New Voices 2020

“Faggot”

by Jackson Wise Putting my full faith in the ultra-reliable Wikipedia, I've stumbled upon the word Faggot. What a beautiful sounding word, truly the pinnacle of the English lexicon. Its meaning deserves such praise as well. A faggot is a unit of bundled sticks and twigs. How oddly specific of the English language, how playful a word it is. It was mainly used in old, archaic English and was typically spoken to women who gathered faggots and sold them for profit. However, I, a man, can also gather faggots. One could say I'm a professional Faggot-Gatherer. The following is my experience in defining faggot gathering.

It was on the dawn of a particularly dull day that I defined the first trait of my job. As all days start, I woke up and became prepared to gather my faggots. When I faced myself in the reflection of a mirror, however, the trouble started. I gazed upon my image, and a gross, horrifying sight confronted me. There, spanning the entire length of my chest, were scars, marks, and blemishes galore. My front was a sickening piece of ripped up flesh. As my thoughts raced, I finally settled on a quite simple explanation—my work. As a FaggotGatherer, I had to carry pokey, pointy, and piercing sticks from dusk till dawn. I carried these sticks by bear-hugging them, so this had to be the reason my front looked like a lacerated and chewed-up heap of worn tissue. This was a key experience. I came to note most wounds inflicted upon Faggot-Gathers are ones brought by themselves.

A second trait moved into view shortly after discovering the first. Many define faggots, or rather those that gather them, as wrong in some fashion. From the religious that claim men cannot, under any circumstance, pick up sticks without being punished to the "scientists" who have studied my occupation through casual observation deeming it unnatural. To "psychologists" who claim my fascination with sticks is due to an absent father and overbearing mother. To the people on the street who hold up signs with harsh words and take harsher actions. To the people in my class who start discussing my livelihood as if it were their burden. To the distant relatives, ones that will never know the truth, battling against me with glances, as they pass salt over festive dinners. These examples lead to another defining trait of Faggot-Gathers. We will be criticized by occupation alone, regardless of our behavior.

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