Funny how
it was in the hospital waiting room –
the stiff seat cushions, white lights, and
September’s Women’s Health magazine –
where, despite the nurse at reception,
I first felt like a real person.
We’ve given so much up already
and we keeping handing out more:
innocence and virginity,
bravery and youth,
teeth and hair.
These poems are lists of my grievances.
I don’t want to have been beautiful
only when in a hospital gown – or in memoriam.
We both know the gay bar is the only place
where it’s hot to have your ass out –
even for me.
Do me a favor,
tell me how beautiful I am,
in this moment, in this light,
in this ignorance.
Funny how wounding it is
to become sick. There’s no way to recover
from something like that. I presented a piece of myself
as if I was presenting a pearl.
How funny.
Patrick Schiefen (he/him) is a United States writer who currently lives and writes in Argentina. His experiences as a nomadic LGBTQ+ artist informs his writing as much as music, politics, and art. His work has appeared in High Shelf Press, Ample Remains, From Whispers to Roars, Literary Shanghai, and elsewhere.
Header photograph by Jen Ippensen
Header artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson
Vast 