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MONSTERS IN

THE CLOSET!

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SACHA COWARD

(HE/HIM)

@sacha_coward www.sachacoward.com

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Hearken unto me, fellow creatures. I who have dwelt in a form unmatched with my desire, I whose flesh has become an assemblage of incongruous anatomical parts, I who achieve the similitude of a natural body only through an unnatural process, I offer you this warning: the Nature you bedevil me with is a lie. Do not trust it to protect you from what I represent, for it is a fabrication that cloaks the groundlessness of the privilege you seek to maintain for yourself at my expense. You are as constructed as me; the same anarchic womb has birthed us both. I call upon you to investigate your nature as I have been compelled to confront mine. I challenge you to risk abjection and flourish as well as have I.

Susan Stryker

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‘I long for you as though you were a beautiful Calabrian girl.’

‘my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery.’

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‘But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more’

‘Never had she danced so beautifully; the sharp knives cut her feet, but she did not feel it, for the pain in her heart was far greater.’

‘Now he is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes hang, and in whose hand I should like to lay my life's happiness. I will dare everything to win him and an immortal soul’

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Some of the boys have panic

But none of the boys leave town

They say, "We're on the good ship Titanic

We're gonna sing 'til the boat goes down."

And if it ended before it started

Well no one told us that life is fair

And why is it still so quiet

Tonight on Sheridan Square?

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‘His desire is imprisoned in cryptic texts; his private life undecipherable through thick layers of transference. Endlessly secretive, Stoker is the great codifier, the author who dared not speak his own name. Instead, he transforms it into numerous riddles and fictions’

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‘If you are the man I take you to be you will like to get this letter. If you are not I don’t care whether you like it or not and only ask that you put it into the fire without reading any farther. But I believe you will like it. I don’t think there is a man living, even you who are above the prejudices of the class of small-minded men, who wouldn’t like to get a letter from a younger man, a stranger, across the world - a man living in an atmosphere prejudiced to the truths you sing and your manner of singing them.’ �(Bram Stoker to Walt Whitman)

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‘The present suggestion that ... Lili poses in the nude will be changed. She will be posing her neck and shoulders, and there will be no suggestion that she undresses, and there will be no exposure of her person. It was also stated that the present incomplete sequence will be followed by a scene in which Lili is taken to a hospital and there it will be definitely established that she has been attacked by a vampire. The whole sequence will be treated in such a way as to avoid any suggestion of perverse sexual desire on the part of Marya or of an attempted sexual attack by her upon Lili.’

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O CHILD of Uranus, wanderer down all times,

Darkling, from farthest ages of the Earth the same

Strange tender figure, full of grace and pity,

Yet outcast and misunderstood of men—

Thy Woman-soul within a Man's form dwelling,

[Was Adam perchance like this, ere Eve from his side was drawn?]

So gentle, gracious, dignified, complete,

With man's strength to perform, and pride to suffer without sign,

And feminine sensitiveness to the last fibre of being;

Strange twice-born, having entrance to both worlds—

Loved, loved by either sex,

And free of all their lore!

I see thee where down all of Time thou comest;

And women break their alabaster caskets, kiss and anoint thy feet, and

bless the womb that bare thee,

While in thy bosom with thee, lip to lip,

Thy younger comrade lies.

Edward Carpenter

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‘I was so ready to give myself away – and being afraid of men, I was apt to get tousy-mousy for women.’

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‘Look, Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently.’