Arcade
I saw people mentioning it in the personals online, but I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know places like that existed. In the Missed Connections, there were ads that made clear that men were...
View ArticleReading and Writing My Way Through the AIDS Crisis
The last third of A Long Gay Book records the discovery of the new reality. She confronts a world of magnificent, joyous chaos where no connections are given, no relations taken for granted, and...
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A Darke and Vicious Place: Conceptualizing the Vagina
hamlet Lady, shall I lie in your lap? ophelia No, my lord. hamlet I mean, my head upon your lap? ophelia Ay, my lord. hamlet...
View ArticleLosing It
When was the last time you wanted something? Wanted it so badly that the very grip of your wanting seemed to prevent you from actually getting it because you were throwing things off with your need,...
View ArticleMy Longest Healthy Relationship is with the Dead Poet Catullus
A few years ago I was going through a chest of papers and came across a note: I’m not going to weep on your doorstep or anything, but I want you to know that not kissing you is a challenge. “Oh...
View Article“Darla”
The high school kids are out for summer, so all over this spit of a Mississippi town young women walk around in t-shirts over wet swimsuits. They cruise the Walgreens in coveys and type on thin phones,...
View Article“Chubby Minutes”
She sees him at the grocery store. He doesn’t see her. He is with his daughter. He is putting green apples in a bag. She grabs a pear and pretends to examine it. She puts it down. She walks over to...
View ArticleSlow Days, Fast Company
“Darling: I know you don’t care about the art of the novel but you might like the part about Forest Lawn.” It’s well known that for something to be fiction it must move right along and not meander...
View ArticleThe Carousel of Desire
“What do you recommend?” Joséphine looked up at the Italian waiter, who stood there ready to take her order. Discouraged by the richness of the menu, she was trying to save herself the effort of having...
View ArticleHow Peyton Place Comforted Me as a Closeted Teenager
In my early teen years, one of the great treats of summer vacation was visiting my local library unaccompanied. There, I could checkout books without my parent’s knowledge, burying titles like To Kill...
View ArticleOn Love Jones and Searching for Black Desire Onscreen
The following essay appears in Issue 07 of Apogee Journal. PROLOGUE It starts with black bodies in a state of pulchritude. Still and moving black-and-white images cut by the blues of Dion Farris’s...
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Lean in, Swipe Right: On Tinder and the Politics of Singledom
In 2008, I attended my own practice wedding, also known as a debutante ball. My sister and I flew from our respective colleges to the Southern California town where we were born, outsiders who had...
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