one time a girl walked up to me on broadway
holding a clipboard and a manila folder
stuffed with paper, the kind of paper
that everything looks good on
and she asked me, do you support the defense
of marriage act and marriage equality for same
sex couples and i said
no
i know but first of all, she caught me
in a supremely bad moment (all
of my sweat-panted, dehydrated,
remorse-to-the-brim moments
are bad moments, and they’re usually when
i’m on my way to buy cigarettes and bacon
and i don’t have or want a rewards card)
but the bigger issue here is:
people seem to think that if you’re gay
it means you’re a good person, and
i am not a good person, and she thought
i was a sure-fire sale in the bag
because i look young and disappointed
in everything and i present as male but
i’m not and what i should have said was
oh of course, in fact i just got off
the phone with my congressman,
it is the first thing i do each day before
smoking these cigarettes and reassuring
myself with desperate affirmations like
“you are very good at a lot of different things” or
“after today i’ll stop eating bacon”