The circus has left town. I walked into the tent, and I turned right around. Cos the lions and tigers that were promised to me were just Ryans and Tylers I don't want to see. Their cages were outrageous and their rages came from textbook pages. And I'm feeling like Franz Bieberkopf. If I were to die in a Metro station, there would be kids peeling my rhinestone jacket off.

Once an eagle scout, always an eagle scout, and though you don't quite merit a badge, you're a temporary lift from this loneliness, and you're not quite the worst I've ever had. There's gay porn playing in your living room, I mutter, "I could do better than that." And so we go upstairs, though neither of us cares, it's just something to do, it's just a fad that we're going through. And though I say it doesn't bother me, it bothers me. Who thought promiscuity could be so incredibly boring? Now I see you waiting for the city bus, yeah, you're waiting for the #4. It's not that I resent, I just feel indifferent. Yeah, I've been through all of this before. Before the eagle scout, it was the comics nerd, and between the two the metalhead and the tweaker and the punk and the bi-curious drunk: it's a punchline each time I go to bed. And though I say it doesn't bother me, it bothers me. Who thought variety could inspire such ennui? I'm from a generation raised on irony, or at least on thrift store clothes, so disjointedness should feel like Christmas, the mismatched and wry should feel like home. But lately my heart isn't in this shit, yeah, I want a little something more. No more trading card lovers, no more cum-stained covers, just an awesome babe who will help out with the household chores. And though I say it doesn't bother me, it bothers me. Who thought continuity could be such a rare commodity?

Hooking up with you is like hooking up with a unicorn; your milky muscled haunches and your gleaming horn. You've got pearls in your eyelashes and dew in your beard. You are a mythical beast, rarely seen, oft revered. You swish your flossy mane through the ferny glen, and in a flash of light and sound, I am alone again. I should have listened when they said unicorns were phony. Why can't I be content with a normal pony? Chasing after you is like chasing after a leprechaun: I'm tromping through the grasses 'till the break of dawn. I know there could be gold for me behind your grin, just as I know the red bristles that decorate your chin. But you turn me to stone like some magic gnome when you're leaving from the party and I can't follow you home. Sometimes I dream you're still holding me in your arms. I'm just another stupid kid who's fallen for your lucky charms. I hoped you were the last of some mystic race. I hoped there were still rainbows for us to chase. But you're just a human being. You say you don't want to hurt my feelings, and magick is a risk we cannot take, but I still quake for you, cos Hooking up with you is like hooking up with a unicorn; your milky muscled haunches and your gleaming horn. You've got pearls in your eyelashes and dew in your beard. You are a mythical beast, rarely seen, oft revered. You've got your glittering hooves in my crystal cave, but I know you are no unicorn, you're just a guy named Dave. And who believes in unicorns anyway, these days? Who could believe in a unicorn anyway?

Farhad, oh, Farhad, I know where you are. You're down at Lake Paran, you're swimming for the dock, where you'll listen to the families bickering, then go back to my old house, where you'll find Henry drinking with Liz, Simon, and Tim, and several other friends of his. Farhad, oh, Farhad, I know what you eat. Pineapple, chicken and cold Sunny D, like the farewell party that you threw for me. I can still taste your rice, I can taste your chutney, and that night we played Boggle and smoked on the porch and I never felt so right. Farhad, oh, Farhad, I know how you write. Your nines look like gs and your s's are tight. But the stuff of the letters you send my way, they give me hope, make me long for a day like the days when you lay in my bed modestly turned away. Farhad, oh, Farhad, I know where you are. You're down at Lake Paran, the moon's almost gone, and you'll swim your frustrations and swim your angst. Maybe if you swim enough, you might swim them away and away, away and away, like steps on a mountain face.

You call me beast, cos beast is what I am. I am not human, I am not calm or tame. But you are a gentleman, you are a fire man, you are a dull flame of desire man. You are a love I cannot name. You call me creature, strange, strange creature. I call you drunk from a foreign double feature. But you are a gentleman, you are a fire man, you are a dull flame of desire man, the Salem to my Fassbinder.

I know how to walk on ice, I've learned how to risk my life and not feel concerned. I know how to self-destruct. I know how to pass out in the falling snowy arms of a tall South African. He's begging, "Pegasissy, open your eyes." And when I wake up dead in someone else's bed, who am I to be surprised? There's a word for you and all the things you want to do, but there's no speaking it. There's a world for you and all the people that you want to screw, but your passport has expired and you're feeling pretty tired.

Pass a compost heap on a shitty old bike. Smells like everything I've ever loved or liked. Smells like August nights at a lover's house, blackberry stains on our hands and mouths. Take a shortcut through the stadium lot. I can see the stars, I can smell the pot. The slue is sluggish and and the kids are bored; Eugene, Eugene, know that you're adored. I don't think I'd want a whole galaxy; maybe just an asteroid belt. It stayed pretty solid and it felt sublime, but that first kiss made me melt. I know that it's no longer cool to play truth or dare like we did in school, but I've done all of the dares, I'd probably do them again. And I'll tell you the truth, I mean, you're my friend. You've got to move, you've got to move, or you'll never know just how much you love your home, then you'll be riding south down that interstate and have some weird creepy feeling of your ultimate fate.

It's too cloudy to see UFOs but let's scan the skies anyway. You don't have to tell your family about us, cos coming out has become passe. I would tell everyone I know, but they can see it in my face, they can see it in the glow of the tractor beam you have around me. I spent my life playing first person shooters so let's put in an RPG. I realize I haven't known you long, but I suspect you might be my final fantasy. I'd tell everyone I know, but they can hear it in my voice, they can hear it through the smoke of the fog machine you've started inside me. Cuz boy, you're like a meteor shower, and all my secret wishes are all coming true. You're a little prince in a glitter tower. I'd beat up all the bosses just to get to you.

I've got a seal skin hidden away in my room somewhere: sleek and dark and shining, waterproof hair. And when I put it on, my eyes turn black as gems, my hands to flippers--I'm a seal again. Now you appear to be a human man, and I love you more than any ordinary human can. Though your kindness could touch the ocean floor, you have no seal skin hidden in your drawer. So I'm torn between cold waters and the warmth you've given me. I'm dreaming of the mussells I've pried open with my teeth. I'm lonely for the ferries that cross the Puget Sound, but I know that you hate the wind, and so I'll stay here on the ground. One evening I slipped into that skin. I felt my leg bones merging & my teeth turn into pins. I swam the river down to the ocean waves and found some seals there lounging in their cave. They said, "We can see the dull blue in your eyes. That skin that you are wearing must just be some sick disguise." Though I cried out, the seals and their teeth tore through me to the human underneath. So I ran from those cold waters toward the warmth you'd given me, longing for the muscles and their taste so bittersweet and frightened by the wind that tore the Tacoma Narrows Bridge down. I'd be satisfied enough to stay with you on solid ground. When I came home, the bed was neatly made. You served me tepid soup and said, "Dear darling, I'm afraid that I can still smell the ocean in your hair, and your bloody body's more than I can bare." Now I was shocked; I was sure you would understand how I'd been ravaged by the water, yet uncomfortable on land. Now I fill up my bath with rocky salt and tell myself none of this is my fault. So I keep running that warm water till its surface covers me, until I can forget the shreds of seal skin hidden beneath. I've been stripped of any dignity and run into the ground, but I'm sparking like a wire with this raw courage that I've found.

I bought a new toothbrush for you that you never got to use. You weren't about to stay the night one more time. I bought a new dildo, it's true, that I never got to use with you. You weren't about to stay the night one more time. But it's not all material: I believed in our stored potential beyond the medicine cabinet and the toy chest. And I still cry when I hear, "You're the best I ever had." I fucked a new lover, it's true, but she didn't make me bruise though I asked her to. These days I'm feeling anxious for my absent mind. I've been blacking out on weekdays, blowing lines. And I pretend I'm getting through when we go to the mall to try on shoes but you can catch me sighing in the dressing room. A loneliness has opened like a trap door. I feel a lack and not much more. But it's not all existential. I'm sure I have more stored potential beyond you and this town and this lovesick moan. And I'll always dance when I hear, "You're not gonna reach my telephone."

Well a year ago today it was emptiness, like a 40 at the end of the night. I was a small glass table on the wrong side of the morning, just fingerprints against the absent white. Now I giggle at my transparency: I couldn't see the fruit on the laden trees. I couldn't taste the nectarines. My hands couldn't move to shell the fava beans. So if my face still glitters like a Ke$ha twink and my gaze gets dreamy in my sunken eyes, I am not fucked up, just overcome by the endless beauty that is on the rise. I've got a scar on my neck but a calm in my soul. I am wet and awkward and alive as a new foal. I was downing whiskeys like Houdini downed keys, like they could possibly help me escape. But now I've got a magic of a different kind, so I'm hanging up the silk hat and cape. I got a job selling beans and grains. I got a thrill inside that I cannot contain. I got my man coming up on the evening train. I'm in it to win it this time. So if it still reads "Russell + Bla bla bla" on the urinal partition at the Starlight Lounge, you can scratch it out; better yet, let it pale beside the new bright happinesses I have found. I've got a scar on my neck but a calm in my soul. I am wet and awkward and alive as a new foal.