WUSSY is proud to present poetry by Taylor Portela
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly.
tricking a drag audience with a poem
The background music throbs the plank platform stupid.
I’m all lips against wood as I tumble over hard copied lines
to scour a stanza to break my fall. The crowd’s jaws bust in two;
I crash and I boon. My body collapses the distance
between page and stage when I offer myself up for reads
as my third leg helicopters fresh applause,
for eyes transfixed on my hungry diction,
transparent in desired reaction.
I feed his eyes my worth & he feeds my mouth his tip.
Virginia is for lovers
Blood blots my underwear like clockwork.
The nurse guesses anxiety, latent Chlamydia,
even Covid. Winks you still have needs, sweetie, have more sex.
On her script pad she draws the tight dial of butthole,
with curds near midnight, says lay back down & I’ll touch so you can visualize it
& I thank her. But we both can see how my pink contracts & folds out of itself
spurting red, why a bottom needs a pair of expert eyes to almanac their risk.
I tick & can’t stop ticking. Not in the office
not on my walk home meant to ease the mind that harms
my body that crackles a pop
pop pop tensing passed tender limb
into strained line item for post-bottom
post-Grindr potable charcuterie.
I’m still available for takeout or delivery.
You can still eat me.
This sunburn tracing ‘round a racerback crop top & hot pants,
red. I’m a Main Street feast. Even my in-transit doom scroll predicts
me, advertises isolation, sitz baths, pup tails, & I choose a large red one
to prove how much I can handle.
How much red I can loose.
Taylor Portela is a non-binary poet, drag artist, and MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Virginia Tech. Their work has appeared in Hawai'i Review, Juked, and New South. They can be found on Instagram @LavenderScare16.