Wearing Leather Boys
Being queer and coming out, I wondered why I would look at the willowy tall boys, neither gay or straight for sure, who have the best style, the cool badass mr. perfects, born to be looked at, leather sex gazelles, in their teens to mid thirties, under flawless mascara, herds of perpetually unemployed artists, unable to buy food but somehow affording a full slick gothic wardrobe, the type that never dance but are always found lighting cigarettes in night clubs, never buying drinks always drinking. They reminded me of an apocalyptic alternative future that had stopped in New York 1975: the bomb dropped and only the most stylish cockroaches had survived by impersonating Lou Reed, only now they have to wear dark lenses everywhere, now the world went permanent day glo. I realized what I wanted, the more I found myself obsessed with them, from their bootheels to their overstarched gelled hair to that slow elegant long legged waltzing catwalk stride each one seemed to have perfected: I just wanted to wear one for one day. I’d think this most when patching my jackets, what would it be like to simply sew a new body around me to simply open that flawless suit they wore; whose to say all that leather couldn’t give away to a new fabric skin, tight and snug? I imagined stepping in, pulling it across myself. I imagined it would pop into place, tight a piece of fetish gear solidly against me. I wanted to be that tall willowy and sexy to saunter along like PVC fashion mannequin draped in that perfect flesh made flesh. Of course I’d never do this I’d said to myself goddamn it just because you’re macho doesn’t mean you’re Buffalo Bill it just proves you are more apocalypse ready via 1975 the world ending in New York than they will ever be even if they dress the part better.
Genelle Chaconas is nonbinary gendered, queer, an abuse survivor, has mood disorders, and feels proud. They earned a BA in Creative Writing from CSUS in 2009, an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University in 2015, and 50k of debt. They've been published lots but don't like to namedrop. Their chapbooks include Fallout Saints and Dirty Pictures (little m press, 2011) and Yet Wave (the Lune, 2017). They serve as head editor for HockSpitSlurp Literary Magazine, and enjoy gangster flix, drone/noise/industrial music, and long walks off short piers.