Here’s the thing
The largest pandemic
Is panic
When media take big stories
And don’t give facts
“CoVID-19 will **** you through money”
**** that, your money’s safe
“Deadlier than the flu”
Yeah, but we know what the flu is

People are panicking
“We’re all gonna die”
Calm down,
Most deaths are from those already sick
Or our elders
The immunocompromised

Bottom line:
If you’re healthy, you will live
But don’t just take my word for it
Do your research
Learn for yourself
And yes, wash your hands
But you should’ve been doing that anyway

There’s a practice called kintsugi
Where you take a shattered object
And fill the lines with gold
Leaving marks of past mistakes
Showing how we can all come back
And the beauty that comes out of them
But what if my marks
Just make me more ugly?

I feel empty
Not sad or depressed
Not happy
Just empty
Void of all emotion
As I lay here and wonder
“What am I doing here?”

Why do you hate us?
We are people, human ******* beings
Just like you, we look for love
Only, we don’t always follow the rules society gave us
Because those rules say that we can’t love
Without love, we wouldn’t be happy

People wonder why depression is worse—
Why suicide is worse—
In the LGBTQ+ community— my community
It’s because people like you tell us we can’t love

Do me a favor, and really try to focus
Imagine one day, you wake up, just like normal
Your crush, partner, fiancé, spouse, whoever
Is gone... only, you can still see them
They sit on a bench across the street
You run outside to get to them
But a wave of people start yelling at you
Telling you to *******
That you’re a *******
That you don’t deserve to live
Because you are in love with them

Do you feel that pain?
That sharp stabbing pain, right in the heart
To be an arms reach away from each other
But never able to touch?
That pain is what I feel
Because I get told
“You ******* f_ggot.
You piece of ******* ****.
******* *******.”
Just for loving the person I do

Next time you want to come up to me
And tell me to go die,
Just remember that pain
Remember what it was like
To be so close, yet so far away

Just remember I’m human too

Why is it always the boys who are dumb as ****
Why are they the popular ones?
The ones who are smart are always alone
Left to wonder why
Yet the dull ones, the ones without a brain
are swarmed with people
Why are they always chosen first
Why am I the outcast?

I almost caught myself
Asking someone to come and change me
To make me who I’m not
Because I need to be someone else
Then I realized, only 3 more months
Then I can be who I am
Without having to hide it from anyone

I just told her
We were standing in the kitchen
Light shining through the big window in the living room
Boxes still piled on our table from the move
She just stood there, stirring the mac n cheese

“When did... when did you know?”
The question I expected
But I still didn’t have an answer
“I just knew”
My voice quivered as she turned to face me
My sister’s kind eyes growing softer
“How... has anything happened?”
I told her everything
About Kiera, Jaben, Anna
I told her about things I had never said aloud

When I finished talking she stood silently
“Who else knows?”
“Nobody”
She poured the pasta into bowls
Dug out utensils from the cluttered kitchen drawer and started eating
We moved on
The room silent, save for the light clinking of spoons on ceramic

“Did I tell you about who I’m dating?”
She asked, grasping for something to talk about
“No, you didn’t”
And we went on
Like I had never said anything at all