I am alone. I was alone then, and I am alone now. I cried alone when my lungs felt the first shock of air. I cried of loneliness. I cried alone to the God I denounced when my father fell ill. We all cry alone. I cried alone on an air mattress, frozen in fear at the sound of the heavy breathing hovering above that woke me up to a friend’s brother turned invader. I cried again when a study session put me to sleep and a tutor had more on his mind. When it was over, in silence I cried. For the reasons I cry, I am not the only one, but the control of my tears is mine to hold alone. And I am out of control, and I cry and I cry because I feel so alone. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes my heart stops, and my mouth sours, and my stomach tries to escape through my pores. Sometimes I can’t talk and I am paralyzed. And sometimes I smack my head on the bathroom floor after a night of blurring the lines. Sometimes I am lost because I am the only hope.

I found a box under your bed
you seem ashamed of what it said
I covered my eyes, though it's no surprise
I knew it was there all along

If I tie this note onto a string
will you lift your voice with it and sing?
Our hands coalesce, it's what we do best
Grow to make a better song

I'm sorry it had to happen to you
I'd take it all if I could choose
Just put it on me, so I can see you
With your family
Laughing and joking, happy
You'd be happy

Just put it all on me

leaves fall like footsteps
left at the scene of a crime
culprit in plain sight

this body is yours to do with what you please
and if you find your hand is creeping;
to separate the knees
in heated pursuit of
that soft skin belonging to her inner thigh
well, what she don't know won't make her cry
and if it was your touch that brought back life
don't let her even question a fate otherwise
for certainly she would rather die

A stock image that shows a loading dock partially covered in sand:
A dock rises from dirt to bridge an entrance
The surrounding lake seems placid upon first glance,
But the dilapidated boards clinging to one another in desperation
Allude to the perpetual motion lying beneath the water’s surface
A body of water that at once stretches through an implausibly limitless space,
Past the tattered wooden frame

This spurious snapshot of serenity was developed in black-and-white,
Like my worldview,
And speaks to my sense of limitations in life
To the boundaries of my capacity to exist
Boundaries outlined only by a finite ability to push back
Against the infinite possibilities of every other force
A reminder of how small my life is
In comparison to the universe
Maybe this does mean I am uncomfortable in my own skin after all.

You lose it slowly, piece by piece. Whatever bit of purity you thought you had left and that last bit of hope for an effortless race. It doesn’t depart from you in some grand gesture. No, no. It is slowly whittled away by the hands of fine craftsmen. Men who saw the potential you held. Some blows are harder to take than others; time is not always patient with what must go. And you are eager to become something new, while remaining roughly defined. But each chip removed is one you will never get back. You may find yourself longing for a small piece of yourself to return, but you will realize that each tear shed is the first and last of that sliver of self you will see.
Each vision of what you would best become is different, so you must not let too many hands work at once. If you are lucky, your own hands will be freed and image left for you to define. But this may take some foolery, as you must first gain their trust. You will find it difficult to willingly let go of some parts, but it helps to envision their reform into something you want more. Sometimes you are wrong, with no one to blame but yourself. And even if freedom is yours, you may find it is easier to let others carve away, but doing this will make you a foreigner to yourself. The harder you are to form into their desires, the less interest they will have to do so. Only then might you truly be forced to decide for yourself. Only then might they be surprised with what they didn’t know they could find beautiful.

your love is like rain on a summer day
at first refreshing but leaving you wishing
for it to soon go away
and like the oceans it fills
that splatters and spills
it is nice over sand and in between shells
but the beauty's misleading
pulling you under for the sharks’ next feeding
and the depths of its darkness
could not parallel
a life that more closely resembles hell.

fall down low
with the flow of the waves
as they change
sea, see how you fool me?

sir, it is a surface
made to drag you down to the sharks