1 poem
by Jayson Keery
Jayson Keery is a writer, editor and organizer who lives in Western Massachusetts where they are completing their MFA in poetry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are the managing editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the former assistant managing editor of jubilat. They host the Majestic Queer Lit Club reading series and the HUT reading series in Northampton. Their work has appeared in Metatron Press, b l u s h, Peach Mag, and Girls Like Us, and has been anthologized in Pilot Press London’s A Queer Anthology of Rage and Nightboat Books' We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics. They received an honorable mention for the 2019 Deborah Slosberg Memorial Award, judged by Diana Khoi Nguyen.
Just Gay /gā/
1.a.
(of a person)
homosexual (used especially of a man)
"the city's gay and lesbian people"*
the city’s gay and lesbian people out
on a stroll through the gay and lesbian park
1.b.
relating to or used by homosexuals
“a gay bar” how rude
they do more than just drink like
they drink in a park like
a breath of fresh rights
2.a.
warning this is [dated]
to be lighthearted and carefree
“had a gay disposition and a very pretty face”
boys are cats and girls are dogs
wag their tails on the promenade
on their dates in the park they are dating
each other the men and the women
it is evening it grows dark
the moon rises
sparkling as white as gender* how
beautiful for the men and the women to
behold each other’s outfits
2.b.
bright and brilliant
they are showy like a “gay
profusion of purple
and pink sweet peas”
in the moonlit gardens
they are nice in their outfits
which are purple and pink
3.
warning [informal] [offensive]
a figure alone is skating through the pond
the season is spring the fashion is the
terrifying neutral of trenchcoat seeping
a miasma of dark glitter dust
almost the same dust celine dion used
to rob babies of gender dousing them
with black and white clothes*
“making students wait for the light is
kind of a gay rule”
a-flash-of-light-a-flashing-a-flashion-show
the figure erupts in the park revealing their
white-gold or blue-black dress distracting the gays
as they conjure up a miniature stage
they announce
“it is I
I am gay like stupid
I am gay like queer
I am queer like explicitly not gay
I am they like ‘excuse me did
someone forget their wallet?’
ladies and gentlemen it’s literally that easy
gather ‘round”
the gays are confused they
don’t like this outfit this gay from
another dimension
definition who’s now
pulling puppets out of their pants
“imagine
you love someone and you're gay
you love someone and you're gay and
one day they say I'm using they them and
do you not love them anymore?”
two puppets twirl on the stage
they are magic the
men see men the women women
“imagine
you love someone and were gay and
now they are a they and you're okay with that but
they start to wear different clothes”
one of the puppets exits stage left enters
stage right a new cut a shade of polish
a soft boot a faggy thong whale tails it
across the stage a small dildo poking
out of its pocket
“do you not love them anymore?
imagine
you love someone and they have different clothes
now they start HRT and
slight boobs small penises or whatever and
do you?”*
it’s bedtime for the gays
*
a cis man once said at me
“it's okay to just be gay”
to just be
as in just a
simple state of being
gay am I
can I
just be?
he didn’t know
the only thing he could
possibly be saying was he’d
never be attracted
to a trans person
to me
(or did he?)
straight is the opposite of gay
somehow that’s that but
it’s mathematically impossible
for me to have
straight sex
try it
try the math but
it’s okay to just be gay
I want to hear you say it
park it in its truth
say you’re not queer to me
say you’ll never fuck me tell me
why
whisper it
into my ear
my ass
tell me why it feels
so very different
to you
in there
tell me back
it’s okay to just be
(of a person)
it’s just okay
*example phrases quoted from the gay poet who interns at the Oxford Dictionary.
*suggested reading on how western concepts of gender are constructed around whiteness: Black On Both Sides, by C. Riley Snorton.
*check out celinununu.com to buy kids’ genderless clothes as if other clothes have gender (the commercial is worth the watch).
*this theater only addresses the possibility of working towards loving/ finding romantic and or sexual attraction towards someone assigned the same sex at birth. the work does not stop there...