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Writer's pictureLammergeier Staff

LGBT Support Group: Field Trip to the Gay Bar 40 Miles Away | Matty Bennett


Those of us over 21 [and some under]

will drunkenly spider down the dark streets,


climb up light poles to get a better view

of this tragic town we're destined to flee.


Monique, Kory, and Shanice will show us

the way to dance-floor glory


while people in the shadows skip toward us,

spin us by the necks like sparklers. We'll fly 


through the air, our bodies a trail of light 

spelling every identity we wish to claim.


Jerome will be GiGi—sweats traded

for a skin-tight black dress and pumps.


Our head-back cackles will make the club-goers 

think we're not fully committed to suicide.


We'll save strobe-light flashes like Polaroids,

imprint our wild grins and sweaty chests.


May and Kim will lick their salty forearms, reuse 

the pseudo-happiness seeping from their pores—


the finite amount they were born with

has run out. And we will—we will—and we—


we never 

allow ourselves to ignite the dark club 

with our shining white teeth. We filter out


of Brush Mountain B and into the vacant

parking lot. We grind our hands into the asphalt.





Matty Bennett is the author of What Are The Men Writing in the Sugar? (forthcoming from Rebel Satori Press, 2021). He earned his MFA in poetry from Virginia Tech. He works for an education non-profit and is a head high school cross country & track coach in Providence, Rhode Island. His poetry has appeared in Juked, Philadelphia Gay News, Watershed Review, The Bookends Review, and more.


Instagram: @mattykbye

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