{"sf1_id":1713527,"sf2_id":"keNZdpeG","title":"Blank Verse Essay on Intentionality in Queer Fiction","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":593,"posted_at":"2021-05-02T18:44:00.000Z","tags":["Blank verse essay","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse","essay"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1713527-blank-verse-essay-on-intentionality-in-queer-fiction","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/keNZdpeG","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/76/00/7600d679-007b-4e5a-b0da-1bb6d8932977","description":"#36 of poetry\n\nYou must admit I did threaten to turn this journal--https://www.sofurry.com/view/1707174--into a blank verse essay.","content":"I will not say here, 'no more happy ends.'  \nI won't presume to undercut the need  \nFor stories of queer heroes of queer worlds  \nWhere homophobia has never been.  \nFor gods of sunset, moon, and winter know  \nThat if no tale but such as these were told  \nFrom now until the day I breathe my last  \nIt would not serve to mend the deficit.  \nLet tales of worlds where homophobia  \nIs not, has never been, and never will,  \nBe told. Let them abound and multiply,  \nAnd fill the too-straight world, and it subdue.  \nLet prince love prince, let princess princess save.  \nLet warriors own of no gender but war.  \nFor each tale, after all, will be the one  \nFor someone, that first opens up their eyes  \nTo see as in a darkling glass, themselves.\n\nAnd yet. If tales but such as these were told  \nFrom now until the day I breathe my last  \nAnd none besides, why, I would breathe my last  \nBelieving that the life that I had lived  \nWas not a life, and all the love I'd loved  \nWas not entirely love. How could they be?  \nThe lives and loves of all my heroes would  \nBe lived and loved in worlds too bright for me.  \nToo just. Too perfect. Far too welcoming.  \nTheir shining worlds where homophobia  \nIs not, has never been, and never will,  \nCould have no place in them for such as I.  \nBehold my history, all dour disowned.  \nBehold my heart, by sword of sorrow pierced.  \nThis is my body, old before its time.  \nThis is my blood, which I cannot donate.\n\nAs in the days when out of Hamelin town  \nThe sons and daughters, by unearthly song,  \nWere led on paths unnamable and strange  \nInto a paradise of innocence,  \nSave one. Just so my soul is long since lamed  \nBy grieving for my griefs, by growing in  \nClosets too cramped to ever stand up straight.  \nI cannot walk as fast. I reach the gates  \nOf Bergentruckung only just in time  \nTo see the shining world where all my woes  \nAt weary last be laid to weary rest  \nBefore the door shuts fast. And I alone  \nEscape to tell thee: aye, I yet remain  \nIn this same world where homophobia  \nIs yet, has ever been, and likely shall  \nOutlast the day I draw my final breath.\n\nSo let there too be stories of this world.  \nLet love admit of base impurities.  \nLet prince love prince, but furtively, at some  \nDiscreet motel room at the county line.  \nLet princess save princess, from homelessness  \nIn flight from foul conversion therapy.  \nLet warrior own of no gender but war  \nAgainst the bulk of laws heteronorm.  \nAnd aye, let tales of perfect other worlds  \nBe told as well. We have yet need of them.  \nAlongside tragedy. Alongside grief.  \nAlongside seedy and outright unchaste.  \nAlongside bitter, dark, unhealthy, grim:  \nNot to be emulated, yet still seen  \nAnd recognized. For which of us have not  \nBeheld such, in a dark glass, in ourselves?\n\n\u0026nbsp;Yes, tell me stories of how love should be,  \nShould have been always, and has never been.  \nBut tell me also tales of how love is.  \nAnd how perforce it likely will remain.  \nLet not it be that all our stories are  \nOf worlds where homophobia is not,  \nFor none of us will ever live in one.  \nI do not say here 'no more happy ends.'  \nI rather say 'put some within my reach.'  \nFor, gods of sunset, moon, and winter know,  \nThat reach is not long as it should be.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1713156-ghost-town-story.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1714172-accompanied-by-tornado-siren.json"}}