My Queer Shoulder(s)
Poem by Matty Bennett
“America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.”
—Allen Ginsburg, “America”
—Allen Ginsburg, “America”
i. me
I'm eleven | I'm in a bathtub | I've got the fan on loud and I'm thinking I should drown | I'm thinking about Mr. Clayton | His voice fills the cafeteria with so much man | I want him to fuck me | I love the word fuck | I learned it a while back when my sisters said it rhymed with duck | I've been in this tub for about an hour and I'm sure my parents know exactly what I'm doing in here | I'm touching myself because it's fun under water | Because it's fun all the times | Especially with Mr. David | Mr. Murphy | Mr. Wilson | Mr. Any Man I've thought of as strong, smart, warm | They're all here | Fucking me | Fuck me! | I have never wanted anything so bad! | Maybe it's better to cum all over my chest than to kill myself
ii. you
you said gimme that thumpa-thumpa | please god I need that thumpa-thumpa! | you said save me with the thumpa-thumpa | forget yourself with the thumpa-thumpa | and twirl and drink and throw your hands above your head to the thumpa-thumpa | and breathe in that gin and tonic to the thumpa-thumpa | and fuck to the thumpa-thumpa | you said give it to me good with that thumpa-thumpa | until one day the thumpa-thumpa's pulsing inside you | and it's just fucking sad | and pathetic | and embarrassing | and the thumpa-thumpa makes you cringe | and the thumpa-thumpa's killing you now | so you may as well just thumpa-thumpa | until you thumpa-thumpa
iii. America
America, we meet again | in the streets of New York City | straight girls drinking Coors Radlers on Pride weekend | making peace signs | getting drunk | “love is love! <3 can't wait for my gbf's wedding xoxo” | America, we meet again | in the backwoods of Alabama | Mercedes Williamson murdered | “I miss how she flipped her hair” | America, we meet again | on TV | with rainbow logos | Target®| Expedia® | Visa® | Smirnoff® | Starbucks® | Snickers® | UGG® | Macy's® | I guess we need to spend some money | America, we meet again | on the Internet | some Catholics crying because marriage equality is unfair | “Don't be afraid to speak your truth—you are not alone” | thanks for hijacking that one | America, we meet again | and again | and again | and each time we meet I think | we need to stop meeting like this
iv. we
We're Mikey, the brown-eyed boy next door | We're Brian, the smoldering rebel | We're Emmett, the proud nellie bottom | We're Ted, the crystal queen | We're Justin, the twink we all hate | We're Grindr approximately 50 times a day | We're the church pianist holding the church together | We're wondering whatever happened to good old-fashioned fags | We're that dream again about a man with a baseball bat chasing after us | We're queer | We're queer mostly in our rooms but we're queer | We're Professor Ben Bruckner | We're touching ourselves to Professor Ben Bruckner—a lot | We're what they call nontraditional | We're sweat because men | We're walking alone | We're not sharing with anyone
I'm eleven | I'm in a bathtub | I've got the fan on loud and I'm thinking I should drown | I'm thinking about Mr. Clayton | His voice fills the cafeteria with so much man | I want him to fuck me | I love the word fuck | I learned it a while back when my sisters said it rhymed with duck | I've been in this tub for about an hour and I'm sure my parents know exactly what I'm doing in here | I'm touching myself because it's fun under water | Because it's fun all the times | Especially with Mr. David | Mr. Murphy | Mr. Wilson | Mr. Any Man I've thought of as strong, smart, warm | They're all here | Fucking me | Fuck me! | I have never wanted anything so bad! | Maybe it's better to cum all over my chest than to kill myself
ii. you
you said gimme that thumpa-thumpa | please god I need that thumpa-thumpa! | you said save me with the thumpa-thumpa | forget yourself with the thumpa-thumpa | and twirl and drink and throw your hands above your head to the thumpa-thumpa | and breathe in that gin and tonic to the thumpa-thumpa | and fuck to the thumpa-thumpa | you said give it to me good with that thumpa-thumpa | until one day the thumpa-thumpa's pulsing inside you | and it's just fucking sad | and pathetic | and embarrassing | and the thumpa-thumpa makes you cringe | and the thumpa-thumpa's killing you now | so you may as well just thumpa-thumpa | until you thumpa-thumpa
iii. America
America, we meet again | in the streets of New York City | straight girls drinking Coors Radlers on Pride weekend | making peace signs | getting drunk | “love is love! <3 can't wait for my gbf's wedding xoxo” | America, we meet again | in the backwoods of Alabama | Mercedes Williamson murdered | “I miss how she flipped her hair” | America, we meet again | on TV | with rainbow logos | Target®| Expedia® | Visa® | Smirnoff® | Starbucks® | Snickers® | UGG® | Macy's® | I guess we need to spend some money | America, we meet again | on the Internet | some Catholics crying because marriage equality is unfair | “Don't be afraid to speak your truth—you are not alone” | thanks for hijacking that one | America, we meet again | and again | and again | and each time we meet I think | we need to stop meeting like this
iv. we
We're Mikey, the brown-eyed boy next door | We're Brian, the smoldering rebel | We're Emmett, the proud nellie bottom | We're Ted, the crystal queen | We're Justin, the twink we all hate | We're Grindr approximately 50 times a day | We're the church pianist holding the church together | We're wondering whatever happened to good old-fashioned fags | We're that dream again about a man with a baseball bat chasing after us | We're queer | We're queer mostly in our rooms but we're queer | We're Professor Ben Bruckner | We're touching ourselves to Professor Ben Bruckner—a lot | We're what they call nontraditional | We're sweat because men | We're walking alone | We're not sharing with anyone
About the writer
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Matty Bennett is a special education teacher in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a 2017 Teach For America corps member. He received his MFA in poetry from Virginia Tech in 2016. He is the founder and former editor-in-chief of The Interloper, Virginia Tech’s LGBTQ magazine. His poetry has appeared in Philadelphia Gay News.
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