Step right up, step right up
Watch your drink
Watch your purse
Watch the eyes of the guys around you
Watch out on behalf of the other girls, you never know what might happen
When you go to college a ******
Life is a ******* circus and
The elephant in the room has always been ***
But they told you that life would be a circus
And that’s where the elephants are meant to be seen, right?
So even though you were prepared to paint your face a sad clown
You put on a leotard and start walking fine lines like a tightrope
Looking for flashy colors on your skin
You wear hickeys and purity rings with the same amount of pride
And you won’t always know why you care so much about either

You’ll learn to be a ringmaster
who can conduct a proper show
But you get used to staying offstage
So the first time he sets off firecrackers behind your eyes and between your hips
Don’t be so scared of the light that you curl up under the circus tent in shame
And shake until sunrise, spitting out the ashes that remain on a briefly lit fuse
Because even though you’ve tasted sparks before
Breathing fire has never been a partner act
But you know that this boy knows how to feed you flames without cooking you inside out
So you attempt to rationalize that perfect double act

And you’ve seen contortionists always return to the shape they were taught
But you’re sure your muscles would stretch enough to change your build
So when the lion tamer brings his head away from a newly domesticated maw
And you start swallowing swords
Your first reaction should not be to gargle alcohol searching for open wounds
And ponder what shade of virginity you’re still allowed to identify with
Take a bow, darling, or at least take a breath
The heat on your tongue is only an afterthought

When he leaves you
shortly afterward
Do not singe your skin in an attempt to burn away his fingerprints
The tears that catch in your throat are as hot as the cinders he put there
And neither one will do away with the other
You just have to let them react and steam until you can breathe again
And breathe until you can feel again
And feel until the cold no longer numbs you and the heat no longer melts your bones
Spitting out the fire means you risk setting everything else ablaze
But swallowing coals until your stomach rejects anything else isn’t the best course of action either
So you hold the match between your teeth and the sparklers in your veins and deny the passage of time
Certain that they will burn out before you have to worry about them again anyway

When you go to college a ******
You’ve been told that fire is cleansing
But chewing on ashes makes you feel *****
And when the heat of passion sets off smoke alarms
It can be hard to remember which drills to follow
So remember this
Don’t catch fire to entertain
If what you really want is to keep warm

i lost the moon
trying
to count the stars away

she tells me the rain always feels like tears, even on days when the sun breaks through the clouds
her skin, pale with thirst for the light, dusted by the
darkness of escaping into herself,
a bare lightbulb illuminating her skull, shaved and shorn by
razorblades of hope that dissolve into waterfalls of
never being the one they want
never being the one that can break the chains
never being the one
she thinks she should be,
self-medicating with the flood of sobs fermenting in her eyes
blinding her to all but the sharpness of her lonely bed.
my head throbs in time with my heart.
just hold on.
you are not as alone as it feels in these chambers of self-solitude and
breakfasts of self-doubt indicate.
please
stand outside at dawn and let the rose colored light baptize you into a new
love
for this life - fragile sparks running down veins with the abandon of children
neurons pulsing with joy at the feeling of sun-kissed lips and
lake-swept feet and that moment the thunder sounds like a summons
to dance in the rain.
just hold on, to these precious melodies in your hands
to these unbreakable bits of spirit embedded like diamond in your soul
to this gift you have, this incredible ability to smile
and laugh and
grasp my hands between your palms, to sing psalms of baby birds and
rivers at twilight
to stare at the stars and listen to music and scream with pride from the mountaintop of
all the amazement and creation that is you
just hold on.


for me.

No one wrote a book
On how to queer up the world.
I’ve been waiting for Volume One
On how to hate your body effectively,
Because all of the brats who spit in my
Cherry eyes won’t tell me what I’m doing wrong
When I say “it doesn’t fit.
It never fits. Will I ever fit?”

Because we’re one binary and the other, and we don’t
Fit quite between, and we’re doomed to be melting
Snowflakes in schoolyards. We’re doomed to tears,
And standing awkwardly between ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ sections.
They opened up their doors to us, those who fit
Comfortably or not so comfortably in either of the two
Slots (like maybe this is a gameshow, and I didn’t pick
The right door?) but they promptly
Threw us out when we tried. And tried again.
And failed and cried and threw our hands in the air like
Children, misguided, in pain, stubbing our toes on the door
That says “real suffering.”

Because our suffering isn’t real to a world that encapsulates it in
So many words as symptoms for a
Common cold.

i walk down the earth,
barefoot,
feeling the old souls of grasses long
cut to dust
the sunshine like wine against my lips
honey on the skin that still hasn’t forgotten
your fingerprints
the outline of my feet stand tired in the dirt, wandering aimlessly
searching for something to drink to
fill up the gaps in my bones
am i home?
i think the answer is yes, since the sky here is
bluer than your eyes
and the dirt yields to my toes

When I was 7, I thought I was the luckiest person in the world
Because I found two four-leaf clovers on the same day
So I made a wish, to know how my story would end
And this year has shown me that I am god ****** lucky.
Lucky in a second-chance,
Once-in-a-lifetime miracle sort of way
That makes my fingertips tingle every time I think about it
Lucky in a breath-taking, tear-inducing way that makes me hold my friends and family tight behind my closed eyes
Lucky in a not-everyone-is-this-lucky realization
That forces me to line up my blessings on the countertop and count them,
Then count them again.
I am lucky, that when I decided to take myself out of this world
I fell onto the hugs and clasped hands of
People who would move continents
Just so I'd have someplace stable to stand.
I was fortunate that the nurse on suicide watch in my hospital room
Asked me to call her Ellie and let me cry on her shoulder during games of checkers.
I thought it was auspicious that the mental hospital served tapioca pudding that tasted just like my dad's,
Bringing memories of cold nights and warm smiles.
It was even favorable that I threw up before I got to the emergency room
Because the doctor looked me in the eyes and said
"If all that had stayed in your stomach,
You would be...not standing here right now"
It was reassuring that he didn't say the word "dead" to my face.

I am lucky, not only to be here, but
To want to be here, to want to breathe this moment
Because once you've spent time in the darkness
It's hard to come back to the light
Now 7 year old me knows I'm lucky enough
My story will not end in darkness.