This story is such a perfect image of gay panic, and it encapsulates the insecurity of youth and self-discovery. Was there a particular moment or image that inspired this story?
It started with the photograph of myself in the roommate’s Carhartt jacket, or rather my memory of it being taken. I also thought back on the media I consumed at the time, like columns by Ivan E. Coyote and Dan Savage, and Chris Pureka’s album How I Learned to See in the Dark. In the almost year-long process of writing and revising the sequence I watched Celine Sciamma’s Waterlilies, which I reference in part 4 because it so perfectly captures the mood of living in the shadow of a girl.
I love the way you build curiosity for the reader, as well as the character’s anguish. Did you write this straight through, or did the sections come out of order?
Out of order—I finished part 2 first, if only because the moves were most familiar to me as a poet: image and monologue. I wrote part 1 early but was unhappy with it until I cut from the beginning and let “I knew only embarrassing things about myself” have more room in part 3. I was reluctant to write part 4, but I had notes toward it. When I shared the sequence without it, my workshop at the time asked if something happened to turn up the vitriol in part 5. My answer being sort of. In Waterlilies, I found my strategy for writing through the nude scene to develop the tension between the characters before part 5.
Your book of poetry, Mare’s Nest, also explores themes of gender and sex. In your mind, does this story exist in the same universe as Mare’s Nest?
There is some overlap, but more in time than space. Mare’s Nest doesn’t really leave the farm much, whereas this story is at school. I think it’s more social, more human. In my book, the horses act out gender and sex more dramatically, I think, than the people.
You used numbers in this story as well as in your poem “Muybridge’s Horse in Motion.” Do you find it helps you create momentum, or is it more about structure?
In the story, the numbers helped me structure different episodes around who’s in view and how. Overall, the narrative still moves chronologically from fall to spring, but it’s not strict. I think the numbering is more about momentum in “Muybridge’s Horse in Motion”—I knew the poem would be in twelve parts at the moment I wrote down that the photo series was in twelve parts, and I hope that the reader can feel that urgency building toward the ending.
Do you have any future projects you’re excited about? Are any of them queer themed as well?
Yes, I’m working on a manuscript of short prose, like “The Roommate,” entitled (only for now) “gayer book.”
