Let’s Argue About Bisexual Superman

Caitlin Johnstone
3 min readOct 12, 2021

Listen to a reading of this poem:

Let’s argue about bisexual Superman
while the world burns,
while they prepare us for war with China,
while they take away our rights,
while they steal more and more of our power and our wealth,
while they rape our minds with advanced propaganda systems
to shape us into pawns in a global chess game.

Let’s argue about bisexual Superman
to avoid our fear of an unfathomable future,
to compartmentalize away from how nothing makes sense anymore,
to sedate the creeping sensation that everything we’ve been taught is a lie,
to squeeze off the strangled cries of that sacred child within us,
to hide from the insight that we are one with every part of this mess.

Let’s argue about bisexual Superman,
because it’s easier than being real,
because it’s easier than admitting we’re afraid,
because it’s less challenging than facing ourselves,
because us-and-them culture wars are comfortable
while authenticity is terrifying,
because the beloved keeps beckoning us back to wholeness
and we are simply not ready to confront our own perfection.

Let’s argue about bisexual Superman
instead of making art,
instead of singing the glory,
instead of expressing reverence for the miracle of creation,
instead of filming everything we can before it’s gone,
instead of embracing each other on a dying world,
insead of kissing each other on our plunge into the unknown,
instead of comforting each other about our own mortality,
instead of allowing real intimacy to get a word in edgewise,
instead of connecting in that way we’ve always longed for
but never had the courage to allow.

Let’s fight over what turns Superman on
to keep ourselves from getting turned on,
to keep ourselves from living turned on,
to keep ourselves from living tuned in,
to keep ourselves from opening our eyes
and beholding life’s majesty for the very first time
and never, ever closing them,
and holding hands
and walking out into a transformed world
beneath the yellow sun.

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