Happy Pride! Last year, I published an anthology of queer writers writing about queerness for Pride, and it was such a joy to create that I had to do it again. This time around, the call was broader, vaguer, and queerer.
I asked writers and people whose work I love to contribute a piece that said something they wanted to express—truly anything. The only requirement was that it had to feel queer to them. I loved working with these writers, pulling things out of them, and being blown away by the results.
This anthology isn’t just about queerness, it embodies queerness in its multitudes. These pieces are a peek through a gay kaleidoscopic lens.
Schmelzer showcases the resilience of queer desire in the face of a zombie apocalypse. splays himself open, and speaks about finding the works of art that gave him the allowance to be. Gracie Jenkins lyrically explains the benefits of being fucked by a hot butch. shares her crushing daydream about a woman carrying a Louis Vuitton Pochette. I even decided to kick off the anthology with an excerpt from my novel about the age old question: When did you know you were gay?I hope you enjoy reading this anthology as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Sharing this space with these writers is such an honour, and I can’t thank them enough.
Please read, follow, support, and show them some love!
Nic Marna | TikTok, Instagram, Substack
(he/him) is a queer writer and fast-walker based in Montreal. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Grain Magazine, In Parentheses, 831 Stories, The Dalhousie Review, and more. He is currently finishing his debut novel, a queer coming-of-age that explores how sometimes gay does not mean happy.
An excerpt from my novel
“When did you know you were gay?” There it is. He asks it sincerely too, they always do.
For this question, I have a canned answer at the ready. I’ve been perfecting this soliloquy for years. Over time, my research has allowed me to conclude what they don’t want to hear. So, I leave out the part where, since the age of about 7, I’ve had a thing for every single heartthrob the Disney Channel threw my way. I don’t mention summer camp experimenting with boys I couldn’t pick out of a lineup today. They also really don’t like to know that my existence was defined by a choice in the McDonalds drive-thru line. No, I did not want the “boy toy.” I definitely don’t talk about that one time in the gym class locker rooms in seventh grade when a Junior named Steven Moretti walked around naked and caught me looking at his penis. He winked at me, effectively securing his position at the top of my fantasy rolodex for the subsequent five (okay, eight) years. They don’t want to hear about my Happy Meal Barbies or Steven Moretti or my rolodex. And I never, ever, under any circumstances tell them that I knew I was gay because boys like them told me I was.
Instead, I give them something that lands between profound and light. A trauma-free approximation of the truth. They want to hear that deep down I always had a little inkling that I was different, that I was not like other boys. They like to know I had a girlfriend in elementary school (playing with her hair was an upgrade from the towel I used to wrap around my head). They love hearing that things clicked into place when I had my first gay experience in my teens (the only thing that clicked in that moment was my palate expander when it ripped right out of my mouth due to suction). They like to know that growing up gay made me stronger, harder, better, faster, whatever that song’s lyrics are.
What I actually want to answer is somewhere in the middle of all that, a secret third thing. The truth is I always knew I was gay. I knew I was gay before I knew what gay meant. My mom likes to tell a story of how, at the age of 3, I told anyone who would listen that I was gay. It was hurled my way as an insult so many times I started to recognize a glimmer of truth in it. I was gay before I was attracted to men, I was gay because I was different.
Sometimes, the question feels like a clumsy way for them to attempt a meaningful connection. They parse through the concepts of masculinity engraved into the silly little dog tags they’ve clutched since childhood to get to this conversation. It’s interesting, somehow learning the developmental timeline of my identity makes them think they know me. To them, the moment my identity started to grow in contrast to theirs says something about me. Still, they feel great about asking, giving themselves little pats on their ally backs.
And then there are the other times. The times when the question feels like it’s coming from somewhere way deep down. It gives a hint at something tiny and hidden that could go unrecognized if presented to a novice. A curiosity that might just kill the cat.
By the time I’m done with my big part of the scene, I realize his hand has been resting on my knee. I look down at it, tense and immobile. My gay-awakening monologue had me on autopilot, but now I am very much behind the wheel and it looks like I might be driving stick.
Gracie Jenkins | Instagram
Gracie Jenkins (they/them) is a poet by craft and a lover of all words by heart currently residing in Portland, Oregon. They find unending joy in sharing pieces of their heart with the world in verse, and are in the process of publishing their second full-length poetry book. When not writing, they can be found baking treats, spending time with queer community, and cuddling their beloved cat, Scout.
butch bait
i can’t help but feel a bit bad for everyone who will never understand the raw pleasure of being fucked within an inch of your life by the hottest butch on the block
so, to express my condolences for your loss, i would like to paint the picture for you:
imagine you are the world’s most precious treasure, polished and perfected, and a renowned collector is ensuring your care with relentless devotion.
imagine you are the gallery masterpiece, a tender swell of purples and blossoming blues, and the painter is showing you off with a cocked smirk on their handsome face, delightfully aware of this breathtaking beauty behind them.
imagine you are the rapid rhythm of a hummingbird’s heart, rising and falling to the sweaty tempo of a frantic urge for sweetness. and then imagine you are the delicate center of every ounce of that hummingbird’s attention.
imagine you are the delicious bite of a fast-flowing mountain river, a kiss straight from heaven on the lips of a parched traveler.
imagine you are the answer to someone’s skinned-knee prayer, their fingers shaking with barely restrained relief as they pull you firmly towards their desperation.
and then, come back to your body. imagine you are split open with need, the carnal kind that can only exist underneath the common experience of abandoning all that was expected of you in exchange for the promise of your own reclamation. imagine the touch of skilled hands, coaxing you into a state of euphoria before they ever even give in to your most salacious craving. imagine the wave of heat that crashes over you once the other heart-stoppingly stunning human in your butter yellow sheets, finally, presses their strong fingers into the delicate dip of your hips on their way to make you come undone. imagine sweat and swears and shaking. imagine how demand pools in between your unshaven legs as their ravenous gaze finds yours, willing you to give into the bliss waiting on the other side of surrender. imagine how fucking good it feels to give in.
imagine the way you are laid bare by the intimacy of shared queerness, leaving room for a ceaseless stream of the exquisite taste of blasphemous indulgence.
Celine Schmelzer | TikTok, Instagram, Substack
Schmelzer (she/her) is a writer soon-to-be based in Kentucky. She is a recently retired waitress, writing her first novel...set in the restaurant industry. When she isn't writing, you can find her curled up with a book and one of her three (3!!!) cats, or eating ramen with the love of her life.
Lacey
We all have fates we’re trying to avoid–destinies carved out by choices. For me, it was this: never leaving. Staying as if rooted, in the same place, forever.
It had been unfathomable to me that I would continue on in this way. I had already lost these insurmountable chunks of time to the same bars, with the same crowds of people; interactions playing out on a loop, like a self-laid trap.
But all of that had changed, the universe a sock turned inside out, when I met Lacey.
For most people, the time leading into March of 2020 is marked by not knowing. Days bleeding into weeks, so many moments passing without any awareness that it was all we had left. This was true for me as well, but my life had been changed, regardless. My days were marked by time spent with her.
She had moved here to be with her boyfriend, the word bouncing around in the car with me after we had first met. Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, though that had never bothered me previously. I had held the word on my own tongue, had boyfriends myself, and yet. And yet.
We bonded immediately over the fact that neither of us was thrilled to be in Columbus, Ohio of all places, though I didn’t care to mention that I was long past being a visitor. I was a fixture in this city like everything else that meant something to me. The high school I went to, just after it was finished being built. The park with the new plastic jungle gym, after the wooden one from my childhood had been torn down for attracting wasps. The movie theater with cheap popcorn, which I took her to during the hottest days of the summer, A.C. creating condensation on our skin the second we stepped inside.
If I deluded myself into anything during that time, it was in truly believing that I could convince her to stay here with me, instead of hoping in the opposite direction. Why hadn’t I considered asking her if she wanted to leave together, instead? Some people present themselves to us as a chance, like a match striking, but we miss it. Moments like fireflies, trapped into jars only briefly before sputtering out.
Lacey, at the house party downtown, holding a red solo cup, waving at me from across the room. Lacey at the edge of the Hoover Dam bridge, standing on her toes, tipping over, hair swinging past her shoulder like a rope dropping down. Lacey at the turn of the summer, telling me that she didn’t know the leaves changed colors, asking if she could borrow my sweater, and then it smelled like her, cherries and woodsmoke. Lacey in the passenger seat of my car, rolling down the window a little bit so that she could smoke a cigarette, even though it was freezing out. January 2020, the burnt end of her cigarette a dim, blinking red, asking me, “What would you miss the most if the world ended?”
It took too long for me to understand what I was feeling. Bargaining and rationalizing, only to find myself, along with everyone else, left with nothing that made sense, aside from the bare bones.
I loved her. She was my best friend. And, also, people were ripping each other apart. Literally.
Our first mistake was in thinking that the pandemic would be as they presented it to us—a flu. Something to pass like indigestion. When people started dying, news of a vaccination started to trickle down, and here is where our second mistake came. People didn’t want it. Not a few people, but large swaths of them. Angry on the internet, using rhetoric which didn’t belong to them, saying things like my body, my choice. And it was in this inaction, this collective error, that the virus mutated. The selfishness of others transmitting the same way that anything else does.
We called them 19ers, after the virus which sparked everything else. Someday there might be a way to make sense of it all, but it was only the first year. Buildings still looked like buildings–a little dusty, but otherwise simply vacated. It was the absence of people, the ones who could make decisions, which added a finality to everything.
The less the world made sense, the more everything else felt stripped down. Sometimes I’d be standing outside, looking up at the sky, and I’d wonder how there was a time in which we had tried to have so many rules and structures in place. All of the hate placed on those perceived as stepping outside of it all.
Which was maybe why, even when I knew how I felt about Lacey, I had tried to deny it. What a waste. All of that time, gone forever. The opportunity to live in a world where the most important thing was to love someone.
Maybe it was still that world. Even so, I didn’t tell her. Not until the night she died.
To read on, find the full piece on Celine’s Substack!
Catie Davis | Instagram, Substack
Catie Davis (they/she) is a dyke in Oakland. When they’re not writing their queer novel, you can find her eating ice cream, walking dogs, and thinking about Gillian Anderson.
in my dreams you left
your husband for me,
tiny espressos by my bedside table
post cards and poetry books on the windowsill.
let’s go to california, you whisper so we pack the dogs and
hands sticky and flakey, with chocolate croissants, the sun’s warmth tickles our faces.
we slip into the ocean –it’ssodamncold! –
how can a place so beautiful exist only in my ruminations.
Josh Lora | TikTok, Instagram, Substack
Josh Lora (, he/him) is a writer, content creator, and lifelong reader. Originally interested in the litfic corner of BookTok, Josh began posting sociological explorations of reality television and culture that spoke to fans who gravitated towards highbrow analysis of their "guilty pleasures". Utilizing his MS in Social Research, Josh identifies cultural shifts and applies theoretical frameworks to both popular media and larger societal trends. He continues to try to read 100 books a year (never successfully) and is working on a novel about money and friendship.
The Kiss Catalogue
I was nine years old when I saw two men kiss for the first time. I was watching Dawson’s Creek (a masterpiece, quiet as it's kept) when I saw Jack, the resident tortured gay, plant a kiss on his crush*. I knew I was gay, obviously (I was watching primetime soaps as a child) but seeing evidence that there were others out there was life affirming in a way I didn’t expect. I harbored a crush on a substitute teacher at my school, but this was something else. That could be me someday, I thought.
When I was twelve, I read a book about coming out to your family. It said that due to the rates of homelessness among LGBTQ teens, it was better to wait until you made your own money and didn’t rely on your parents for financial support. The book was written in the nineties, explaining the slightly menacing tone. That’s just how people talked back then.
Many gay men grow up believing love to be conditional. We have to make up for the fact that we’re different, so we seek to excel in other ways: we have to be “the best little boy in the world”, as detailed by Andrew Tobias in 1973. Growing up Catholic piled on another layer: one had to work for everything they had, and suffering was par for the course. My worldview was positively Nietzschean.
I decided I would compile a list of gay media for my mom to watch. I wanted to make her understand that being gay wasn’t an aberration, it was normal. I thought that if she saw how these characters loved each other, she’d be less afraid for me. Buffy’s Willow and Tara, Will Truman and Bobby Cannavale’s character, Noah’s Arc, Queer as Folk, The L Word: I watched it all, dutifully writing down plot points in the hope that when I did come out, it would be a non-issue. I was both regimented and delusional.
I never did show the list to my mother. Looking back now, I think it was an exercise in understanding and reifying my own experience. I had a therapist ask about shame and queerness, and I told her I didn’t really feel any after the requisite years of teenage suffering. I understand now that my seeking representation was more a form of armor: look at how my people live. Look at how my people love. I think all queer people can remember the first piece of media that made them sit up a little straighter, that made them blush, that sent them scurrying to AO3 or Tumblr seeking more. We all crave the knowledge that different futures are possible.
The world has changed a lot in the last two decades, and we’re not as starved for representations of happy (or messy) queer people anymore. The Dawson’s kiss made headlines and history, but it still felt subversive. I was heartbroken to learn the actor I crushed on refused to “kiss guys every week”. There’s a lot of pressure in being the first, but he couldn’t have known the impact the moment would have on young queer kids around the country.
I hadn’t thought about the list in years until 2019, when I learned that The L Word was being rebooted. The person who told me? My mother. She watched every episode of the reboot and decided to go back and watch the original. She loved it.
*The Jack/Tobey kiss in Promicide is better by far.
Jeanne Cassiers | Instagram
Jeanne is a queer writer, tattoo artist, web designer, and music agent based in Belgium (yes, all at the same time). Her work lives at the intersection of art, mess, and heart.
overactive imagination
you see i’ve got an overactive imagination
and it isn’t helping us right now
because i can see us in white outfits even tho i’m not really sure i want our vows to be heard by anyone other than you and me
ideally whispering under the moonlight because well it’ll be summer and it’ll be under a canopy
and you see i can see us moving into an apartment except well i don’t know that i want to sleep in the same bed as anyone every single night
and i’m not sure i want kids but damn kids with you sound fun don’t they? and maybe they’ll have your curls and my eyes and maybe they’ll even be cute and easy like i hear some are
and you see here i am again dreaming up a life i don’t actually want but dreaming it up feels goooood and easy and natural but actually it may have more to do with nurture than nature now that i think about it
so maybe maybe maybe can it be cool if i cool my overactive mind and mystic bound imagination
and if we do just us, under a canopy, vowing the only thing that truly matters,
the vow we made when this all started, to be in each others life, one way or another, one shape or another,
for as long as speaking to you feels like speaking to the trees and for as long as i cherish your voice more than the voices of nurture in my head and for as long as i want to be around you more than i want you in white in a house with one bed and a nursery?
Charlee Brooks | TikTok, Instagram, Substack
(he/him) is an Australian poet, writer, and literary critic living on Wadawurrung land. His work explores queer intimacy, memory, and the quiet politics of the body. He runs Grandpa’s Book Club, a digital community curating and celebrating literature from the margins. He is currently working on his debut novel.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal
I used to pray. My family isn’t religious. I was never forced into believing something I didn’t want to. I didn’t hear church bells or have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to place bread on my tongue and repent. I wasn't forced to attend religious school, where I was fed stories of hands that didn’t tend to living like mine. But still, I remember every day being bookmarked with this plea. On my knees, squeezing nails into palms, begging some higher being to change me. I figured if I said sorry, if I grovelled hard enough, that each fibre of my being would slowly untangle itself, and I could weave myself into something “normal.”
I can’t help but laugh now, because this mystical normal still eludes me.
Shape-shifting. I think all queer people become talented in this business. We bend until we take shape, until we fit the mould enough to survive. I was guilty of this. Growing up, I never knew how to be. I was a strange child. Nothing stuck. I tried a million different hobbies and felt awkward doing them. I had a good group of friends—all girls—and then I moved schools in late adolescence in search of something a boy my age should want. At my new school, I pivoted. I became hypermasculine and flung myself to the outskirts of who I thought I was. I surrounded myself with a group of boys who were my polar opposite. I sat on the sidelines of the downball court, laughing when they’d beat one another up in the name of fun. I went to the gym and ate exorbitant amounts of food in hopes that my body might become a reflection of theirs. Yet every day, I would go home and tug at the edges of myself. I cried myself to sleep most nights and couldn’t understand why. I was being normal. I was in pursuit of a safe life, and I thought I had it all figured out.
The years passed, and I began university. I got into the top course of my choice and started studying. At 17 years old, I believed the road from here would be easy if I just stuck to the plan. Each day looked the same. The pain at night let up. It subsided. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I kept my head down and bit my tongue. The days continued like this. Boring. Full of normalcy.
It was only a matter of time before a full-on gay crisis arrived. Bored on Netflix, I decided to watch this movie I’d seen briefly mentioned on the internet—Call Me By Your Name. I remember curling up in my childhood bed, back against the wall, eyes glued to the screen. I remember the beauty. I remember the hurt. I remember the panic. I remember the pact I made with myself that no one could ever know. But holes can only be plugged for so long.
Within a year, the queerness I had tried to convert with weights and poorly fitting clothes began to leak out. I started painting my nails. I begged my sister to borrow her pearl necklace, repenting at her knees for the time I called Harry Styles gay for wearing them, in hopes of distracting from the true state of my own body. I bought new clothes and grew my hair longer. I made friends with people I could be myself around. We laughed, and they told me they’d all had bets on whether I was queer. For the first time in my life, I felt at home.
The background was marked by books, and lots of them. I devoured everything I could find about queerness. I had a thirst for these stories, the ones that sounded like mine and taught me how to be. This was my beginning. I fell in love with stories. And with a boy. We hurt each other, and I nursed my first broken heart. I distracted myself with more bodies. I swallowed the hate of my degree and distracted myself with more bodies. New friends, some of whom are the only reason my body exists today. I graduated from my degree completely changed, yet still abiding by the rules of “normal” to a certain degree. I was out. I had a good relationship. It looked like I was destined for a life of normalcy. The kind where I put on a uniform and got praised by the public. The type with a white picket fence.
I knew I didn’t want to be a paramedic. But how was I meant to admit that? How do you walk away from stability, from structure, from years of work and sacrifice? I swallowed it. Buried it. Lived in a low-grade state of panic for years. I got the job. I moved interstate. I had more money than I knew what to do with. I was swallowed whole by a community that had no place for my body in the way it needed to exist. I began to revert to a familiar state. I started to fall apart again—sleepless nights, panic attacks. A growing sense of paralysis. A constant inability to move towards something better.
I flew home for Christmas last year. I put on a smile for a few days. Shook hands and accepted praise for the work I was doing. A ticking time bomb. My dad took me out for coffee. He asked me if I liked my job. I made the irrational decision to answer honestly. “No.” He prodded, and I replied with a lick of stupidity, detailing how I just wanted to be normal. A verbal diarrhoea about how it was stable, respected, would set me up. He called me stupid and said normal is boring. He said I had never been normal. I asked him what I should do. He didn’t give me the answer. Just a hug and a trip to the bookshop. He filled the silence. I choked back tears. My sister knew. She hugged me.
I thought those nights of adolescence—tearing at my skin, wishing it would change—would be the hardest thing I’d have to do. But dragging my tired limbs, so full of grief, and placing them onto the plane back towards a life I didn't want was, quite possibly, the hardest day of my life. For the next two months, I went to work and put on a brave face. A date for coming home dependent on leases and other people. Most nights, I reverted to crying until my body gave in and allowed a few hours of sleep. I called in sick—too anxious to leave the house. My partner tried to support me. I hardly let him. Our dads came with a truck in mid-February and took us home.
I arrived back at my childhood bedroom, embarrassed to admit failure. To admit that I gave up. Scared of the questions. The disapproval. The probing around my decision to leave a life of stability for one where I share videos on the internet, about stories. Queer ones. It sounded stupid even to me. But despite taking the form of something so far from normal, it was the first time I could breathe in months.
I won’t lie and tell you the past few months haven’t been difficult. They’ve been full of change, of firsts, and sometimes terror. My full-time job now is sharing stories—posting online about queer books in hopes of leading the people who need them to water. I’ve started to find my way back to myself and to my queerness. The uncanniness is strange. It feels as though I’m coming into a past life, one I was always meant to live.
A few weeks ago, I heard Jeanette Winterson speak on the fortieth anniversary of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. She spoke of resistance, of cruelty, of being told by her mother: Why be happy when you could be normal? That line lodged itself in me—I’d asked the same question for years. But hearing Jeanette, fierce and unflinching, made something shift. Her defiance permitted me. Suggested that instead of sitting still on one branch of the fig tree, waiting for everything to fall into place, I might keep climbing—suck the fruits dry, toss them to the ground when they no longer serve me. It’s bodies like Jeanette’s that have allowed me to survive. To be bold. To be different. To reach for anything but normal, and sit in the tree unapologetically, juice running down my chin. And for that, I am grateful.
Ali Shukri | TikTok, Instagram
Ali (he/him) is a gay 26 year old Arab-Canadian based in Ottawa, Ontario. He’s a scientist by day, but loves to express himself through dance and creative writing. He has too many books to read, and his screen time could always be reduced. He has a boyfriend whom he loves so dearly.
So I’ve got something to tell you guys
you flow through me
filling my crevices
with a softness so endearing that
I feel as though I might crumble at the thought of you
uplifting me and keeping me afloat
I am bursting at the seams
to be able to bring you up in the spaces between words, breathes
but there are repercussions to love
wars in the world,
but love is where the line is drawn
why are we so scared of love
when it looks looks foreign on first sight
but on a molecular level
atoms are atoms are atoms are atoms
and ionic bonds hold us together
but even the strongest bonds can break
under a visual stress
and still, I choose to hold and love you
even if only in secret
but still, I am bursting at the seams
to be able to bring you up in the spaces between words, breathes
Liv Sherman | Instagram, Substack
(she/her) is a writer, high school speech coach, and bi-girl with a boyfriend based in Minneapolis, MN. When she’s not busy helping cultivate the future voices of America, she can be found hanging out with her 3 cats, singing Celine Dion karaoke, and/or starting projects that she can write about in her substack.
rug naps
i crossed the wisconsin border heading east on i-94 in the used mazda protégé my parents had bought me as a graduation gift. i reluctantly took the exit for river falls. for the next 20 minutes i drove down the barren highway between civilization and the university i had already committed to attending that fall despite never having been there. there was nothing but cornfields and the occasional barn in sight. what had i done?
i walked into the university center for placement tests on that muggy july day and was immediately hit with a blast of AC. the campus hub had been completely rebuilt the year before and everything inside was shiny and new. there was an arcade with old-school machines, a tabletop shuffleboard, and even a big buck hunter FREE TO ALL STUDENTS! i think in the hopes that those of us attending UW river falls would have more to do than homework and going out drinking
i ascended the stairs to the computer lab where the tests were being held slightly less worried. after our first round of tests we were sent down to the cafeteria for a lunch break. i reveled at all the different options – pizza or salad or chicken fried steak or pasta or or or… plus fountain soda and ice cream that was made in the dairy lab on campus?! maybe i could survive college in wisconsin after all.
with my giant tray of food in my hands, i clocked a pretty girl i’d been near in the computer lab and beelined towards her.
“can i sit with you?” i held my breath, the brave siren call of an 18-year-old taking her first steps out of the nest hanging in the air between us.
“sure!” a sigh of relief.
her name was gael, and she was incredibly beautiful. she was tall, thin, athletic, and she had the most striking pale green eyes that popped against her tanned skin. she was kind and immediately struck up easy conversation. she was from one of the rich minnesota suburbs on a lake. she played some tall girl sport in high school (volleyball? basketball?) she was the kind of girl who puts you at ease and i desperately wanted her to like me. we added each other on facebook (pre-instagram days) and i left school that day feeling like i hadn’t made the worst decision of my life. there was at least one normal person there.
we entered freshmen year in each other’s orbit but not in the same circle of friends. we lived in the same dorm but in different wings. we didn’t have any classes together. we went to different parties. but we’d say hi when we passed each other on campus and we’d like each other’s facebook photos after a weekend of going out to trashy college basement parties. so much for that free arcade ehh?
my first real friend at school was a junior, katryna, a commuter from st. paul. sometimes between classes we’d go to my dorm and nap together on my shag rug since my roommate and i hadn’t sprung for a futon yet. we called them rug naps. after kat and i both went through devastating break-ups from longterm boyfriends we thought we would marry (ahh to be 18 again), we swore off men and set our facebook relationship status to girlfriends so that no one looking at our profiles after a party would get any ideas. this is really how we told people whether or not we were single in 2010 wtf.
when it came time for sophomore year campus rooming assignments i was thrilled to get the email that gael would be taking the bed that my freshman roommate was leaving vacant.
a few hours later i heard a timid knock on my door. “hi liv, i don’t know if you saw but i’m assigned to be your roommate next year. i just wanted to check in, i was looking on your facebook and saw that you are in a relationship with a girl are you a lesbian because there’s nothing wrong with lesbians and its totally cool if you are but i just don’t think i’m comfortable sharing a bedroom with a lesbian.”
at this point i hadn’t come to terms with my sexuality. i wasn’t out to myself, so i certainly wasn’t out to other people. “NO OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE LOL!! MY FRIEND AND I BOTH GOT DUMPED AND WE SWORE OFF BOYS BECAUSE BOYS SUCK WE ARE NOT LESBIANS PLEASE IGNORE THE FACEBOOK STATUS WHERE I SAID ‘I LOVE RUG NAPS WITH KATRYNA’ HAHAHA INSIDE JOKE HAHAHA MISUNDERSTANDING HAHAHA NOPE NO GAYNESS HERE!” ahh to be 18 again.
gael and i had a positively lovely time as roommates. i helped her write her english papers. she helped me make friends with people my own age. after a semester of living together she left to study abroad and i transferred to the university of minnesota. at some point after i graduated college i noticed that she had deleted me as a facebook friend and i felt a pang of sadness. i wondered what i had done.
years later, i found out a co-worker and i had overlapped for a year at river falls. i started looking through old photos to see if we had any mutual friends and i saw gael! of course i launched into the heartwrenching tale of how i thought we were so close and how disappointed i was to find out that apparently the feeling wasn’t mutual. i asked how she was doing.
“her and her wife just had a baby not too long ago.”
EXCUSE ME, HER WHAT?!
“yeah she married her wife a few years ago and they just had a daughter.”
i was SHOCKED, but it all made sense. OF COURSE SHE HAS A WIFE!
i hope that cool pretty girl and her wife are happy and well, taking all the rug naps (but gay) wherever they are.
Zach Anthony | TikTok, Instagram, Substack
Zach Anthony (he/him) is a queer writer and bookish content creator based in Seattle. He’s hilarious… and humble. Zach is currently working on his first novel and writes the EGGZACHLY newsletter. When he isn’t reading or writing, you can find him on TikTok and Instagram or in the mountains of the PNW.
YourDad
I am staying in a hotel with my brother when my phone vibrates. The screen lights up showcasing a small orange square containing a black mask in the center: Grindr. I try not to make any noise as I scoop my phone off the nightstand. There is something about hotels that makes me uncontrollably horny. Maybe it’s because they provide a private setting to do gay butt stuff. Maybe it's because I’m in a city that I don’t live in, in a bed that isn’t mine, with men I will never see again. Whatever it is, I am ready to be on all fours after checking in. I turn down the brightness and unlock my phone. “YourDad” sent me a message asking if I am up. I am awake and up (if you know what I mean). The fact my brother is in the room does not deter me. Decorum has left the chat and YourDad has entered it.
“I am, what’s up?” I reply.
His response is immediate, “Horny. You?”
“Saaame,” I type back.
“Where you at? Wanna fuck?”
It’s late, I’m on a trip with my brother, and I don’t know this man. But he’s hot and close by, and that’s enough. I tell him where I am staying and he offers to pick me up. I shouldn’t entertain this, but I am thinking with the wrong head and that head is winning.
“That’d be great. I can be ready in 20 minutes.”
I’ve never been able to get ready in 20 minutes and I definitely have never been able to get ready to bottom in 20 minutes. However, I am a gay man and never travel without a douche. I can do this. I can douche this.
I clear myself out, shower, put on a jockstrap, and match my socks to the jock- the bottom uniform. I’m ready in 22 minutes. Not bad for a fag with no standards. YourDad sent me a message five minutes ago. He’s here and parked by the hotel restaurant in a silver Toyota Camry. I sneak out of the room, run through the hotel hallways, and pause when I get to the lobby. I have some sense to send my best friend a text with my location: “Going to hook-up with a guy. Here’s my location in case I go missing, xoxo.”
I open the passenger door and hop into YourDad’s car. He introduces himself but I don’t catch his name because I am distracted by the smell of poppers permeating every inch of the vehicle.
“It smells like VCR cleaner,” I joke.
“You want some? There’s a bottle here,” he gestures to the cup holder between us as he pulls out of the hotel parking lot. I pick up the bottle of Jungle Juice and twist the cap off. I inhale long and deep through each nostril. My body tingles, my head becomes foggy, and I feel my butthole adjusting like a Velcro shoe strap.
“Good boy,” he whispers.
This line works on me. I am putty in his Toyota Camry. The poppers have me ready to give him the best road head of his life when he turns onto a street lined with houses.
“We’re here,” he says and points at a house with a very steep driveway. That was quick and I am comforted knowing he does live close to the hotel. He accelerates up the driveway and into the garage.
He guides me to his bedroom and the time for small talk is over. We start making out and removing each other’s clothes. We’re both in jockstraps and socks when we move to the bed. His socks don’t match his jock like mine do, but I look past this fashion faux pas since he gave me a ride. He flips around and begins rubbing his ass against my cock. I am stunned because my profile clearly states I’m a bottom. Maybe we’re going to flip fuck. I move my jock to the side and enter him in hopes I get to go next. He moans, “I love you, son.”
The way he says this makes me believe he would actually fuck his son. I make a mental note to read Grindr profiles in full before responding. “YourDad” should have been a dead giveaway. I like daddys, but I don’t need a dad. I slide out of him and stand up, “I have to go!”
He crawls out of the bed on all fours. He begins whining and begging for me to fuck him. “Please son. Dad needs it. Your mother doesn’t get it.”
“My brother is calling me. I need to get back to the hotel.”
I can’t believe I douched for this. I grab my phone and clothes, and I run. I sprint through his house trying to find the front door when YourDad scurries out of the bedroom on all fours like something out of a horror movie. “Please! Please fuck me!”
I am both terrified and entertained. Part of me wants to stay for the plot. The other part of me is in fight or flight. I can’t fight, so I must fly. I find the front door and bolt through it in my jockstrap and socks. I trip down his driveway and roll into the street. I stand up and feel blood dripping down my chest and back. At least these injuries will make for a good story. I get dressed under a streetlamp and realize I left my shoes. I really liked those shoes but there’s no turning back now. I continue running down the street, laughing at how ridiculous this is. I unlock my phone to call my brother. My phone screen is cracked but still useable. A message from YourDad is waiting for me.
“Come back son or you’re grounded,” it reads.
He’s right. I am grounded. I block him and start walking back. Hotels no longer make me horny.
Calista Ginn | Instagram, Substack
Calista Ginn is a Houston-based writer, Scorpio, and lover of trinkets. Her words have been featured in 831 Stories and The Gayest Thing Anthology Vol. 1, and she is a Tin House Workshop alum. You can find her on Instagram being earnest on her stories @calistaginn or on her substack, youngest daughter.
love letter to the woman on the london underground with the louis vuitton pochette
i smiled at this strawberry-blonde stranger in that american way i can’t help and got a wink in return. i immediately texted three of my gayest friends omg hot milf just winked at me in the tube station, garnished with the emoji of the girl on her knees, because what is queerness if not a shared drama, a shared delight? she got off two stops later and i almost asked her where she was going, if i could be there, if we could order two pimms or maybe-- she kind of emanated red-wine drinker, something chic and sharp in the mouth like a shiraz, a pimms and a glass of wine, please, and if we could engage in my favorite kind of flirting, which is the thighs-touching, oh-what’s-this-tattoo-mean, private-bubble-in-a-crowded-room magic of a long chat at a cozy bar. what is queerness if not a fluency in these small kindnesses, sleight-of-hand tricks, and private peacocking, party of two? although maybe a woman who winks at someone she doesn’t know while waiting for the circle line has never played it small, not like i have. or maybe she has played it small, and knows better now. in some ways i’m always infusing big meaning into small flourishes. in some ways i’m always writing towards a kiss, but i don’t think she would have given it to me, not that night. i would’ve watched the bloom of her lips announce itself on the rim of her glass as we spoke, and i would have waited.
in some ways i’m always waiting for something. sometimes i practice saying things like my wife and i-- my partner and i -- out loud to no one and feel silly. i met my wife on the train in london has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? i wonder if i will ever grow out of wanting the far-off and glamorous. when i was much younger, i complimented a substitute teacher on her bracelet and she took it off and clasped it on my wrist, like an initiation. maybe queerness is knowing a wink can be an anointment. i love you. i’ll never see you again.
Carly Croman | Instagram, Substack
(she/her) is gay as in finds joy in the way the berries mix in the yogurt. She is a writer, facilitator, and professor living and working in the Sonoran Desert. Carly is the founder of Sonoran Sapphics, an organization that champions queer joy through inclusive events. She writes a Substack called All Learning that explores all the ways we’re learning, even when we don’t call it that.
glimpses
morning sun on skin to skin
crispy salt directly on my tongue
electric hum of cicadas
low hanging light on ruby ripe strawberries
people who say “look at the moon”
pulling the cap off a brand new pen
crisp morning air, reminder to breathe
welcome home kiss turned full on make out
birthday cake for no reason, rainbow sprinkles
people who smile back
the flip of the calendar, decide to forget or remember
tea the temperature of warm from inside out
morning candles crackling awake
layers and layers of clothes that hold
people who leave long voicemails
ground bursting bulbs, smells like hope
one song on repeat all week
lung-stretching deep breath
pink and purple clouds, what if this is heaven?
people who stay
Thank you for reading, it means the world!!!
I hope you enjoyed, and I encourage you to share your favourite pieces or a line that made you gasp/giggle/catch your breath. Most importantly, I hope you show these writers some love!
If you’re clambering for more, you can read Volume 1 here:
Happy Pride!
Wth love,
Nic Marna 🩷
It’s the MOST wonderful time of the year getting to read another iteration of “The Gayest Thing” ! 💕
so honored to be alongside these literary baddies!!!!