‘Addressing the Rumor That Marilyn Manson Had His Lower Ribs Removed so That He Might Suck His Own Dick’
— Andrew Sargus Klein
I gasped a small gasp when I first caught the title of Colette Arrand’s poem in BOAAT. I remember that rumor—that Marilyn Manson removed his lower ribs so that he could fellate himself—that ridiculous rumor, spreading like wildfire all throughout elementary school. (There was also the rumor that Manson played Paul Pfeiffer on The Wonder Years. The ’90s were weird.)
The rumor, a fun bit of trivia, is a funny angle of entry into a deeply serious poem about bodies and acceptance.
[…] At times, I like
to think that trans women are made
the same way, my meat shaped
around a rib pulled from Marilyn Manson,
given up so that I might know the body
capable of radical change.
The poem isn’t ironic; it doesn’t use pop culture as a distancing effect.
[…] Still, consider
the way a person shapes their body a
sacrament, an offering whispered
at night so only the desired audience
receives it.
It leaves the reader on a solemn note, and I’m left thinking about how bodies are taken for granted, how they’re mundane and transcendent, simultaneously.