I need drag to

cloak me with a hard shell.

seal up the crevices in my chest.

take me under and into another mind.

lift my chin to a spotlight and unburden my eyes.

birth giggle eruptions and the electric joy in movement.

settle my feet flat on a stage, ready to shimmy.

allow me access to that other woman that breathes fire.

reclaim a no-I-do-it-this-way stance on performance.

inspire me to support the pop culture pieces I find so vital.

take said pop culture pieces and repaint them with a queer lens.

become the modern gentleman who may pelvic thrust but pant poetry.

focus on a back wall, lose anxiety to the bright white light and dark-edged beat.

pretend to be a seducer, a wooer, a-toss-of-hair-and-I-have-you.

challenge my concept of my body, its limitations, its possibilities, its beauty.

dedicate, such as in poem, intense energy to a matter of three or more minutes.

bury the burning in my bones (a la post-tattoo) that craves more, more, more.

Introduction: Drop the beat, create the heat.

In an overwhelming list of potential identifiers, I hereby elect to add another and choose to call myself a drag king.

My drag name is Dimitri Savage. A last name of 'Savage' was constructed, you must know, in a split-second decision-making blunder in which I was taking my first solo stab at drag kinging and had to declare a stage name. (All performance details were pinned, the lyrics rehearsed obsessively, the outfit on, the personality in its baby stages [pun intended], but my title? Oops.) The song? An old, beloved favorite that has never left my playlists and ever-swelling nostalgia: Savage Garden's 1997 sultry standout sensation, "I Want You." So, to grasp at very obvious options, I whispered 'Savage' to a friend relaying the message to a fellow king host and then ex-friend. I laughed at myself. Savage? Really? What was I attempting to embody, some sort of Pocahontas-era worded, mohawk-possibilitied, growling stud? Little did I know at that moment that the name 'Savage' would put a teeth-tearing-into-meat a la queers-enjoying-what-they-see attitude into itself. Or, as holy shit could not be possible, that it would be a name I could eventually be somewhat known for. (Wait, what?) I still thought the name hilarious.

'Dimitri' would be an addition later to come. As I've always said, I find Dimitri and Vincent to be two of the more beautiful male-concerned names. Those names might immediately conjure a number of things: the swoopy-haired fellow from the animated film Anastasia, a mournful Don McLean tune, and, personally, romantic sixteen-year-old self reveries of androgynous and tragically poetic ideal loves. Let's think long dark hair, deep green eyes, pale skin, misunderstood like Mr. Darcy, all the emotional heroism of a brooding but gentle fantasy character.

I added 'Dimitri' to 'Savage' to give this budding self and character two halves. On the one hand and foot and dance move, I like to imagine my kingly reflection as fierce, sharp, strengthened, chin defiantly up, lips pained or unafraid; on the other, I see softness, gentlemanly graces, diction thriving, seduction shy, manner composed.

Some king names read in trick, much like one belonging to one of my first inspirations and introductions to kinghood: that of king friend Hunter Down. I realized shortly thereafter that mine could as well; though, in all serious, 'The meat tree savage' does not contain the less explicit and not-necessarily-large-penis-equipped image I was going for.

My drag name is Dimitri Savage. I'm beginning to realize that the construction of this theatrical self is ever-growing in its importance and self-necessity.