The Knockout Queen

by Rufi Thorpe

You’re born naked, the rest is drag. —RuPaul

What did a 7-Eleven even sell that wasn’t designed to kill you one way or another?

I shared a bedroom with her son, Jason, an effortlessly masculine and unreflective sort, who was neither bad nor particularly good, and who often farted in answer to questions addressed to him. How he always had a fart ready to go was a mystery to me,

The crux of the problem was that my mother was in love with my father, and while he was terrifying when he got too drunk, when he was only a little bit drunk he was so much fun, and when he was sober he was profoundly depressed.

I told Bunny all of this as we walked, and she listened without offering sentimental interruptions or reassurances, and I was grateful for that,

Is there a darker night of the soul than eighth grade?

She loved a man who was bad and bad to her, and that was shameful, shameful the way loving food or drink that is bad for you is shameful.

There is something in the geometry of your upper lip and the way the skin connects to the cartilage of your nose and the thicker flesh of your lips that dissolves my moral ability into a series of snapping synapses.

One of the simplicities of being male was always definitely knowing whether or not I had orgasmed, so I found her answers maddening.