Redemption of the Slot Machine

Mercedes Emmons

            At the ripe and tumultuous age of fourteen, you sit in the vibrant and colorful chaos that is the back of a bowling alley. You are here alone. You “accidentally” were not invited to your “best friend's” birthday sleepover, probably because you said you love him, and while he enjoys your company, he’ll never see you as more than a misassembled boy.

            You wish you could pretend to be a pretty girl with a sweet laugh and nice tits, but you're nothing if not neurotic and faggy. You play the baby slot machines, entranced by the technicolor symbols flashing vigorously before your eyes.  

            A cartoon smiley face. A heart. A flower. Fuck you.

            You put in seven more shitty, fake gold tokens.

            You are seventeen and crossfaded as hell. You met a sweet trans bear at the hotel pool and smoked out his car. You now sit in the casino, where your sister is celebrating her twenty-first birthday and playing the slot machine, while he sits on the floor, sucking back coke floats and showing you love poems on his phone.

            He invited you to his place for dinner on Friday and agreed to meet your mom. It’s sweet and you are elated, but thinking about it gives you a migraine, so you submit to the technicolor gambling haze and what fruits and numbers scroll by.

            7-7-7. Jackpot!

Bio

Mercedes Emmons (he/hir) is a black trans man based in Virginia. He has a love for the gaudy and the painful and is a chronic nail biter and bassist. You can find hir on Instagram @velourspit.