The Drag Race Pentina Project
We had this ancient
ming vase, and it was just filthy, covered in dust, when mother walked by, hungry after a long day slaving away at another person’s house and she started to polish the vase. Now she was experienced at polishing things, even if they were ancient vases, but we didn’t think it a good idea for her to do it in her hungry state. The dust could wait, it was more important that mother lay down, and had something to eat. But mother knows best, and she knew that the vase needed to be polished. We couldn’t live like slovenly folk, with dust permeating every room. It was shameful to display the ancient vase in such an awful state. But hungry is as hungry does, and there was no way we could convince mother that the task could wait. We just went in circles, bringing up ancient arguments, until it felt like our Polish blood was getting the best of us. I was in favor of ignoring the dust, but there was no winning against mother. She took out her feather duster and set to work at the vase. Not but moments later her hungry stomach grumbled, knocking her hand askew as she polished the vase. It fell to the floor and mother wailed in anguish, lamenting the loss. It was gone with the ancients. It was ancient, dusty, mother’s favorite. We put it back together even though she was about to die, even if it wasn’t polished.
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Last night, I got bitten by a vampire.
Let it be said, that you can’t kill them by covering them in pitch and setting them alight. If you want fire, you wait for dawn to coax them out of the soft shade cast by the night. Now I’m not saying I was bitten by the vampire queen; or even that the vampire queen is a real thing. But I know it was a vampire; it was dark out--midnight-- and I was out trying to pitch a tent in my trousers. I knew Dawn was just around the corner, and she shouted, “You have ‘til dawn to pay for services rendered.” In the midst of the shouting, a drag queen could be heard through the walls, pitching jokes to an unreceptive audience. Inbetween the gaps of noise, I could feel a vampire right behind me. I could feel its fangs pressed against my neck that night. I had taken what I thought to be a lover, that very night, from Dawn’s wares, but it was actually a vampire after my blood. That’s how I know it wasn’t a queen, for queens don’t get me to pitch a tent. After, I couldn’t feel clean. I’d be cleaner dropped in a barrel of pitch then how I had been that night. Rooms away a drag queen made jokes, but I was waiting until dawn to burn away my shame for sleeping with a vampire. I was out for a walk in nature--
no children-- and I stared up at the night sky searching for Mars. I thought about Barsoom, and what it would be like to act like John Carter. But I knew if I did and someone else was near, I’d come across as crazy. To be fair, that would be crazy, acting out dreams of the red planet out in the depths of nature. They’d say that I was acting the fool, and hoped that I had no children to embarrass. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find Mars out in the distant sky. I’d have to make do with the Mars in my mind, even if I’d go crazy imagining my life there. How would I raise my kids on this planet, devoid of nature? There’s only red dust. I’d have to act natural and not scare my babies. I’d act as though we had nothing to fear on Mars. Even if we had no nature, we would survive and not go crazy, at least, not before my children anyway. The children would be the first go, putting on a horrid act. They’d go crazy from the barren landscape, dying on the vast Martian plains. But it was silly to project myself out into space, in the depths of nature. Nobody knows
what it means to be a pageant girl unless you’ve been one. You might as well be a pig getting your blue ribbon, hoping you’re the victor of the state fair. You could compare it to tripping on acid, lost in a state of mind where acid is the only solution to things making sense. Your nose is powdered, you’re called Victoria, and you’re here to win the pageant. It doesn’t matter if people make pig noises at you: you do what you love in spite of those “pig” comments fired at you. The worst comes with a caustic assault of acid, flung because they feel as though pageants are meant for little girls, and noses are a privilege, not a right when you sometimes feel like being called Victoria instead of Victor. In retrospect, being associated with a pig is a temporary matter. Losing a nose is permanent. That assault, that hateful acid was meant to stop your pageant days, but it won’t. Pageants are meant for everyone who wants to feel like a victor in their lives, and doesn’t want to trip on acid to get to that feeling. You may feel like a gussied-up pig at the state fair, but when that crown comes down upon your head, it’s right, everybody knows. We arrived at the airport terminal;
“The trip was delightful, I had such a wonderful time until that fly buzzed over to me. I nearly fell into that depression on the side of the road, and I lost my wallet. I looked until I lost any hope of finding it and terminated any further chance of finding it. It was a little depressing, especially how it stood out in stark contrast to the delight the rest of the trip had been. All that lost by a fly, who buzzed up to my face.” He paused, looking at the plane flying down from above. “I just hate losing, really, I’m delighted to win, but it just reminds me of my grandpa’s terminal cancer. It feels like I’m battling depression again. Depression is like a fly that sneaks down your throat and drives you to the point where you’d do anything to terminate that insect malingering in your body. You’d kill yourself, losing a fight with a mere bug.” I looked away to the light above, unwilling to stare at the light reflected in his eyes. “Depression is malignant. Your winning condition is not losing, and you fly away but it catches up even at an airport terminal.” The final nails
were jammed into the shack in the Alaskan wilderness. It hadn’t been named yet. She considered calling it “Anus” for its inviting entrance, but she didn’t want to have an anus constantly push out trash. Trash was meant for the outside. Her nails were caked with dirt, her anus tired, but Alaska, was not done. “My name’s yours, What’s Alaska?” she breathed onto the nameless shack. “I make trash into treasure,” said Alaska, “But treasure isn’t your name. Your nails are short, your anus petite. You’re a nasty girl. Your anus is virginal. Your name is a treasure yet to be found. Let my nails commune with yours, flood the trash out of your body.” The shack shook in the Alaskan soil. A breeze flowed through, and Alaska tenderly stroked the side of the shack. “Your anus is mighty. You aren’t trash. You will find your name when you’re finished wearing your nails. When I was young, I played with Barbies
with this girl friend of mine. We’d clown around, playing on the Barbie design computer game, eliminating flawed dolls. We wouldn’t let any return from the garbage bin. I remember her dad faintly as an imposing tall man. Her dad was a giant to me. I don’t know what he thought of a boy playing with Barbie; she moved away, never to return. Those play dates led to my own Barbies. Barbies are like clowns: their faces are painted on. Barbies aren’t like clowns in that you can eliminate certain parts of a doll’s face. A doll is all or nothing, you can eliminate parts but it’s a doll in the end. I don’t remember how my dad felt about me playing with dolls. Maybe he clowned around with me, happy to see when I stripped Barbies naked. Of course, I’d return their clothes, and at that point, they couldn’t return to the store. I eliminated any chance of a refund. My Barbies lingered for a few years until they vanished, but it wasn’t my dad’s doing. It was my mom’s. She’d probably prefer I stuck to clowns. At least clowns make people laugh. They return people from the brink of discarded dads, who had been eliminated from kid’s lives. It’s no surprise we have time for Barbies. I decided I needed to learn Russian;
there was this hooker I had been talking with: she always wore red-- but I could tell she wasn’t as flexible in English. We were talking at the corner and she split for no reason. I then learned she had to do a split to make it into her sorority. She was rushing and the challenge was to prove how flexible you were, because college girls are silly, that, and hooking doesn’t pay the bills. She read me for filth, as I had claimed to be well read and I couldn’t even tell her who split from the Three Musketeers. Was I looking down on her for being a hooker? In the end, that’s why I decided to learn Russian, to show I can be flexible in mind, and not rigid. I have to cave to her flexible level, fluid in mind and body. I took to wearing red, in honor of her russian heritage. I offered to take her out for a banana split, but she declined, saying she had some hooking to do. I never bought her services as a hooker. I just knew that as her trade. I knew she was more flexible than what the word hooker encompassed. She split away from the stereotype and spat in the face of those that said they couldn’t be well read. I never ended up learning Russian. |
This section is dedicated to my poetry inspired by RuPaul's Drag Race. There's at least one poem per contestant in the completed project. All of the poems are written as pentinas.
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