AWP 2023: A Brief Narrative
- Mar 12, 2023
- 2 min read
by Dani Putney
“Piss yourself.” — Sign in Seattle
Reader, I did.
We were at Queer/Bar, aptly named for being a queer bar. My friend Max was too wasted, too messy. A French Canadian woman lost her phone down the street. We helped her while she yelled at random dudes — she knew how to fight, I’ve been
a stripper for seven years. Don’t let me mention the leather-daddy bar the three of us found ourselves in half-past 2 AM. We walked home in the rain. The stripper didn’t want to navigate. My phone shook in my hand while I tried to contain all the beer from a third-night-out- in-a-row. Trust me: I’m tame at the offsite readings, in the book fair. I know how to interact with uwu introverts. But grab a trio of queers, something’s bound to crack. At the intersection of an off-ramp & some avenue near Pike, I broke. Piss streamed down my white linen pants, skull bent over the railing, a prayer for any god to kill me. The stripper bounced. Max said he couldn’t notice my indiscretion, but what did he know, drunk bastard. The hotel front desk employee eyed Max & me, told us to Have fun, boys
as if every early-morning duo were having gay sex. Reader, I just wanted a shower. & I got my wish. & I slept in Max’s bed. Another day ahead of us. Or so it goes.
Dani Putney is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx, & neurodivergent writer originally from Sacramento, California. Their poems appear in outlets such as Empty Mirror, Ghost City Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Juke Joint Magazine, & trampset, among others, while their personal essays can be found in journals such as Cold Mountain Review & Glassworks Magazine, among others. They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women & are presently an English PhD student at Oklahoma State University. While not always (physically) there, they permanently reside in the middle of the Nevada desert.
