You know how when you walk down the street
You can hear the whispers about everyone else on that street

That the frail, sallow faced homeless man with the rattling tin can
That man whose moaning and screeching weakly to himself can only mean bad things

Ought be locked away; shoved into a loony bin
Ought to be rattling his skull against a padded wall instead of a can

Well they all say he must have lost his marbles somehow
Well they must have fallen from his ears like gumballs from a metal chute

As if sanity is just a series of tiny glass ***** that you could lose beneath your bed
As if the memories and morality of some demented women are just collecting dust somewhere

But I doubt that sanity should be perceived in that fashion
But I doubt that our mental stability isn’t more like one massive marble

All thick and glassy but crusted in spatters of glitter
All shiny and glimmering with the memories of some tortured soul

Rocking back and forth against their skulls and chipping away their ability to cope
Rocking back and forth the way they do in the fetal position; alone in their bedrooms

Breaking off tinsel-y bits of their childhood, their personality, their purpose
Breaking off a kaleidoscope chunk of their minds

Perhaps we don't ‘lose’ our marbles at all
Perhaps they just crumble away

You’re so uncontrollably sweet
A tooth ache and diabetes
All wrapped up in a lovely foil
But my touch is like water and
I would hate to make you melt

He and I are different you see

He has a spare tire around his belly
And mine is soft and riddled with freckles

He’s got a part him ravaged by cancer
And I’m tainted with signs of depression

His forehead is bigger and smattered with speckles
Mine is pale and hidden with frazzles of blonde hair

He thinks economically and can be a bit assuming
I think way too much and yet am ridiculously oblivious

But he and I are the same you see

Despite the factors in between us
We’re forever linked by kin
And I am forever grateful

I have been living in the warm womb of solitude
For the past few months of my existence

Enjoying all the numbed emotional experiences my fetus-y form can handle
Feeding off my friends and family to steal their wisdom and words

Stealing their past revelations and independence and growth
Growing pounds like a puppy and gaining inches like a tapeworm

Till my previously battered brain begins to crave
The aches and pains of heartbreak once more

Yearning for the cold, unforgiving air of reality on my newborn skin
After nine months of solitude and twelve weeks of young love

Searching wantonly for the sensations I left behind
Such as the warmth of a girl’s fingers between my own

My mind demands something more rigorous to live through
My mind, a scarred warrior, craves a new challenge

Something for it to be beaten and bloodied and crushed by
Something for it to mourn and learn from and conquer

For you see; the wings within my spine are quivering
They’re rippling with excitement at the thoughts in my head

The thought of finally, finally, finally
Getting back out into the world again

Gender is not a tangible object
It is not something concrete
Which can be held like a hand
Or felt between your fingers
So why do we give it such
Hard edges and boundaries?
Aren’t the things we imagine
Meant to be limitless?
If in our minds we can fly
Or have infinite money
Then why is gender
Some moronic made-up concept
To go along with our genitals
So rigidly defined?
My biological *** may be connected to my junk
But my gender is not
It is not there for doctors to examine
For its’ health or girth
You cannot unzip my pants
Or the thoughts in my mind
To find my gender
Get that through your ******* head

There is a boy
That I was
Absolutely enamored with
Awhile ago

I think part of what
Built up my
Obsession
Was our metaphors

“You’re so strong
Yet gentle;
So fierce but tender;
You’re nearly a lion”

“I can’t even stand how
Gorgeous you are
How you seem to know it all
My lovely, lovely Athena”

But the worst of all
What literally
Kept me up at night
Didn’t become a metaphor until today

We had a mutual love
Not of a typical interest
No; you see we were
Moon fanatics

He loved the moon
I loved the moon
And I have realized that I
Was ‘moony eyed’ over him

They used to have a routine
The two of them
Every day at ten past one PM
They’d sit in the fourth row
Of the classroom
Side by side
She’d listen attentively
To the teacher’s lecture
And he’d wander through his
Thoughts; listening to his mind
His massive arm would drape
Over her petite frame
Her dark corkscrewed hair would surge
Till it lay atop his free hand; a color contrast
But the routine changed
As did some feelings
Everyday at ten past one PM
She’d sit in the fourth row
Of the classroom
All alone
She’d listen attentively
To the teacher’s lecture
I would slowly work up the nerve
To slide into the lone seat beside her
Her dark corkscrewed hair surged
Till it whipped around as she could see
That is was me
That I was not him
…
She smiled