Maybe the genre of writing I excel the most at is sort of the preamble to the professor, the explanation of the explanation, the apology before any apology is demanded. You know, the emails asking for a third extension of the paper; offering your life as goods to exchange for sympathy and nothing less than an A. I say I like to give context, but context given in anxiety before the real words are spoken is just another apology. How many times can I apologize before I even get started here? Do you want to count? Here’s a stopwatch. Sorry for the way I handed that to you, was I too aggressive? I’m sorry for potentially hurting you, I’m sorry to bother, I’m sorry for existing, I’m sorry.
There is no greater apology than the one of my gender. My current gender is shame, and convenience. Don’t be mistaken—I am not motivated by selfish convenience, but rather the convenience of other people. Let me put myself in your shoes so I can taste for one second the gender I cannot give myself. Anything but me. Oh, the absolute unforgivable act of inconveniencing other people. It’s so hard for you to change, it’s so hard to know the right words. I understand, it’s hard for me too. It’s hard for me to transition, it’s hard for me to know the right words. I absolve you, can you do the same for me?
There are currently five requiems sitting in front of me. I’ve renewed them from the New York Public Library about six times now, requiems I promised I’d study. Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz, Faure, Brahms—there is no need in this world for another Mass of the Dead, but if there is one, I will be the one to compose it. And you will be the one to play it. How much of yourself do you put into a requiem? How much of yourself do you absolve into a Mass for the dead? This is a Mass directed by God, for ubiquitous use among strangers, cast through the bifocal lens of your brain. Is there a bit of love song in the Kyrie, a drinking song in the Sanctus, a drum-ruptured rock ballad in the Pie Jesu? This is a celebration, you know, a euphoric plea to God. And isn’t that the only thing that breaks the apology? Euphoria?
exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.
All flesh shall come to thee, including the skin-soft palm of the first person I kissed that was not a man. Lord, have mercy for the dance floor we opened a frothy bottle of champagne over and drank frothy glasses of until the bubbles spit on that same floor we couldn’t feel.
ne absorbeat eas tartarus,
ne cadant in obscurum:
It’s not every day I get to hurt you the way you love it, and cause reparable damage to the springy skin and bruise-forming regions of your body. It’s a treat to hear your breath get creative. I see new wrinkles form in your skin, and the darkness your face is pressed up against. It’s hot, it’s cold, it’s hot, it’s cold. Make up your damn mind. This is good practice for the Hell we’ll swallow up, and the perpetual darkness we’ll fall into.
Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira.
When you come to judge the world by fire, think of the euphoria that’s caused by burning for some of us little freaks, and the warmth of the bodies we’re used to. Everything around my bed is meant to emulate the glow of the sun, and the light filtered through water, prisms that wipe colors onto the rented floor of the apartment. I always want to take your picture in the afternoon sun, you oblige, and I have a gallery of knowing what you look like when you look at me. What I want a record of is the ease of loving me, and looking at me. It exists, it exists, it exists!
You’ve never seen me look like this, and you know even noticing the way my back looks in this perpetual light, the shadow above my lip, makes you gay. I lower my necklace into your mouth; I think you’re okay with being gay.
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Et lucis æternae beatitudine perfrui.
Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine.
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
There are so many ways we’ll sing of the perpetual light you’ll become a part of in your requiem Mass. We will celebrate the release from your body, whose rigidity cannot speak one more apology, but not yet, not yet. Is this the release you want, in death? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have lived a man created in God’s image?
Which makes me more of a man, the eternal flame or the eternal light? Does it flatter me? Does it make you gay?
May the angels lead you into paradise, a cut chest, a shadow above your lip, an hourglass figure, well-fed, sweaty, a faggot, if anything, a beautiful, beautiful man. Alive.