I’m missing Matt

tonight. I don’t think about him very often.
We barely dated. Just briefly, through the snowy season.
He used to walk through blizzards to see me.
He was poor and I was rich.
I worked the bar and he worked the kitchen.
He was thin as a pilsner and I was plump as a porter.
He was from the country. I took him to his first gay bar.
He was shy and nervous and everybody loved him.
Strangers bought him drinks all night,
touched his shoulder, asked him where he was from.
We gulped down our weight in beer.
We wobbled home through a snowstorm.
We took each other’s clothes off
and laughed and laughed and laughed.
We waited for warmth.
Got so close we switched bodies in the merge.
Wanting so honestly to become unlike ourselves.
Hoping so desperately that we’d wake up
unrecognizable.

—Published 17th of August 2025

About Morris McLennan

Morris McLennan is a writer from Chicago, IL. Awards include a DeGroot Foundation Writer of Note award, a Robert Chelsey/ Victor Bumbalo Foundation Award, and a MAP Fund grant. His plays have been workshopped & produced with the support of King’s College, DCASE, Pocket Theatre VR, Cypress Productions, and The Tank. morrismclennan.net