what are we, i ask myself
   i own
      no statement
only feeble questions

i see your blushing face asleep on trash
but i could never see my freezing heart
at ease at the fire's eager edge, only in it

now i offer life anew at your brick and mortar altar
where once i'd incinerate my own skin
maybe if i pray hard, i'll pray your apathy away
when words are all i have to give
it's the most fitting gift to receive

i suppose
      so

when i consign my primal urge to dead space
i consign in full view of destinies lost
grow dead to human touch

sniffing all the lacquer off your short nails
quick to bed, while high i await morning's rise
wakeful through the night, tooth to lip

   my wanting hand

      silently crawls

     my tender thigh

For once I think I'll speak clearly. My hands are a megaphone.
I feel like my legs are buried in paper up to the iliopsoas.

                                                                           do you feel it?

I am improper syntax incarnate. My hands are up to my mouth.
I feel like I call to you and you won't visibly position yourself.

do you feel it?

What a tragic life to be terribly lonely so overtly by my own design.
Words I should easily speak disguise in the esoteric words I write.

                              i feel you.
               i do

in fact like an acid trip dusted over days i hang onto every letter

and in the subtle twisting of the pen your vibrations enter my eyes
and in the drumming of your zealous fingers against the keyboard
and in the tapping at the glass as you ignore your text messages

your affecting verse travels my arterials and fills my chest with life

     are we alike?

I can't help but ask it. I sit puffing cherry pie,
feeling quite abandoned. You know the story.

Do you feel absolutely sundered by your insides?
Can't stop the gnawing unless you actualize your leaden brain.

     well adjusted to deep addiction to discord.

and i join your audience in admiration of the grace absent in myself

On a night like this

My heart swells enormous
Much to give, so little
Left of it

On a night like this

Foggy with dead wishes
Wished, gone unfulfilled
Sent kisses

In midair hang heavy,
Corporeal,

On a night like this

Park bench misery, my
Mystery love, would you
Meet me in the dark time?

May your cold hand find mine
Hold tight, brace for impact
In the ensuing wave of chaos

Pardon me, I've been thinking
My friend,
what if I could save myself?
Your intoxicating
scent on my neck
has seemed to have kept me
anticipating
my gasping last breath
but, pardon me, I've been thinking
what if I could reach in
through steam in
the mirror
and remove your ******* tongue
so you can't taste me anymore?
If these dreams I keep
really are so sweet, you'll
forgive me for
keeping
the sanctum away from nightmare

I can't take this **** nuh more
I haven't been healthy since
Nine ******* teen
Plus two years and I found the way to love myself
First step hit the corner for the bottom shelf
Second, retire to my tomb of a bedroom
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
drinkin for two, staunching wounds
with alcohol
breathin in toxic air through filters
for my chemical fix
I can't stand that my lungs hurt, my heart burns
I exhale hard and
I see black tar pull away in smoke form
Knowing I'm black inside, too
What do I do but spark one more white tip

Do you know when to stop drinking?
Do you know how to smoke less ****?
Do you know where you're headed,
Do you know what you'll do when you get
To where you're going, why you go,
Or who you'll try to meet when you get there?

I don't know so, please, please would you stop asking?

So I'll turn it all around and ask you instead,
What is it you get from raking up my mistakes?
If you see them all in piles in the first place,
Why would you take me blind to it with
my display so prominent?

I've been taking hormones for right around three years now, and I know it isn't long in contrast to the length of adventures others have had, but I'd like to describe what it's been like here on this side. I haven't made many other queer friends as I have this fearful feeling of dread that my inclusion into the community depends on the dedication I commit to being a walking means to the end society has deemed fit the only end in store for me. Folk like me, I think -- imagine at least -- get their breadth of emotion choked in the fall between spokes of the wheel. I retain, that within the other is another other, deeper still beneath the tired paradigms, mired lower in pain and shame til the next.

Balding
Man-child
Hair line
Receded
Retreated
From face
To shoulder
To lower back

Never friend
Neutral
Poor choice
Painful words
Requested
Your halt
Your cease-fire
Human respect

I got none

A poison dipped
misunderstanding

A venomous
self righteousness

Brewing, pointed
behind your back