If you can hear me,
If you can see me, or sense me, or
Imagine the taste of sea salt on my skin,
Know that I love you.
Deep and full, warm and soft,
I love you with the span of my hands and
The curve of my spine,
With poems and paintings and a smile
With clean sheets and a bottle of wine,
Come home to me.
Nest yourself in beside my sternum and let my heartbeat sync with yours,
Let my stomach fill with sunburst rainbow butterflies
When you giggle
Let me revel in your voice and bask in the comfort of your fingers laced with mine
It’s not Romeo and Juliet or the moon and the tide, but
I love you like 2 am pillow fights and baking cookies on a rainy afternoon,
I love you like listening to the frogs in the pond
and singing to every song on the radio,
I love you like galaxies colliding and old bookstores,
I love you like dancing on the sidewalk and neither of us can dance to save our lives
So we end up just holding each other and laughing,
Flowers twined in your hair and your legs all tangled up with mine  
And the sky is so so incredible it takes my breath away till I remember your eyes
Because I love you.

I grew up hearing
Little miss this and
Little miss that
But I think there’s been a little mistake
A little misunderstanding
Like there’s something that they missed
Because certainly sir could replace the title of miss
And mister wouldn’t stir up a fuss
And I could still be me
Right?
Ever since I was little I took pride in the word tomboy
Not realizing the other labels that pride could be applied to
Because I spent my life being lied to
About what gender really means
And I’ve been starting to question and I’ve been starting to learn
That expectations aren’t everything
And when it comes to gender roles
I grew up just rolling with it
But recently realized that I don’t have to
And I’ve been coming up with different ways of coming out
But mostly I’ve just spent a lot of time thinking
About spectrums and pronouns and labels and orientation
About binders and binaries and identity versus expression
About the way that I never really minded the onslaught of
She
She
She
Shhhh…
He
Maybe he can fit just as well
Maybe she fits fine
Maybe I can be a daughter by day and a son by night
Maybe I can bypass the binary and angle towards androgyny
Or transcend transgender in term of ambiguity
Maybe I can be
Me
And maybe someday that will be enough
Because boy oh boy there are days that I do love being a girl
But what can you do when it’s a dog eat dog world
And you were born a cat?
Just a little bit more of a ***** than you were hoping for
In this world where facts are misconstrued
And your words are misinterpreted
And you’re feeling a little
Just a little… misgendered

Two fishing poles, a feather,
a leather jacket with holes
on both elbows, forty-four
dollars and change in
an envelope, some dope,
a pair of worn out cowboy boots,
a clay flute shaped like a bird
that can't whistle a tune worth a lick,
an unused bus ticket, a picture
of two kids laughing pretending
to fly; an eyelash in my eye.

The prelude to a bruise
Is the loving gleam in your eyes
Feral glint boiling up from
Wild meadows and forest lingering on the edge of
Forgotten
Conception is the heavy, hot second of contact.
Searing through me with a gasp and
Cry of thanks
Your touch sows the seeds of violets and morning glories
And red, red roses, thorn-***** freckles
Flowers blooming across my back, my thighs, my throat
Grow me up from your sheets, lavender and larkspur wrapping around my ankles,
My ribs a spray of hyacinth, hydrangea flourishing on the crests of my hips,
Wrists encircled in verbena,
Delphiniums blossom on my throat
Planted by your hands, your teeth
Gardens of your admiration remembered on the canvas of my skin

when you bury me, please don't grieve
this is what i wanted
when my hands are cold and my lips blue and expressionless
don't cry,
i've shed enough tears for all of you
don't say it was a waste of a life -
i've lived my time and loved this world and
found joy in your smiles
please, leave me be
it's okay now

pumpkin pie with apple juice
handmade scarves and the way your scent clings to me
poetry, chamomile tea
I sleep while the leaves die