormaster I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings. I am always tying up and then deciding to depart. In storms and at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide around my fathomless arms, I am unable to understand …

Here and (T)here 1 of 5: Desire

Is it okay if I don’t know what I want, if my list reads undecided, if I have no list, if I distrust histories of desire, if I confess that desire’s manual remains unreadable, so unread. What seemed possible, unremarkable, in Nairobi, becomes palpable here, in this country that first taught me desire, schooled me …