Some Random Notes on Being an Overweight Gay Male Poet

As an overweight gay man (5 ‘ 11’ 189 pounds), Steve finds that stating he’s overweight causes some people to feel the need to deny this fact. As if it’s something other than a fact. At the present moment, Steve primarily considers himself to be a critic. A critic does not know pity, self or otherwise. He deals with facts. Facts keep the world in tact.

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Once a student, who worked as a waitress at Denny’s, told him that the amount of the tip you receive does not depend on the quality of the job you do. People are going to do what they’re going to do. Having always oscillated in weight, Steve notices that’s the same thing about asking a man to have sex with you after you lured him to your house with fake photos on Gay.com. It doesn’t matter how much you weigh as long as it’s not extreme. If they’re going to fuck you, they’re going to fuck you.

*

Steve thought words would make him thin. Possibly beautiful. When he won an award, he couldn’t attend the ceremony; he was very, very ill—he works on recovery every day. He’s getting better. But he regrets not having gone to the ceremony. He imagines someone wanting to fuck him because of his words. He dreams that if that night he had written on his gay.com profile, “Winner of Publishing Triangle Award for Gay Male Poetry” that then the probability of being fucked by a hot top with a nice chest would have increased. Steve dreams about guys with hot pectorals. He was never breastfed. He also dreams of being the object of a starfucker’s desire. And being stalked by someone--attractive or unattractive.

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Being overweight is the ultimate revolutionary act for a gay man. It says to homosexual men, Here’s my body. Deal with it. As opposed to here’s my body. I’m working on it.

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Do not pity the overweight gay man. Do not pity the beautiful gay man. Pity the gay man who is almost beautiful. The overweight gay man has accepted that he’s out of many homosexuals’ leagues. The almost beautiful gay man curses the day he was born. He knows that he’s just a mere step away from eliciting all the attention beautiful men receive.

Maybe the almost beautiful gay man has a bad jawline or hair that never looks quite right no matter how well its cut or badly colored eyes. He doesn’t like fucking overweight men; he’s secretly scared that if God denied him one more aspect of his beauty, he might find himself in the realm of the overweight man.

As a result, he hates the overweight man. You fat ugly faggot, he thinks.

The beautiful man doesn’t think this. He has never felt what it feels to be denied so he does not deny.

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Take advantage of gay men who are good looking but were once fat. They will forever be crippled with low self-esteem and never feel attractive in the way they should. They will have sex with you because they will remember the days they dealt with rejection. These men will be easy to manipulate. Never say, “You are good-looking.” Say, “You really have become good-looking.” The verb "become" will remind them of their old selves and they will be putty in your hand.