My asshole is liberal
and apparently terrifying.
In Chechnya, gay men like me are tortured
while I’m riding a bicycle for the first time in nine years.
I’m racing downtown
along the Hudson River….
just like Michigan childhood,
yet decidedly different,
feeling simultaneously young and very old;
muscles aching, blood pumping.
I have to eat soon and all of this must end.
Coffee in Lincoln Square? Lincoln Center? Lincoln somewhere.
Mingling with opera singers; this is my life now.
This, while those in Mother Russia
who survived the purge of A.I.D.S. have been incarcerated
by an astonishing ignorance,
in a war they can not hope to win.
We are not wayward heterosexuals.
We are born; not converted.
And it is those that hate and fear us so much
who are responsible for our creation.
The only FAGGOTS I’ve ever met were
conservative terrifying assholes.
Conservative or Liberal…
at least our assholes seem to match.
*with all due respect to Arthur Rimbaud.
Written by Jason Wright
April 11, 2017