Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain in Drag

In this self-portrait, Cobain is the personification of the speaker’s rage. His dressing in drag represents the gender fluidity the speaker feels 90% of the time, although this may be the result of exposure to certain polyurethane products, particularly the foam in the sofas of a certain Swedish furniture manufacturer. Who wants to read a poem that explains itself? I do, I do!

So in this self-portrait, the speaker as Cobain in drag is drop-dead fucking gorgeous, with her sky-eyed junkie stare and her Christ bod fresh from the cross. As a woman, she can be a man becoming a woman becoming a poet becoming a god. She can feed on herself — a loaf of bread or a single glistening fish — her plate empty as the star she rode in on.

Finally, consider the relationship between Cobain’s message and the speaker’s own. Is this someone you’d want instructing your children, nihilism sprayed on the classroom walls and pronouns slipped on like condoms? Now diagram this sentence: I want to be raped by the world.

Misunderstood poet-god strung out in petticoats, isn’t this what you asked for, a stage to playact your fantasies of grandeur and oblivion and an audience who’s paid to care?