I hope that you will smile today
and give yourself a break.
A smile can be great medicine.
It helps when hearts might ache.

Perhaps, if you try hard enough,
the smile becomes a grin.
And when you've worn it long enough,
you'll feel it grow and then...

The grin becomes a chuckle
and it then becomes a laugh.
And everyone will wonder if
you've made a social gaffe.

For laughter is contagious
and it helps to get us through.
Here's hoping that today will bring
some happiness to you.

it was surprising the first night I saw you right before me. skin imprinted with the pattern of lace, the light scattering in a cacophony of projections against your porcelain skin. lightning marks against your throat and thunder rumbling in your eyes. it was unexpected.

in no way were you tame. fragile, perhaps. superficial, undoubtedly. beautiful, certainly. but never tame. never would your wrist be bound. the sharpness in your teeth and flick of your flesh would never allow anything so shallow as domesticity.

you were raised out of the authentic. molded from clay, the word "impossible" placed under your tongue and mouth closed shut. a shattered childhood born from an indian-summer sun frosted by wildflower springs.

so here I stood, gazing up at ceramic wonder. earthen-ware and glazed glass. a sculpture of femininity by all aspects, by all respects. left to become memorialized in a wilderness, little time noticed.

i’ve dated boys who didn’t make me laugh,
boys who took me to stuffy museums and bland restaurants
and told me i should be veiling my hair in church
i thought i was doing the right thing, i thought
my parents would be proud of me,
i thought maybe i could conjure up
some kind of feeling in my stubborn heart
that would make it worth my while,
everything i was always
supposed to want
in one

instead,
i found you:
a boy who likes silly accents and sneakers and
telling jokes that turn me
into puddles at his feet,
who lives with his mother  
and makes art from obscure things,
who paints just to get the words out and
never matches his clothes
bright eyes begging me to follow, making it up as we go along,
who needs the rule book, who has time to read?
and if there is a better way, we don’t need it;
we’ll take the mess. see,
we’re already there, and
if there is a better way, i wouldn’t know it

we meet by accident, just kids, dandelions growing under our feet
everything bright and new, scrubbed clean
and even the moon, born again in the sky every night
sings to us, like it knows.
you run after trains and kiss me on porches
and i begin the slow, delicious process
of weaving myself into your hair.
every starlit night, every car ride
with the windows rolled down,
every night parked for hours in my driveway
kissing, bruising, touching
and later, the phone calls
i-miss-you-we’ll-make-it-work
studying and going to class
and doodling your name in the margins,
all of it, all of it
including sitting at the top of the library stairs
when you tell me it is over,
including the train ride in which
you say there is someone else,
including pressing my face into my hands
and sobbing on the ferry, months later,
because you say you love her.
we meet by accident, and it is the most beautiful kind:
full of shock and pain
and love and hope
and no, i wouldn't trade any of it,
even though i’m still picking pieces of myself off the floor,
even though
one look from you is still enough
to send my blood
in a spiral,
even now, after all this time

so maybe
i’m just trying to say thank you.
maybe that’s how this ends.

When I started getting sick,
My school attendance dropped week by week.
It was a painfully slow process;
A day here and there turned into a few days,
Turned into a week, until I spent weeks off school.
My friends dropped even slower, even more painfully.
The ones I'd made at that school disappeared
Like the world's greatest magician collective.
And the ones who I'd known for years...
Well, they were too busy living their own lives.
They saw me here and there, and it made me happy when they did,
In the same way that rare glimpses of gold make a poor man smile.
But eventually the darkness of loneliness devoured me entirely,
And I receded away from everyone while blaming them.
In those days, I was a zombie in all aspects of life,
And the Internet was the only time I had a reprieve.
I was a hollow shell, grunting one-word answers to parents,
While discussing my favourite shows with online friends.
And without that online presence, I know I'd have ended it
With the shadowy hand of depression passing me the knife.
I never would've made it this far,
Where eight years have passed and I'm still close to those friends,
Where I've met up with some of them
And overcome my anxiety in ways I never thought possible.
To many, the Internet is for shallow, brainless people,
But for many, it's a lifeline, and every #selfie smile I see
Is a person thriving instead of wilting.

i stand with my sisters --
hijab-wearing, undocumented
black, brown, beautiful, brilliant;
women who love women;
women who have the right
to answer to their names,
instead of a “sugar” or “honey” or “baby”
yelled by a stranger on a street corner;
terrific trans women;
women, who must have the right
to decide what should happen
to their own
bodies

i stand with my brothers --
men who love men
and men who are afraid to say that they do;
Muslim men, Latino men,
feminist men, trans men;
and those who are neither men or women,
non-binary friends of all shapes and sizes
and colors and creeds;
every person who has never felt
like they belonged

and i stand with my people --
the people of America.
we know deep in our hearts
that hate is not the answer;
and so we march on
and fight on
and force our voices out into the universe
and it is not futile,
it is not for nothing,
it will never be for nothing.

for those who believe
to love is the most important thing we'll ever do:
i stand with you.

I did not ask to enter this world a female,
but it's what God granted me.
I did not ask to be regulated by hormones,
but it is what is expected of me.
I did not ask for this child,
that was forced upon me late one night.
I did not ask for this judgement,
that is so easily handed out.
I did not ask to be called 'baby',
by that man on the subway.
I did not ask for the opinions of my weight,
which are so casually thrown about.
I did not ask for a smaller salary,
due to the genitalia I was provided.
But this is the life I was given, and so I find my tribe.
I find other women who grant me peace and protection.
I advocate for women whose voices are not heard.
I fight for my future daughters.
I protest the hate.
I protest the inequalities.
I protest for our Mother, Earth.
I protest, and I stand, and I cry.
My ****** is my home.
My womb is my decision.
My body my choice.