AN IMPOSSIBLE ELEGY TO A VAMPIRE
“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…" he murmured.
I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
"What a stupid lamb," I sighed.
"What a sick, masochistic lion.”
― Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
When I ask myself honestly
who was the first man I found beautiful?
He can only be a vampire. In seventh grade,
I was already in love with Angel from Buffy
when my friends started reading Twilight.
Angel had a softer beauty. No darks circles are his eyes
or deadly pale skin—but he was elusive
which, in the end, might be all that beauty is about.
How much can be hidden and how much can be true.
I am getting ahead of myself. I watched Buffy with my mom.
We fast forwarded past the sex scenes
so I was left with only flickers
of his body. It felt as if, all girls
were waiting for a vampire. I was, at least.
In seventh grade, I was fat. I tried not to have crushes.
I made imaginary boyfriends to fall asleep with.
They were always ghosts or vampires.
In the end, how can you fault a young girl
for falling in love with Edward Cullen?
His skin, sewn with glimmer.
He knew something of what it might mean
to be a woman. All the fear. All the hiding.
He knew how to apply eyeliner.
He kept you safe while you slept,
watching you from the edge of your bed.
This is terrifying, I know. Young girls just wanted
to know someone who was beautiful
and still capable of keeping them safe.
In my parent’s house,
I locked the door to my bedroom at night.
Maybe, it is all trauma, how
gender writes us into the same stories
again and again. We were all Bella.
We were all blank and waiting
for a glamorous boy.
Robin Gow is a trans poet and LGBTQ+ educator from rural Pennsylvania. They are the author of OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DEGENERACY (Tolsun Books 2020) and Honeysuckle (Finishing Line Press 2019). Gow's poetry has recently appeared in POETRY, Washington Square Review, and New Delta Review. They are a graduate student and professor at Adelphi University. They are also the founder of the New York city trans and queer reading series Gender Reveal Party.