By Murdoc Kang

Originally Published in West Coast Review #2

he sent me a text on Grindr, how he should get a
matching tattoo so that we could be colt cowboys
together. I knew they were empty words, but something made me believe, for a split second, that this thirty-
something bisexual 5’7 white guy with a mustache 1-mile
away from me, wanted to get matching tattoos.

something out of an old queer film trope where
the older bigger man who drives an el camino falls
for a youthful twink who brings him back to life.
a rock climbing face-of-an-indie-band cis white male in
brooklyn lusts over an ex-heroin chic, ex-twee, tragic
artist, east asian transman.

this has happened countless of times before, like wow how
many men with pornstaches live within a 3-mile radius
from you, and how is every man you meet some version of
the last guy, at this rate you’ll soon have perceived them
all and you won’t be able to leave the house without being
noticed, but every time a new one stumbles into your life,
some weird hope sparks that this one will be different.

despite the tumultuous marriage your parents have shown
you as an immediate, real example of love, some part of
you still subscribes to the notion of true love. you don’t
even know if you’re capable of this… “love,” but, something
about showing your best attributes and whole identity
within the constructed grid of labels, receiving so much
shameless interest from others seemed like the easiest
way to experience intimacy. some steps along the way
made you convinced it was the only way, and therefore
a genuine way.

you fulfill his horny desires at work with photos of your
bottom growth. he sends you a video of him jerking off
in a bathroom stall, moaning your name eighteen times.

I went over to his apartment on covert street; I think it
was his roommate I saw, angrily leaving the building,
putting his earbuds in as he made eye contact with me.
I smoked a cigarette outside before going in, hoping that
my cologne didn’t brush away completely from the walk.

we pretended like there was something unsaid between
us as foreplay. he described to me, as daddy to good boy,
the small pleasure that makes his laugh soft. the bondage
of our fabrics hit the floor, we reveal to each other how
we’re really just animals. you lie down, belly up. a dog
begging for love.
he gazed at the way your legs
contracted and your fang peaks out.

he allows you to get close to your heart, every fray of
vulnerability on view. his empire falls apart, your river
parts, as you fornicate inside his bones.

he breathed in the flint tangled in my hair as we adjusted
our bodies to capture the slant of the light. he kept
cumming, unravelling in my hands within seconds. I tried
and pulled the rein in on him.

“I want to know you completely,” he whispers into every
crevice of your body, as if such a thing were ever possible.
he makes up constellations out of my spiders of veins,

rich mythologies of marble gods waltzing in space.
he held my hand so tightly, as if I were to dissipate.
he says, this way, he feels a warmth in through my heart.
we shared a shy death before our relationship expired.

Consoling.
I want to sustain this comfort for just a bit longer.
But I know, I am aware, when I look at him, I won’t be
able to believe it.

I want to tear his skin and dig myself a hole inside him. if
anything is to kill you, I hope it is my mouth.

I want to be loved so much by you that I carry you
with me wherever I go. I want you to be a part of my
life like a red stain on white lace, congealed remnants
on a ceramic plate that’s too stubborn to leave.
look how I bleed from all this wanting.

The breeze came.
A gust, multiple, almost to greet me with the power to
keep persevering.
It hits me like a winter wave of relentlessness. It whisks
my life downstream.
A life, a good life, a bad life. A life I have constantly
strained for, not a changed life, but a changed mind.
He cannot take that from me, I will not allow it.