by Oliver Land
As a teenager, I drank with an older gay man.
He declared being gay was “against nature.”
He described himself as an aberration.
I told him I didn’t think he was an aberration.
He said that was cute.
He said that, as his mother’s only son, she would never have grandchildren.
He said he didn’t desire acceptance and was unworthy of forgiveness.
He wore woven cotton boxer shorts.
As he lay on his side, facing away from me, I thought he looked like somebody’s father.
I put my arm around him.
He pushed it off and said, “We’re done here.”
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Oliver Land’s work has appeared in Hobart, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Expat Press, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collection White Light Fades (2026) and the novella-in-flash Dissolve (2026).
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