Bridget Langdon
Bruce Was More
Bruce was born in rural Illinois
Bruce was a handful
Bruce told the kids there were ghosts in his house.
Bruce was a genius
Bruce got bad grades
Bruce was a poet
Bruce was a prodigal musician
Bruce didn’t have the drive
Bruce drove across the country to see the Beatles
Bruce strived for normalcy
Bruce was a nonconformist
Bruce loved Julie Andrews
Bruce ran away
Bruce was afraid to come home
Bruce played in a band called the Jet Rinks
Bruce loved his mom
Bruce married a woman
Bruce gave the baby his name
Bruce divorced his wife
Bruce was gay
Bruce hitchhiked to California to join the revolution
Bruce hated Ronald Reagan
Bruce signed over rights to his child
Bruce did feel remorse
Bruce danced on a table in the Capitol Building
Bruce never considered the consequences
Bruce painted the U on the sign so it read “Onion Street.”
Bruce was witty
Bruce was concerned with the afterlife
Bruce took on a lover
Bruce took on many lovers
Bruce was in love by the end
Bruce took a needle
Bruce took an IV
Bruce’s material body died of AIDS.
Bridget Langdon’s work has appeared in Grassroots Writing and Research Journal, Sick Lit Magazine, and Dime Show Review.She has also been a guest reviewer for Whet [Lit] Journal and Grassroots Writing and Research Journal. Langdon is a second year master’s student at Illinois State University, studying in the creative writing program with an emphasis on creative non-fiction. She can be found on Twitter under the name @FormerAltruist. These poems are only a small part of a larger project involving her uncle who died of AIDS in San Francisco in 1986. Langdon writers, “For 30 years, Bruce’s identity has revolved around the fact that he died of AIDS, and my intention is to shatter those barriers.”
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