This is the Love of public urinals,
Of five minute close encounters
With anonymous strangers,
Ogling over the porcelain,
Or through peepholes
In the shithouse door.
This is the Love
Of sucking syphilitic phalli,
Of brown fingers and brown noses,
Of two’s up in the bathhouse,
Of stubble against stubble,
And saliva mixed with shit.
This is the Love of deviant desire,
Of bizarre watersports,
Of fisting and flagellation,
Of shitting on faces.
This is the Love that proclaims itself gay
And chastises the world for ostracising it,
For condemning it,
For speaking ill of it,
For thinking ill of it.
This is the Love of the positive alternative.
But, most of all, this is the Love of disease,
Of death.
The Love of gonn,
Syph,
Hepatitis,
AIDS...
This is the Love that God never admitted to Eden in the first place.
This is the Love that hides its head in shame.
Or if it doesn’t, it fucking well should.
[The above was first published in TAKE IT LIKE A MAN! The ITMA Book Of “Gay” Verse.]
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