Paul Coomey

Art Director, Stripes Publishing

Through a red door down a steep flight

of stairs into a windowless cellar

with sweating walls

an ingénue in a smoking jacket

sits atop a piano

as a host of swaying women

sing ‘Your Secret’s Safe with Me’

and one invites you

into the privacy of a kiss – all these

dark clandestine places – and you find

yourself imagining a very tiny

woman walking straight

into her mouth

through a red door down a steep flight

of throat into a windowless cell

with breathing walls

an ingénue in a smoke-jacket

sits astride a piano

as a host of swallowed women

sing ‘Your Secret’s in a Safe’,

the barmaid shakes a custom

cocktail she calls ‘A Private Kiss’ – all these

dark half-eaten faces – and you find

yourself imagining a tiny tiny

woman walking straight

into her mouth

through a red breath down a dark

thought into a swallowed sense

with shrinking walls

an innuendo in stomach acid

slops upon a piano

as a host of silent passions

mouth ‘Your Secret Is Yourself’

inside the belly of the world – all these

dark dissolving spaces – and you find

yourself imagining a windowless

woman breaking

walls down in herself, sprinting

up the shrinking

halls and up contracting

corridors and up the choking

fits of hard stares through dark

thoughts and dead

laws through the red door

as it swallows shut behind you

now you’re spat out

on the pavement with the

sun just

coming out.

“Parents! My name is Zorg, Commander of the Realm of Ziatron, and I bring news of your son’s sexuality.”

I stare at my pathetic reflection in the mirror and remove the colander from my head and Mum’s shimmery pashmina from around my shoulders. This is what it’s become. This is what it’s become because I cannot think of the goddamn words! And the more I practise, the more every single option sounds wrong.

“Mum, Dad, I think I might be gay.” (What’s with the ‘think’? There is no ‘think’, you are.)

“Hey, just to let you know – I don’t fancy girls. But I do fancy –” pause for dramatic effect – “sheep! Ha! Joking. It’s boys. I fancy boys.” (Is this really the time for jokes? And I’m pretty sure this one wouldn’t sit well with Mum’s RSPCA donations.)

“Um, you know how I’ve got posters of Hamilton, Wicked and Dear Evan Hansen up in my bedroom? Well, it’s a sign. A stereotypical one, but a sign nonetheless.”

I hear their car pull up on the drive and strike a pose, pointing at my reflection in the mirror. “You’ve got this, gay chops!”

Gay chops?! And anyway, I so haven’t. ‘Got this’, I mean, I’ve no idea if my chops are gay or not, but the rest of me is, so I guess they are too.