In high school, I wore sweatpants,
refused to brush my hair. Each day,
I chose a button to pin onto my tank.
My favorite: “Never try to teach
a pig to sing. It wastes your time
and annoys the pig.” I bought them
on 8th Street and 6th Avenue,
near the old PosterMat, a block down
from the head shop on MacDougal.
I had time to kill. I watched daytime
drag shows through the pink-tinted
windows of The Monster, studied
chess moves in Washington Square,
breathed in hot dogs and weed from
park benches around the fountain.
My not-yet-gay boyfriend Andrew
was still in Chelsea, working
as towel boy at the newest gym –
The Body Center – where rich
not-yet-dying men pumped iron
and sucked cock in the shower,
eyed Andrew and his good
gymnast’s ass. Fresh from
Darien in his blue Izod,
he smelled like Noxema,
his mother’s laundry basket,
and my strawberry lip gloss.
When I showed up at the gym
to gather my date, The Body Center
Boys buzzed me in, greeted me
as if I were some tragic queen.
I had changed in Grand Central–
out of my sweats and into my jeans
and leather jacket – Walkman-ed
all the way over to 9th Avenue’s
Meatpacking District: cow chunks
hung from butcher hooks behind
metal-barred glass. I ignored
the garbage on the streets;
I loved the smell of raw beef
and blood. The boys brought me
into to the gym – smirked, giggled,
read me up and down, cooed
to Andrew: “Drew, honey,
your girlfriend is here.”
The music thumping through
the speakers made my chest vibrate
like it did at Studio 54 where Drew
and I danced on our first night out
together in The City, Tanqueray
and tonics in our sweaty, underaged
hands before we later passed out
on the sticky MetroNorth train seats,
missed our stop and had to call
his brother to pick us up far away,
in New Haven. At The Body Center,
I was a small, lone vagina in a line-up
of penises. Andrew was both relieved
and embarrassed to see me coming
for him in my mother’s pumps.
We laughed across town
to his sick aunt’s apartment,
pulled down the Murphy bed
and wound our legs around
each other’s bodies, a tired tangle
of half-love and muscle.
We saved each other
from our own cruel fathers,
from older men who would
eventually take each of us
from the other. Andrew
saved me from feeling
my unloved adolescence
and I tried to save him
from a fatal adulthood.
We ate Dove Bars
on the subway, holding
hands like the dying.