WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.650 align:middle line:84% So this manuscript deals primarily 00:00:04.650 --> 00:00:07.770 align:middle line:84% with kind of explorations of desire, 00:00:07.770 --> 00:00:11.190 align:middle line:84% the politics of desirability, and the way 00:00:11.190 --> 00:00:15.990 align:middle line:84% that these things intersect with violence, either interpersonal 00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:20.970 align:middle line:84% or the violence of the state against disabled and trans 00:00:20.970 --> 00:00:23.710 align:middle line:90% bodies. 00:00:23.710 --> 00:00:28.110 align:middle line:84% This next poem carries an epigraph 00:00:28.110 --> 00:00:30.270 align:middle line:84% from a dear friend of mine, and I 00:00:30.270 --> 00:00:32.580 align:middle line:84% think it's one of the weirder poems in the book, 00:00:32.580 --> 00:00:34.155 align:middle line:90% but it's one I dearly love. 00:00:34.155 --> 00:00:36.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:39.570 align:middle line:84% The title when translated from Latin 00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:43.920 align:middle line:90% means vanity of all vanity. 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:46.860 align:middle line:90% "Vanitas Vanitatum". 00:00:46.860 --> 00:00:51.690 align:middle line:84% The aesthetics of cum are also its politics-- 00:00:51.690 --> 00:00:53.940 align:middle line:90% Bradley Trumpfheller. 00:00:53.940 --> 00:00:57.030 align:middle line:84% I was called a pansy before I was ever 00:00:57.030 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:84% called a faggot, flower child, wilted wrist. 00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:05.489 align:middle line:84% The Bradford pear, Pyrus calleryana, 00:01:05.489 --> 00:01:09.510 align:middle line:84% is a deciduous tree common throughout North America. 00:01:09.510 --> 00:01:11.820 align:middle line:90% It blossoms in early spring. 00:01:11.820 --> 00:01:18.400 align:middle line:84% Branches bursting into five petaled, pale, white flowers. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:24.730 align:middle line:84% It is an invasive species that covers half the country. 00:01:24.730 --> 00:01:29.590 align:middle line:84% Seeds spread on the wind, not unlike disease. 00:01:29.590 --> 00:01:32.890 align:middle line:84% Some scientists have even described its spread 00:01:32.890 --> 00:01:34.990 align:middle line:90% as an epidemic. 00:01:34.990 --> 00:01:39.310 align:middle line:84% The trees are best known for their smell when they bloom. 00:01:39.310 --> 00:01:44.890 align:middle line:84% I remember the spring air thick and familiar scent of cum 00:01:44.890 --> 00:01:47.650 align:middle line:90% bitter in my mouth. 00:01:47.650 --> 00:01:51.100 align:middle line:90% Perhaps the cumshot is a vanity. 00:01:51.100 --> 00:01:55.090 align:middle line:84% Liquid flower crown, and aren't there 00:01:55.090 --> 00:02:00.910 align:middle line:84% also people who would call my lust invasive, an epidemic? 00:02:00.910 --> 00:02:06.730 align:middle line:84% 1930, the Hays Code enforced a strict set of moral guidelines 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:08.440 align:middle line:90% on Americans. 00:02:08.440 --> 00:02:12.190 align:middle line:84% Most notably, if someone within the film 00:02:12.190 --> 00:02:18.970 align:middle line:84% performs an immoral act, they must be punished onscreen. 00:02:18.970 --> 00:02:24.730 align:middle line:84% I wonder which of my body's verbs might be deemed immoral. 00:02:24.730 --> 00:02:27.940 align:middle line:84% The first time I held a boy on my tongue, 00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:31.210 align:middle line:90% I held him like a petal. 00:02:31.210 --> 00:02:35.560 align:middle line:84% In Rebel Without A Cause, Plato, a queer-coded teen 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:40.180 align:middle line:84% enamored with the protagonist is shot by police. 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:45.250 align:middle line:84% He dies holding a gun with no bullets inside. 00:02:45.250 --> 00:02:51.750 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, I forget that to be is also a verb. 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:55.260 align:middle line:84% For years, I've been obsessed with poisonous plant. 00:02:55.260 --> 00:02:58.470 align:middle line:84% Example, every part of the foxglove 00:02:58.470 --> 00:03:02.040 align:middle line:84% is deadly, though most of all the root. 00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:06.480 align:middle line:84% As a child, I chewed its petals, bitter and splayed 00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:07.380 align:middle line:90% in the grass. 00:03:07.380 --> 00:03:10.110 align:middle line:90% I didn't know it was poison. 00:03:10.110 --> 00:03:14.070 align:middle line:84% Only the way it tore through my body. 00:03:14.070 --> 00:03:19.680 align:middle line:84% 22 years later, Sal Mineo, the actor who portrayed Plato, 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:22.980 align:middle line:84% was stabbed to death in West Hollywood. 00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:29.080 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, I dream of a world without metaphor. 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:33.220 align:middle line:84% The first time I saw another queer person on film, 00:03:33.220 --> 00:03:37.650 align:middle line:84% I watched him die, watched a straight man act out the trial 00:03:37.650 --> 00:03:41.460 align:middle line:84% where he fought for a job lost because of desire, 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:45.520 align:middle line:84% and the virus that would end his life. 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:51.220 align:middle line:84% Every time a lover comes inside me, I feel fear pulse. 00:03:51.220 --> 00:03:54.280 align:middle line:90% A poison in my chest. 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:58.390 align:middle line:90% Yes, I am ashamed of this. 00:03:58.390 --> 00:03:59.710 align:middle line:90% Flowers. 00:03:59.710 --> 00:04:03.580 align:middle line:84% When that first boy asked me how his cum tasted, 00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:07.880 align:middle line:90% I said it tastes like flowers. 00:04:07.880 --> 00:04:11.090 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, I think straight people only 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:14.540 align:middle line:84% want to read poems about faggots fucking 00:04:14.540 --> 00:04:18.589 align:middle line:84% if there's the risk of someone dying in the end. 00:04:18.589 --> 00:04:21.829 align:middle line:84% Sin, and its suitable punishment. 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:24.680 align:middle line:90% Hays Code's ugly ghosts. 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:28.160 align:middle line:84% How many ways can I metaphor semen into something 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:33.770 align:middle line:84% with sharper edges, digitalis, cracked thermometer, cut 00:04:33.770 --> 00:04:36.870 align:middle line:90% onions, bitter milk. 00:04:36.870 --> 00:04:40.110 align:middle line:84% It's the cumshot of a mental war. 00:04:40.110 --> 00:04:43.770 align:middle line:84% I refuse to parish where the poem ends. 00:04:43.770 --> 00:04:46.890 align:middle line:84% There's a joke here about tiny deaths, 00:04:46.890 --> 00:04:49.792 align:middle line:90% but I'm not going to tell it. 00:04:49.792 --> 00:04:52.925 align:middle line:84% I just wanted to be fucked like I'll live forever. 00:04:52.925 --> 00:04:57.990 align:middle line:90% 00:04:57.990 --> 00:05:00.490 align:middle line:90% Wow, what an end. 00:05:00.490 --> 00:05:00.990 align:middle line:90% That was-- 00:05:00.990 --> 00:05:02.032 align:middle line:90% It's one of my favorites. 00:05:02.032 --> 00:05:02.870 align:middle line:90% I love it. 00:05:02.870 --> 00:05:06.300 align:middle line:84% It feels very much like my Lana Del Rey moment. 00:05:06.300 --> 00:05:07.230 align:middle line:90% I love it. 00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:12.000 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's also just the way that the poem sort of just 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.410 align:middle line:84% continues to expand and expand until the ending sort of even 00:05:16.410 --> 00:05:18.480 align:middle line:90% expands it further. 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:20.280 align:middle line:90% I just wanted to say that. 00:05:20.280 --> 00:05:21.220 align:middle line:90% It's great. 00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:23.090 align:middle line:90% Love it.