I dance with the handsome men I do not know
the music alive between their thighs, their liquid
skin and hard muscles, my feet and the floor
up my spine, into our shaking, sweating, swimming
pretty heads… My bladder aches. On the way to the men’s room
a handsome man I do not know slaps my butt as he passes by.
You should smile more. I am shy at the urinal trough.
A handsome man I do not know slurs and tells me
You dance strangely. He glances down at my social
anxiety. Rolls his eyes. Learn to dance or stay home.
Shoulder to shoulder, all the handsome men I do not know
laugh while they piss poisons away. Outside the panting
club, the handsome men I do not know call me Faggot!
and with fists they beat an understanding of identity
into me until my head rings with the bass of their hate,
hematomata, and the relentless losing of consciousness.
The opposite of life is not death, but lonely. No deeper cold
than the end spread out without end or touch, soundless
crashing waves of the infinite grinding existence into formlessness…
but then, out of this place without sensation, a stranger that gets it
snaps me back. In the hospital, my eyes open to a handsome
man I do not know, who tells me You’re honestly lucky
to be alive! A miracle. Blessed. From the ocean bottom
of swelling and gauze, I swim up to his indecipherable
piercing voice. How strange I feel. Clumsy. Empty of air.
Without heart. From the wounds under the bandages,
from swollen lips and sharpened teeth, the infinite moist
malice that came back with me dribbles. I cannot be
restrained. I reach up and pull the handsome man I do not know
to my face. His eyes widen. I see nothing of myself in reflection.
No one is prepared for his screams. More handsome
men I do not know fall or flee. I howl after them to
Tell all the handsome men I am coming!
Tell them how strange I have become!
Richard Leis has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, The Molotov Cocktail, and anthologies from House of Zolo and Crone Girls Press. He works at the University of Arizona with the HiRISE team, which has had a camera in orbit around Mars since 2006. His website is richardleis.com.
