Empire of Snow

Empire of Snow

The prettiest boys
with the best bodies
and fattest bank accounts
live on a mountain top

Faggot

They work tirelessly to reconstitute
the social stratification of high school
already over-replicated across society
as if their privilege will protect them

Because it does

Faggot

They do it in the bars
in the community
on the apps
in the bedroom

Faggot

They situate themselves
in the position of their abuser
their tormentor
their high school bully yelling

Faggot

The exclusivity of the club they create
almost universally white
transforms into something worse
something upon which Hitler’s Aryan dreamers
might look favorably

Faggot

By co-opting the community they “adore”
the women they “idolize”
the femininity they mimic
they steal its language
its gestures
its style
while hiding its origin

They are not
BLACK women

they know nothing 
of the strength required
to shine in a world 
designed to hide their light

Faggot

Wearing femininity like a veil
they deny its true power
their veil obscuring their performance
from all those below the summit

As if to say, 
look at us
we’re just like you
gay like you

Faggot

As if they aren’t a gaggle
of cis white males
of a certain privileged class

socioeconomically
educationally
culturally
beautifully

Faggot

What is their snow
you wonder

Cocaine

The good stuff
Fish scale
The kind that makes your face numb
just looking at the bag

Faggot

Maybe some MDMA
on weekends
at Coachella
at Burning Man
at the club down the street

Faggot

They perform normalcy
at the coffee shop
at work
at brunch
bottoms and mimosas

Faggot

Not pretty enough to live among them
only pretty enough 
to sometimes be invited
to look around
to gander and to gawk

Faggot

And below me
are the boys who want me
whose wanting I mistake for evidence
that I have descended too far

Faggot

I look up
and call it desire
I look down
and call it discernment

Faggot

The stratification is rigid
And rarely do the layers mix
Buying into their narrative
I support their scaffold

Faggot

Though there is some travel between them
usually only from the tip to the base
we all are left wanting
desirous of where we are not

Faggot

And yet
I still want to know
what the air is like up there

how fresh
how crisp
how clean

how much snow a beautiful body can hold

before it disappears
in an avalanche
in the empire of snow