Americana Stories—poetry

In Life I Wonder Where Have All the Dead Boys Gone? by Stephen S. Mills

        

I know they exist
somewhere beyond
the American imagination.
Here we prefer our boys as murderers
and our girls as dead
bodies peeking out
from leaves: limbs bare—
necks bruised—blurry spots
that could reveal more
but are deemed inappropriate for viewing
which sexualizes them.
We obsess over what we cannot fully see—
everyone knows that.
Some days, I want to believe my body—
my cock, ass, mouth—
is somehow worthy
of taking—of devouring—of creating
an obsession
for some detective
with a drinking problem
and a dead kid of his own
or at least a pending divorce—
maybe both.
But fag bodies—my body—
is not something to obsess about.
I probably deserved it.
We rarely strike the public interest
and while pop culture loves to see us die,
we are rarely avenged
(see Twinkie defense)
(see Gay Panic).
Our deaths fit the narrative:
homophobia,
AIDS,
suicide.
How tragic we are.
Think of the stories we’ve told ourselves:
the heteronormative narrative
of murder in America:
a detective—almost always male—
obsessed with solving the case of the dead girl—
almost always white—who is never real.
More a ghost.
Never alive.
Seen in flashes maybe.
Only told through other eyes.
Male mostly.
Male gaze.
American gaze.
White gaze.
Heterosexual gaze.
And her killer is also male.
Also heterosexual.
Also obsessive.
Also white.
I wonder how much women make
for playing dead or raped bodies on TV.
Like the opening of Law & Order: SVU.
How much for a glimpse of a leg
in the Ramble?
Torn panties around ankles?
Purple fingers around throat?
They’re filming an episode on my street.
Maybe I should ask.
Maybe I could pose.
But men are so rarely the victim on that show
(even when they are)—
at least the star detective is female
and the stories move too quickly for obsession
which I admire.
Sometimes all we need is that black screen
and Dick Wolf’s name
in white.

~~~