Karl Marx Hates My Drag Show by Seth Wade

I see him there in the dark, watching me and frowning.

I skitter about on all fours in a tattered white dress, long black hair draping over my face. Tonight is Halloween. The theme is movies. I’m twitching to the beat of ABBA as that one dead girl who pops out of a well from The Ring.

He’s cute.

Older, sure. Can’t tell where his fuzzy hair ends and his huge beard begins. Dressed all classy. Stocky. He looks like a sea-steeled sailor or maybe a wizard. But cute.

Patrons tuck dollars into my hair as I loop around the edges of the stage, jerking about in sync to the music. When I pass by him I pause, peeking through the shutters of my wig.

He’s almost crying.

Later, after the drunks request their selfies and the bar is almost closing, I spot him sitting at the counter, scribbling into a notepad.

I walk over and ask what he’s writing.

“A manifesto,” he replies.

Vaguely, I recall my time in college. Drinking with my fellow radical queers inside our dorm rooms. Young and dumb, debating politics, still believing in the impossible.

Then I ask him if he liked my performance.

“No.”

All I can do is blink. I wasn’t expecting this.

“You think you are subversive? You are not.”

Desperate, I ask if I can buy him a beer. I pull out some of the crumpled dollars I collected, but before I can even put them on the counter, he’s swatted away my hand. The bills float down to the ground like dead leaves.

“Even art can be opium.”

I want to tell him that I support the revolution. That I can fight, too. Instead, I just stutter.

He ignores me. Somehow he surprises me further, and climbs up onto the counter.

“Queens of the world, unite!” he shouts, waving his fist in the air.

Everyone spins towards us.

“You have nothing to lose but your heels!”

Confused and ashamed, I back away.

Then I see all my money scattered on the floor, and wonder.

Seth Wade is a philosopher in the ethics of technology pursuing his PhD at Florida State University. You can read his poetry and prose in publications like Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s, Hunger Mountain Review, Witness, and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, and a reader for the Southeast Review. Find more of his work or contact him at https://www.sethwade.info

20 March 2026