Corresponding with the Heterosexuals
by Chen Chen
Hi, enthused teacher or bewildered student
or concerned parent!
Thank you for emailing out of the blue or
as the French say, out of the bleu.
To answer your urgent & original question,
I am not inspired, ever.
I write just so you will assign/do/
help with—while disapproving of—
all this homework
about me
& grow up
or finally be well-adjusted, capable
of taking out the recycling
on a semi-regular basis while talking to your
semi-handsome neighbor
who’s sitting outside. Ah, the fresh air
becoming hotter & oranger by the minute.
Oh, that’s not a gay thing,
sorry, that’s a planet in deep
doo-doo thing.
To answer your less urgent & unoriginal question, yes.
Your dreams will die & so
will you. But if you’re lucky, you’ll go first.
Meanwhile, someone in Switzerland
is sending their very first email,
now isn’t that a sight for sore eyes. Oh,
a cliché! Quick, let’s revise. Now isn’t that
a kite for sore lives. Much better, n’est-ce pas? Sorry,
I know French
is filth & the gayest of langues. & now
I must go feed my second pug, Symposium.
Yup, that’s a Plato thing.
Oui, that’s a gay thing,
so sorry. Désolé. Je suis vraiment,
vachement désolé.
 | A guest post by
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Had to google the French ending. I knew it would be worth it. 😂
You may not be inspired, but your brilliance is a light for the world! Thank you!
This poem reads like an email reply that got tired of being polite and decided to be honest instead.
What grabbed me right away was the dry humour — that “I am not inspired, ever” feels so perfectly fed‑up and funny.
There’s this sense of someone who’s been asked the same questions far too many times and is finally letting the sarcasm breathe.
I love how the poem jumps from climate doom to French jokes to a pug named Symposium without losing its rhythm.
The humour feels messy in the best way, like a mind thinking out loud and not bothering to tidy anything up.
Underneath all the jokes, though, there’s a quiet truth about the pressure queer writers get to explain themselves.
He handles that weight with a kind of weary charm, never bitter, just sharply aware.
The moment he rewrites the cliché mid‑line feels incredibly human — like catching yourself being predictable and laughing at it.
By the end, it feels less like a poem and more like a conversation you weren’t expecting to enjoy this much.
It leaves you with the sense that humour is his way of staying afloat — and somehow, it makes you feel lighter too.