The Apologist Speaks Reasons Instead Of I'm Sorrys

I could write an entire manuscript's worth of responses to Patricia Lockwood's Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals​. Every poem inspired an idea. I decided to write one based on the first line of the final poem in the book: "I was a born as a woman, I talk you to death" and see where it took me.

​I plan on coming back to this book later.

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Gutting The Closet Of the Gay Nineties
Adam Stone

I was born the promise of impending man
                    poised to open jars and women
                                 with equal vigor

I was raised with the impending
                                       winking compliment of my gender
                                the tall enough to roller coaster by six
                                                             to mow the crabgrass of adolescence from my face
                                                                         by twelve 
                                                             to tell a grown woman she was wrong by eleven

I was wide as reason by thirteen
           fast tracked to the buffet of yacht club dances
                                  in the age of polo shirt villainy
You should see how I danced around curfews and
                                                                     teacher-certified potential
I was graceless as a man
          committed as a woman
Grew into my cock with the awkward immediacy of a royal orphan

I lived as flannel
                 untucked and filthy
            the way I saw other boys with scratchboard voices
                                                           flopping their unwashed bangs on TV
How fortunate I bloomed too late for Aquanet overgrowth
                                                                     pink mountain lion print leggings
How flannel to think fortunate
                        to letharge between the raindrops of Boy George and
                                                                                             Marilyn Manson
                                              rather than boldface falsetto my mocksculinity

I was the appropriate hats for sports and camoflauge
          backhand at the tennis net
          coaching varsity women's volleyball in the winters
                           when the swim team was too speedo

I summer lifeguarded in the leg-crossing of attraction
I ran sportscamp and drama
I looked like I should beat myself up
                                                               and I did
​                                                                               constantly