Faggety Fag Dreams Between Thieves Street and Lazarus Gate

Once upon a time, we swam in a sea of people. We occupied all space between Thieves Street and Lazarus gate.  The gays swam in the Middle of the White Sea.  The gays showed the other sardines the chosen family album. The lonely straight-laced comrades hovered around, and dropped their masks. We all cried a river. We got frisky trauma bonding. Strong desire coursed through our loins. Revolutionary erotics quickened our footstep. And we dreamed together of toppling it all down. The gays wanted a faggety fag utopia of individual difference and equal rights. The straight faced normies wanted equal rights,  and ok! were willing to consider faggety fag rights too, once we all make the world new. The vanillas, the butches and the dykes made much noise between Thieves Street and Lazarus gate. The gays and the other sardines would eventually be shafted, breaded and fried without their consent. Before the shafting was in full swing, the gays taught the heteros to sing and to not be ashamed of their voice. They taught them pride and courage.

Then the counterrevolution trawled the waters. It caught up with the multitudes. People became much poorer, and a small group of men without heart much richer. The queer peers and their uncurving new friends wept and blamed one another. The leader of the land was a sleepy old man who loved to nap in his chair. His name was Blobfish and his son-in-law Fascifish made friends with the most vicious leader in the land. Together they conspired against the protesting magnitudes. BREAK UP THEIR LEADERS they cried, LOOK HERE HOW THE BOYS ARE GIRLS AND THE GIRLS ARE BOYS AND OUR POOR CHILDREN. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE CHILDREN !!!!! Oh, mon dieu, les enfants, nos enfants! In this little land where everyone hates everyone, the little religious leaders all became friends for a moment. The faggots must vanish. Make the faggots vanish. Let the men beat the wives, let the daddies kill the babies. Blobfish ordered color for dinner. And ate and ate and ate, and color vanished and vanished and vanished.

Poverty and misery. Fear and despair. All the plunder and all the destruction made many mammas and dykes and their upright and uptight fellows leave the country to find that there, where they went, there too was only abuse, contempt and extinction. Color became expensive, so expensive with this mad inflation. Of the homos, only some of them and their friends could now afford color. Pills popped, tabs dropped, lines bumped, and the glitz remained insane. insane, insane. The city is known by tourists for the elaborateness of its violence and the sleeplessness of its party animals.

This writing mamma could not afford it. After the volcanic eruption, she broke ranks, quarreled with sistas and mistas. She went to search for the gold pot under the rainbow. There under the rainbow lived the golden freaks and their friends, the beautiful creatures of decadence splashing in the tranquil pools of Narcissus. There she will raise her offspring and love freely and drink the golden nectar where fruit is not forbidden and money grows on trees.

Then in the motherland, there took place a Tufan and toppled all and everything. It terrified the vampires: WE WILL TEACH THE WEAKLINGS A LESSON. The killing fields and the blood sucking. Rivers of blood and rotten flesh. The red sea, the dead sea, the drowning. The monsters are out and the weaklings call out for help. On deaf ears, their calls fall. But the other weaklings heard it, from the other end of the earth. The weaklings said NO, THIS CANNOT BE PERMITTED. KILLING FIELDS MUST STOP, THE MONSTERS MUST BE PUNISHED, BRING OUT THE GARLIC. Shoulder to shoulder, tongue with tongue, and hands together, full voice and CURSE. Everywhere between a river and a sea, there was desire to be free. Some brothers were confused by the colorful creatures and tried to grab their tits. Their hands were slapped so they cried to their mommies who slapped their face. The dykes drummed the drums, the transes rejected the muslim revolutionary romances. The frolicking gays helped the straight-path-brothers in the struggle, and taught them about consent. Harmony was restored between the queers and their brothers. The lesbo drums keep drumming, and the trans women keep screaming out for THE MOTHERLAND. The brothers learned respect and trusted the queers to be with them shoulder to shoulder, tongue with tongue, and hands together, full voice and CURSE. Weaklings of all color and form together can blow a stronger breeze. Queer and Palestinian, Latina and  black sistas,  muslims and  jews, christians and heretics held hands and lit candles. In circles they stood, in one voice they spoke. They said NO, but the color eaters are too bloated to hear them. The killing fields continue, language has no meaning, the breeze is no storm.

And so we dance on Friday. We pick ourselves up from the floors of despair and seek endurance. What kingdom if not the horse is joy. For a minute, fleeting, we lounge by the pool of Narcissus. Sweet is this pool, divine this music. Come dance. Baptized the dancing crew sinks in comedown on Saturday. On Sunday we planned the nature walk. And on Monday: write! Write about the killing fields, about the journey in hell, about the love between lovers chancing the killing distribution site to bring her a little flour. Tears streak her tired and dusty face. She takes the flour, holds his hands in her palms and tells him, YOU LEFT ME HERE FOR HOURS. WHAT IF A BOMB DROPPED? WE LIVE AND DIE TOGETHER, PROMISE ME THAT. He cries and promises to go up to heaven with her or marry her when the monsters rest a little.

A wise faggot once wrote about QUEER COMRADE AESTHETICS. Hail to the excess but for god’s sake don’t spend all your time at the pool. There is more to text than pleasure. More is more, yes please. Drag it to open it onto its shortcomings. He shoots too soon and doesn’t eat cunt.  Coming short, coming less, not reaching  for more: more is more. Drag is more. Queer is yes, the pleasure of the text, the sweetness of your company, bedfellow friend, family friend, outsider like me, fuck as you please, or don’t,  but for god’s sake fight with us the fascists.

The author wants to thank her beloved, Wendy Lotterman for introducing her to Larry Mitchel’s and Ned Esta’sThe Faggots and their Friends between Revolutions. She also would like to thank Hentyle Yapp and Hussein Omar for writing great essays on the politics and aesthetics of queerness.