The Sissy

The simple wickedness you take  
in comments meant as jokes, I’m sure,  
is like the mutt’s teeth teasing forth  
the marrow from its bone,  
leaving it brittle, and hollow, alone.  

If you were svelte and handsome or  
at least not larded up,  
a fat and sarcastic bastard  
with acid butter in your heart,  
you’d make a sweet icon.  
 
An inspiration to the queer.  
But you, you take those comments and,  
processing them, come out not  
as Disco Boy. Receiving all  
your mother’s jibes about  
 
gay guys in bogs, your father’s animate  
disgust and cries of axeman cometh at  
men kissing on TV,  
you emerge instead as Bitter Prick,  
suspicious of the beautiful,  
 
resenting Nouveau Queer  
with all their tearful comings out  
on YouTube and Facebook. You may  
not be the best recruit  
for Toxic Masculinity,  
 
but it’s your father nonetheless.  
Though physically inept you’ll score  
at bigoted indifference, a grin  
at Pride’s rainbow parade. Calling out  
You Won’t Survive. You Won’t Survive.