Today is a mad day for you too, isn't it?
Don't worry, you're just as crazy as me,
Shhhhhh.
We can't let anyone know that we see it in each other
Your crazy thoughts drift out of the back of your skull like
Candy-colored ribbons all bright and dripping
With their different-ness,
Just like mine.

Midnight waves curl around
Your empty face, my stony heart,
Two people sitting on the beach
The roaring surf drowning us with our lies.

My mask is pure
And white as snow
But my heart is
Black and cold.
Beautiful rythms
Flow from my lips
While my mind plays a
Sour note.
Where did the happiness go,
The easy, simple
Melodies of childhood,
The light and happy beats?
My style changed
As I grew up,
Higher and louder and faster.
An air of panic
Entered the flying stanzas
As my life started to
Fall apart.
Now the only music of
My soul
Is the melancholy dirge
Of lost hope
And broken dreams.

Time drips slowly down kitchen cabinets
Like cello music, sweet and dark,
Spilling over the edges of fingerboards and eyelashes,
Arpeggios of stillness cascading through the
Silence that is really music reigning the gaps between each whisper of breath and tick of the clock and soft drumming of raindrops on the street, an ensemble of intimacy.
I love it here.
I love the way it's vulnerable and honest inside your walls of false, forte confidence;
There are no cliché expressions of love at first sight, just the words of your heart,
Like notes played on an old piano, each separate and round and the tiniest bit halting but beautiful nonetheless.
They are rough truths, a little out of tune and not in quite the right key,
But they are the truth,
And that strikes more chords in my heart than a perfect rendition of well-rehearsed Beethoven harmonies
Fitting too perfectly to my rhythms.
And the cadence of your laugher flutters in my rib cage like
Triple-tongued fanfares,
The brush of your fingertips on mine
Sending vibratos of warmth through my soul,  
Yours eyes, honey brown, speaking as powerfully as a Stradivarius
Without even the smallest pianissimo whisper of voice,
My synapses firing in double-time, heart thumping adagio, allegro, presto,
Neither of us conducting, just riding out the jazz and operas and fiddles and symphonies of our love
I wish for books of blank pages to keep composing the
New melody of our lips, dancing along crescendos of
Instinct and softly thrilling secrets
On the gentle sonata of a rainy day in June.

The yellow, early evening sun feels heavy and warm on my legs.
Like a cat curled up to enjoy a small nap,
It rests on my pink and rainbow blanket.
My mother snores in the old blue chair next to me,
******* in worry and exhaustion and the scent of basil,
Oblivious to the small-town sounds of birds and cars and children playing,
Unaware that her daughter is something she claims to not understand.

"Pansexuality, honestly, just sounds
Horrible,"
She had told me.
"I don't understand pansexuality and gender-fluid and stuff,"
She said,
The car sliding smoothly over the highway under grey skies.
I tried to explain, but I was swamped in
Confusion.
"Well...there are more than two genders, like being gender-fluid and agendered and bi-gendered and third-gendered......
And pansexual people like all of those genders."
"That's what I can't understand. I mean, I kinda get the concept, but..." Her voice trails away like blue cigarette smoke, still deadly even after it has dissipated into the clouds.
I feel like I'm choking on it, raw pink lungs tightening and swelling, forcing yellow stars before my eyes,
Not able to explain the way
I don't care what you identify as,
I only care about love.
My mother's grandmother didn't know that non-straight people existed.
My mother's mother didn't know that bisexual people existed.
My mother doesn't believe that more than two genders exist,
Or know that I find all of them attractive.
But she had already dropped the subject,
Instead filling the awkward lull with discussions of
Colleges and books she's reading and and what my younger sister is doing in school.
I could feel my soul bubbling up behind my lips,
Pink and yellow and blue,
I wanted to tell her to stop and listen.
I wanted to tell her to be quiet,
And to be accepting,
And to try to understand.
I wanted to tell her
'I'm pansexual.
There.
Now you know.
Would you have said that it was horrible and that you can't understand?
That, in essence, I am horrible and you can't understand me?'
But I didn't.
I sat, the warm sticky grey leather under my thighs
The same as the warm, sticky grey clouds,
The yellow sun just peeking out into blue skies beyond the pale pink dogwoods.

She wakes up, warm sticky breath catching in her chest
As she opens her eyes.
She mumbles quietly about oversleeping
Before she rushes out the door,
Leaving behind a daughter
She thinks she knows,
As she claims to not understand
My label
That I have hidden inside my closet door,
Next to my pink, yellow, blue scarves.
Maybe tomorrow I'll put it on,
Pin my heart to my sleeve,
Wear my colors proudly.
But not today.  
Never today.

To the ******* at Mongolian Barbecue last night:
Just because you let your short shorts and flowered headband
Scream assumptions about your homosexuality doesn't mean
You can make those assumptions about others,
Forcing red-faced shame and trembling knees on a stranger,
Your hands clawing the pride from blue eyes like
Storm clouds making the world grey.
Butch and **** are never words that should come from your lips,
To someone you don't know
Just because you portray yourself as flamboyant
And she has her own style
They carry too many decades of hatred and fear to be
Tossed into casual conversation
Like land mines in her closet.
I don't care if you thought you were joking or being funny or cute
Her leather jacket and kickass combat boots don't
Paint some sort of rainbow bullseye
Between her shoulder blades, behind her heart.
People have enough to deal with in this world
Without having to defend themselves against your ignorance,
Without having to stop their tears from
Making small oceans on the streets of Ann Arbor.
Butch and **** should not be thrown from your lips
Carelessly,
Meaning none of the weight they carry.
You probably didn't see her cry
Because that's just the kind of person she is
But I did,
A thunderstorm of conflicting emotions and heart-wrenching, blood-curdling cries,
A deep-seated ache that won't be washed away
With my hugs or chocolate or
Assurances that you are, in fact,
A **** who doesn't deserve to know her.
11:30 pm she walked through the front door with red eyes and damp cheeks,
Her voice thick and choking on
Your arrogant, misplaced words,
And I might not always get along with my sister
But I felt my sternum crack right through the middle
When she spoke of you,
Ribcage shattering,
Rainbows pouring from my lungs
To try and knit her fractured, hopeful heart
Back together.
I am my sister's keeper.
To the ******* at Mongolian Barbecue,
I hope you learn to grow up and see how your
Words splinter souls like weeds splitting concrete
But until then
*******.

You are a waterfall
Cascade out of open Berkshire mountain faces,
Stone lips painted red by your words.
They say red is the color of love but I can't feel anything but
Empty
Indifferent
Inside when I see the blood in the corner of your mouth.
You don't care
Chase your narcotics with tequila,
Follow your *** smoke with an inhaler,
I watch you drift.
Do you remember 5 year old me
Hugging you round your knees and
The way you ran to grab me when I tumbled into the creek behind your house?
I do
Your hands are warm where they brush mine
When you ask me to refill your glass
I didn't know you drank ***** by the travel mug now.
4 ice cubes.
I lean in the bedroom doorway and watch the mice scurry beneath your couch
And I think about how those same warm, now-swollen hands
Built this place.
Forgive me.
I have intruded on your aging privacy,
Gray hairs in the 3-day stubble on your bloated chin
As you gasp quietly, eyes shut over decades of memories.
Your steroids have inflated your stomach more than the lungs they were
Supposed to heal and
You shuffle so slowly down the stairs I
Shift uncomfortably as I wait impatiently to get around you to the car
Fleeing the air of decay and the whiskey on your breath.
New England roads are good for thinking.
Surrounded by ageless forests I think of my aging family,
Of you, Grandfather,
Your hacking cough sounding like the Massachusetts thunder
Across the lake.
2 hour car ride to see the rest of the
Degrading homes once owned by
My father's father's family;
Your family.
I see a waterfall in the distant Berkshires.
We are part of 1 family,
But I can't feel the love I see in my father's eyes, red from tears at your impending funeral.

Sobs echo
Through warm thick air,
Tears falling on
Tangled ****** locks of hair.
She curls in a corner
Beneath the stairs,
Alone and cold
With an awful story to share.
She has never ever said
That life was even a little bit fair
Because for her whole life,
No one has been there to care.
Nobody helped her repair
Her mind when her senses
Became hopelessly ensnared
In the lies he told her,
The oaths her made her swear.
And she hadn't a friend to make her
See danger when she was unaware.
He grinned his drunken smile
As he sat in a chair
Made of her tears
And her worries and prayers
Because in her life,
There is nobody there.

There's nothing worse than seeing a
Stuffed animal by the side of the road.
It always makes me think of the
Tear-stained face and grubby hands who
Accidentally dropped it
So much potential for happiness,
Yet it was just thrown away by chance...
I'll never forget the way my young hands
Rushed to tend to a small tear or dirt smudge on
My favorite fuzzy toy.
A fit of middle-school anger left it in the
Care of a donation box.
I wish more than anything I'd kept it.
I think we underestimate the value of
A permanently smiling hand-full of
Fur and memories.

I am Christian. I believe in the
Trinity of the Holy God, The Son, and The Spirit,
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of mankind
I own more than three Bibles
I teach Sunday School every week and
I pray every night.
I am Christian,
And as such I
Hate queer....

Phobia. I can not stand intolerance
And I cry at hatred,
Blood running in the streets,
Fear running in veins,
Running away from the truth.
I am Christian, yet
There are bloodstains in my Bible
And the prayers on my lips
Are for forgiveness for who I am.
The entire story of ***** is
Crossed out, blacked out angrily
In the dead of night
In all 4 versions,
Leviticus is blurred,
Wrinkled with my tears,
Soaked with my pain.
I am Christian
And I am not homophobic.
I know my church won't recognize
Non cis-het marriages,
Leaving entire worlds of rainbows in the dark
The higher-ups insist
Weddings are white, shiny, husband-and-wife, happily-ever-after affairs
That shove me and my friends, my  family, my lovers,
Into closets of heavenly wrath and
Fire and brimstone sermons,
Locked into personal hells of shame
And confusion.
I am Christian
And I am not straight.
My God doesn't hate me for who I love,
He loves me because I try not to hate.
So to the homophobic Christians, I ask:
Who is your God?
Who is your God that supposedly condemns people He has created in his own image?
Your rainbow picket signs are nothing but a cruel mockery of a covenant
Not truly shared by you.
Your tongues are no better than the viper's who called Adam and Eve to sin,
You are the vipers of my world.
Do you think you avoid judgement
When trans teens are killed
By the bullets you spit with your words?
Who is your God,
That tells you to picket the funerals
Of those you hate?
Who is your God,
That refuses to let you open your heart to differentness?
I am Christian,
And I don't need your permission to
Love my God.
Take my scars and tear-stained Bibles,
Listen to my fervent prayers,
Watch my lips tremble when
I listen to my pastor.
I don't need your permission
To love who I want,
In fact I don't want it.
Take my midnight screaming and fear of coming out,
Listen to my frantic pleading for a hand to hold,
Watch my eyes linger on her chest.
I am Christian.
My God doesn't hate me for who I love,
He hates you who refuse to love
While you carry His name, if
Not his blessing.
So I ask again
Who is your God?
Because mine loves all of me,
All 5'6" of queer pride.
Who is your God?

Ignore the shattered windows all around you-
Your skin cannot tear open.
Ignore the cracked concrete and broken mirrors -
All your bad luck has already been.

I struggle to find the words for what you mean to me
My soul strains to lift the darkness from your heart
You deserve nothing but light.

Instead of empty, incompetent words, let me give you this:
Warm hugs when you're cold;
Holding your hand when you're scared;
Let me wrap all your fears and follies up in my love and make a stained glass window of your fragile hopes.
Let me give you a golden-coin moon and diamond stars hanging in an indigo velvet night;
Your own words, cracking open my bones and reflecting back my love;
The taste of sea salt in the cool air of dawn;
A cup of tea steaming in a quiet kitchen.


I know this is not enough.
It is all I have to offer you.
It cannot mend your cracked reflection
But I promise-
From where I'm standing
Even the sunlight pales to your beauty
And I swear I can't see anything broken about you.

I've written my suicide note too many times
On the inside of my lips,
Wishing against hope for the rain that pours from iron clouds to
Rinse me away.
I read it, my tongue tracing it's own scars against the warm whisper
Of rose-pink crinkled lines in my mouth
Give up, it murmurs
You've done so much,
Give up
Sleep quietly in the deep waters that are already
Lapping over your eyelashes.
I tear my notes to shreds with the hard, sharp lines of new letters
Rewriting my past and present in the hopes of forcing some peace into my future,
So here is my note
A poem to soothe your inevitable tears.
My thoughts swirl like dark water ****** down a drain,
But thoughts are only wisps of cloud,
Not solid guarantees or promises,
Like the ones I break without you ever knowing.
I need a guarantee, a promise of oblivion, bringing myself to
Be washed down to drain with my thoughts.
I wanted to write a poem to tell you how I
Would die,
To share with anyone the last moments of flickering electricity
In a brain worn out with life
Even though I've hardly lived.
I wanted to write this poem to tell you how much I would leave behind,
How much I would miss the feeling of spring rain on my eyelashes
And hot tea in my throat in October
And your hand on my shoulder when I cried.
I wanted to write you this poem,
But I can't find the words to describe
What a souls looks like
When I open the cage of my lips,
Baring my collections of old, written over notes for the last time.
I wanted to write you this poem,
But I haven't found the words yet
To tell you what death feels like.

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

Octobre venira, et il trouvera
Nous ensemble,
Perdue dans la brume blanche.
Je tiendra ta main
Nous nous reposerons dans les feuilles
Y aura partout.
Nous croiserons le soir, et
Je t'offrirai ma cœur et tu la prendras.
Nous tiendrons la lune d'Octobre et
Nous volerons part ****.


October will come, and he will find
Us together,
Lost in the white mist.
I will take your hand
We will lie in the leaves
That are everywhere.
We will walk in the evening, and
I will offer you my heart and you will take it.
We will hold onto the October moon and
We will fly far away.

They say a journey of a thousand miles
Begins with a
s
  i
  n
    g
      l
       e
Step.
Well, this is my first step.
Right here, right now,
I say-no, I
DECLARE-
That I will find and cherish one-thousand moments of
Joy
This summer. I have 81
Precious, glorious days and I am
100-and-31 percent determined
To find life in each and every one -
13 bits of happiness by each midnight, to be
Precise.
I am taking a one-thousand challenge,
The same way people make one-thousand paper cranes,
Or try and count one-thousand stars,
Or have a bucket list numbered neatly to
Just
Beyond nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine.
I will find one-thousand things
That make me happy.
And maybe, just maybe,
When I reach my goal I will find myself,
Like elusive laughter floating away from the end
Of a
Rainbow.

We don’t talk anymore.
Your name is still at the top of my contact list even though we haven’t said
hi in a few months.
Each time I try, the blinking cursor reminds me of when you brought me pecan ice cream
because I broke up with my boyfriend.
I don’t think I ever paid you back like I promised to.

I’m measuring this life in heartbeats and torn atlas pages
and miles of dusty country road,
The space before the inhale of breath
Feels like my lungs are freezing or burning or rotting away

I’ve been pacing through the friendless emptiness of this room for so long that
I think the floor boards are beginning to form fault lines
Over the cracks in my heart
and some nights I miss you with the magnitude of an earthquake.

Can you miss someone who never realized you’d miss them?

I’m digging trenches to outline my ribs because
my chest is more useful as a garden than a graveyard and
I don't want to let your memories be buried here under the
fragments of shattered mirrors you cleaned up in my heart,
Bits of bloodied tissues on your kitchen floor that night I
forgot to love myself because I was too busy
loving the way you laughed behind the velvet curtains

Loneliness is just knowing that the people around me
Won’t hug me when I’m breaking like you did

Your eyes would tear galaxies into my bones, bracing them with
The DNA of a friendship
Your smile haunts my thoughts like a song I’ll never remember
Even long after you’ve forgotten my name,
I don't think I will ever forget you,
Not when I see your face in the strangers on the street and the
ordinary letters of your name

Sometimes people drift out of your life and there is no way that I know
to make the loss of a friend
nostalgic, or poetic, or romantic.
They have their life and I have mine, and I wish it was somehow
closer to their late-night stories and too many drinks under the moon

The worst part is I’m not missing a kiss or brush of hand against your arm
Because we never touched like that,
Just a brushing of souls at the quiet light-speed of understanding.
I cry because the last time I cried like this you brought me pecan ice cream,
And I know that you don’t know that my favorite flavor
Is chocolate now.

I like you.
A lot.
Like, really a lot.
Like, when I look at you, I get
Tiny purple butterflies in my stomach,
And when you smile I smile too.
I'm acting like I'm in grade school,
Trying to sit next to you so I can
Surreptitiously lean against your shoulder,
Secretly hoping you'll notice me and
Maybe, just maybe,
Think of me as more than a friend.
I know I'm being rather obvious
But my heart refuses to sleep quietly,
Preferring instead to conjure up 1 AM dreams
Of your soft curves and loud laughter.
You know, my friends told me to act
When the time was right -
Well, I'm a terrible judge of timing,
I'm always too clumsy
I stumble over half-hopes and emotions.
I can only hope for you to see all the mess in my heart
You probably (I hope) know all this;
I've been told I'm an open book.

But while your eyes cut beautiful
Paper-snowflake patterns into her heart and
Desire burned red-hot holes
Into the fabric of her morals
You hands were twisting in her hair,
Tugging at clothing and pushing delicate skin against the carpet.
Her intimidated silence was never
Consent;
She can't look in the mirror anymore.

You are a poet.
Spinning inky thoughts into letters and lines,
Books of snowy pages feeling the  pulse in your fingertips
Burning midnight oil to release the boiling soul
Locked behind your lips
You've never cared for rhyming,
Choosing to play to the beat of a drum
No one's ever heard,
And you are a poet
The way your tongue carves the air
Into notes of ancient melody
When you laugh,
The way the heat of your palms
Burns on my skin long after you're gone, the memory of your flesh against mine potent even through
My layers of lies,
The way your whispered secrets
Tangle in the cotton-batting darkness like bats
And creep through the silence
To trickle into my heart
Trying to lift the greyness in my arteries
And replace it with the purple light of your words
You are a poet.
Unfathomable wisdom swirls deep inside your lungs,
Waiting to bloom forth in
Fire fly flowers and nuclear bombshells,
Combustible and burning like a chain reaction as
You awaken minds and hearts.
You are a poet,
Brave and bold and courageous,
Ready to spread your wings and
Scared as hell of the world on your doorstep
Sometimes the waters lap over your head as you
Struggle to breathe the dense airs
Of confusion and insults and city smog
Yet like bubbles rising in champagne
Your speech cannot be contained
You try to condense the whole sky
Into the word blue,
And somehow when you say it
I know exactly what you mean
Because you are a poet
And the song of your throat is no match
For the song of your ageless soul,
Unable to be trapped in the common cages of
Drudgery and 9-to-5 and ordinary-ness
Let yourself go,
Don't be weighed down by small people,
Let yourself fly,
Don't be grounded by small worries,
Let yourself breathe,
Don't be choked by intolerance,
Let yourself live,
Don't let yourself strangle the gift of
Poetry resting in your nerves
You are a poet,
And I  am the breathless reader never able to get my fill
Of your words,
Please fill me to overflowing with your presence,
Please spin your rhythms and stanzas between my ears
Like garden-spider cobwebs bejeweled with dew
Please
Let me revel in the star-bright bits
Of the universe that drop in polished pebbles from
Nervously bitten lips
Please
Let me read and hear and
Know
Your poetry,
For It is the window to a life I've never lived.

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

I love the way the sky turns lavender along the
Eastern edge of the world before the sun rises
I love the way your long hair and pale curves
Against the blue sheets
I love not hiding who we are.
We should get Purple Hearts for all the times
The missiles of "queer" and "butch" have landed in
The midst of our embrace,
Launched by an unknown enemy before we were able
To twine our hands and hearts on the small-town sidewalks of an August afternoon,
Before I could have you over for dinner, movies, bonfires, and not feel the blue, icy glare of my neighbor
Laying under the lilac bushes,
Watching the day slip into purple dusk with firefly stars.
I love not hiding who we are.

In my head, she and I were a symphony - red and white
Harmonies sprouting from shoulders rubbing
Hands brushing like strangers on a subway and
Eyes staring too long,
Like looking at the moon when I’ve had too much to drink

I hoped that she would kiss me, so she could read on my lips all the things I
Could not say

But she isn’t really a woman of the kind I can kiss, or so I've been told
Because what’s under her dress doesn’t match the name she introduces herself by
But I want to love her like a woman. Not a confused boy or a ******* or an ‘it’ of the type muttered about by the football team in the cafeteria.

I want to love her like a woman. A woman like my mother or my best friend or Jennifer Lawrence
Like the woman she is.

She asked me to do her makeup and help her find a dress
She had never worn a dress before.
The mirror finally reflected what she felt inside she thanked me for making her
“A real woman.”
It broke my heart, because she was a real woman since…forever.

A drop of alcohol
Slips down my throat,
Giving me life
Helping me to float.
Heavy amber liquid
Resting on my lips
And crimson drops of blood
Drawing lines around my hips.
Oh how did you
Know my vice?
'Cause now I'm empty inside,
Though you're acting so nice.
No matter what you do,
Your face I'll always hate
Because you got me drunk and what
Happened next you still won't say is ****.

crimson Poison Apples drop off Burning
Bridges into Murky Waters
red with rust swirling swirling
she cries as her father's fists curling
beat Seeds of Suspicion into
her Reckless heart
bleeding bruises art art
runs and hides but stands alone
pleading begging moan moan
her shoes are jimmy choo
she whispers secrets to herself
"I Just Wanted to be Me"
but the King of Hearts is Out for
Blood
scarlet laughter piercing darkness
growling stomach fight fight
tears flow and flood the night
and she is Shrinking away
Coming Out to the show
blinding bright in the glow glow
spotlit on a blackened stage
forced to perform Circus Acts
remembering when she was-was what?-nothing
Prom Queen twirling twirling
"Look" -hearts in a sea of ****** silk-
but the only one looking is
The Collector
hoarding up stories of rosy misery
Mean Colors dancing in cruel red eyes
sneer and cry and lie lie
their Psychic Powers forcing isolation into her veins
like a Blood Borne killer
she is just fading away until the Song in Her
Heart is just a hum of amazing grace
life thought gone forever
lives
on
as
the
tears
of
friends
remake
her
memories
she is buried in a glass casket under
grey skies The Red Dress she wears
without a care care
flashy crimson
sunset
ruby
apple
scarlet
blood
pain
love
life
soul
RED
v­ibrant in dead fields
life thought gone forever
lives
on

crimson Poison Apples drop off Burning
Bridges into Murky Waters
red with rust swirling swirling
she cries as her father's fists curling
beat Seeds of Suspicion into
her Reckless heart
bleeding bruises art art
runs and hides but stands alone
pleading begging moan moan
her shoes are jimmy choo
she whispers secrets to herself
"I Just Wanted to be Me"
but the King of Hearts is Out for
Blood
scarlet laughter piercing darkness
growling stomach fight fight
tears flow and flood the night
and she is Shrinking away
Coming Out to the show
blinding bright in the glow glow
spotlit on a blackened stage
forced to perform Circus Acts
remembering when she was-was what?-nothing
Prom Queen twirling twirling
"Look" -hearts in a sea of ****** silk-
but the only one looking is
The Collector
hoarding up stories of rosy misery
Mean Colors dancing in cruel red eyes
sneer and cry and lie lie
their Psychic Powers forcing isolation into her veins
like a Blood Borne killer
she is just fading away until the Song in Her
Heart is just a hum of amazing grace
life thought gone forever
lives
on
as
the
tears
of
friends
remake
her
memories
she is buried in a glass casket under
grey skies The Red Dress she wears
without a care care
flashy crimson
sunset
ruby
apple
scarlet
blood
pain
love
life
soul
RED
v­ibrant in dead fields
life thought gone forever
lives
on

In search of the yet unknown they roam,
Young faces carrying old burdens
They have seen too much.

Man the trenches, takes up arms, pick the nation
Up
Onto your shoulders, for that is what
Soldiers do.
They have seen too much, far beyond tears
His eyes blank, her hands trembling with repressed
Memories of somewhere far away.
He didn't mean to ****, though he meant
To do his duty.
She didn't mean to see the bodies, though she meant
To help her brothers.
No man left behind.
The blood felt sticky as it seeped through his uniform,
Carrying a fallen comrade,
Trying not to think of anything but the steps back to
Safety.

When I played Taps it was cold. November 1, because
The veterans all had work on Tuesday the 11th.
My heart and my salute to America's servicemen and women
Poured through my trumpet with as much
Solemnity and remembrance and love as I could muster.  
24 notes that reminded me of my great-grandfather's flag,
The picture of my father in his dress whites,
Rows and rows and rows of white crosses at Arlington.
I cried, and I wasn't even ashamed of it.

To all who have served our country
To all who have sacrificed of their minds and bodies
To all who have lost lives and limbs and peace of mind to
Protect us
I salute you.

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.

I don't know who I am.
I don't know why I smile at
Mrs. Next-door's daughter.
I don't know why I wake up
Crying
At 3:26 AM. I think -
I think I'm scared.
I am scared to know why I hate my hips.
I am scared to know why my sister's laugh makes me  
Cheer up.
I am scared to know who I am - what if she (me)
Isn't who I though she (me) was?
Every single person who anyone will ever meet,
Every man, woman, and child on the train,
On the street, in a chapel or a classroom or
At the beach - is scared.
I'm not sure why we're scared. It just kinda
Happens.
I want it to stop. I want that pretty girl in the red,
Polka-dot dress to stop crying,
I want that young man with the troubled uneasiness of a secret
In his eyes to come out of the closet
Stop second guessing your heart.
**** it, find yourself.
I sit and stare out of rain-streaked windows.
I still don't know who I am.

The world is sometimes dark and not all trees survive.  
I'm not saying this because you don't know this.
I'm saying it because, sometimes, I need reminding that it's not all good.
My tree of happiness is not struggling to grow,
Leaves of fake laughter making it look pretty.
You see, I have a tendency to overanalyze, overdramatize, over-generalize, looking for the good in everyone,
Wishing on stars that all the saplings will live and grow strong.
I guess I should be careful what I wish for.
I have a hard time coming to grips with the reality that life is not
Full of good people and good intentions and good reasons.
I put myself in everyone else's shoes, seeing justifications through
Their eyes, blind and full of dust though they might be.
Because even when elm and oak trees get sick and die, I plant new seeds
And even when I have to squeeze my hips too tightly into  
A child's swing set, I think I can still touch the sky
And even when I see lives cut short by guns, by drugs, by *****, abuse, suicide, gangs, cancer, hopelessness,
I don't really see the evil or the sorrow,
Only what could have been.
Only the Elysian Fields of immortal hopes and goals that now have a chance in somebody else's soul.
And even when my dreams are miscarried through open veins like exposed roots,
I feel joy.
Even when razors can't cut deep enough to remove my immediate tendrils and sprouts of pain,
Even when rivers of red on my legs don't rinse away my earthy, dark confusion,
I am happy. Deep inside,
I hope against hope that nothing will truly destroy my optimism.
Of course, as soon as I get out in the real, concrete, day-to-day, 9-to-5 (actually 8:30-to-3am) world,
I'm going to be crushed.
I'm going to find that seed of darkness and sorrow and pain that starts growing inside everyone.
From the time of our first skinned knee and broken promise, first heartbreak and the first time our dreams didn't come true,
The seed starts to grow.
I know I'll find mine eventually,
I think it's been mulched under  5 feet, 6 inches of forced smiles
And Sundays under that maple tree I could
Never quite climb.
The world is dark sometimes,
And not all trees survive.

Live in the shadows
And flee from the sun,
An army of rebels
Marching as one.
Mingle your voice
With the other outcasts,
Your single goal
Is to simply outlast.

I know a word,
Six letters long,
That destroys.
I know a word,
Six letters long,
That kills.
I know a word,
Six letters long,
That encompasses an uncertain future
Of needles and lab tests,
A word that can't ever describe the feeling
Of knowing your body is killing itself.
I know a word.
Six
Letters
Long
That rips away vitality, leaving only
Empty ghosts in sterile beds,
Laughter replaced by hushed doctors and quieted sobs and
The incessant, steady beeping of a heart monitor.
I know a word,
Six letters long,
That leaves a husband crying
Over hospital bills at a kitchen table,
His son standing silent in the doorway,
2 AM.
I know a word
Yanking soft great-grandmothers and innocent children
From here to the ceiling of the clouds,
Six weeks, six months, six years
Stealing hair and smiles and health and hope,
Leaving a drawn, hollow skull
Staring
At the abyss.
A word,
That makes you feel powerless,
An ant trying not to drown in six feet of flood and fire.
A word
That has claimed countless lives,
Forced springs of tears to well in miserable eyes,
Produced pictures of black sorrow at
Rainy gravesides.
I know a word, six letters long,
Called CANCER.

I hate your ******* skepticism.
You sit and look at me from across an
Empty expanse of blood-red tablecloth that might as well be
The divide between galaxies.
I try to stay calm when you ask if
"Alternative" pronouns are being used
As a "social experiment" in GSA.
I look away.
My heart pounds.
My face flushes.
It is only for the sake of the young kids present
That I do not mutter any obscenities.
I take a deep breath.
I tell you, slowly, carefully, that
No it isn't an experiment.
They have chosen to use plural pronouns
They, them, theirs,
Just as legitimate as the "normal" ones, male and female.
Why should anyone's name be tied to
What they were born with between their legs?
You answer back in a long drawl that is so full I skepticism
I could choke on it's ignorance.
"Okay then."
Two words, two words that make me rethink everything
I think about you, my father.
I was filled with hope when I listened to
Tales of love and life,
Freedom to marry who you want.
You support gay rights, Dad,
But I'm left wondering:
Do you support all my friends?
The pansexual and gender-fluid and bisexual and homosexual and demi-****** and those who chose other pronouns?
What about the transsexuals and asexuals and third-gendered and pan-romantic and sapiosexual and queer?
I turn away before I reveal my hurt to you
I will not open up this can of worms again, I'm sure.
I thought I knew you.
Now I only know how much more I
Respect
Compared to you.

Slipping, I slide down the edge of cliffs into
A sea dark with hidden pasts and shame
Gasping for air.
I slipped the way a knife goes too quickly through skin,
The way a noose falls too gently around an innocent neck,
The way I need too little pressure to press the trigger.
I slipped like miscarried dreams drip from veins.
It has been almost two years since the last capital-I Incident,
Years scattered with mistakes easily hidden in the crook of a finger or
Under bracelets,
But now I run the risk of slipping below that dark water
And not being able to find my way out.

Midnight on a college campus is lonely
if you stand on the right spot-
The empty sidewalk outside the library.
Not sure if it was the cold or the nerves that
Rattled my spine into goosebumps, but I could feel my
Hands shaking, trying to seize comfort from the silent air.
He was late - I chewed the color from my lips, waiting.
The sound of his car slowing, tires too loud on the cobblestones,
Rung in my ears after we pulled away from he curb.
The streetlights seemed awfully harsh as he drove away with me
But his voice sounded the way lavender smells after a rainstorm,
More gentle than I expected it.
I caught myself wondering if maybe I would be okay.
I don't even know his last name.
I don’t remember the night as a narrative, a story I can
Describe to you in detail,
But as frozen scenes of a movie -
Unattached, flooded with momentary feeling.
His fingers in my hair and this time it was heat
Burning down my spine that made me shiver.
Click of the switch turning out the kitchen lights.
Cool leather of a couch.
My own nervous laughter.
Breath forced from the back of my throat.
Fingerprints on my collarbones.
Hands and mouths and hips.
Safe.
Warm.
The ride home being quiet.
My roommate stared in shock when I walked in at 2:30
Flushed and too embarrassed to speak
I could tell she disapproved but I decided that
I would savor the feeling of myself
I am not ashamed of my body or my choices with it
I am not ashamed of being confident in myself for the first time in 3 years
I am not ashamed of enjoying my life
And if someone wants to call me ****
Then I will be there to accept it
With a smile.

She smelled like cigarettes
And the way the yellow street lamp sparked bright on her yellow teeth almost made him shudder, keep driving
But he didn't care, he wanted -no, needed
It
Her
Needed to see the back alley dust in the creases of her elbows
Needed to feel the visceral pull of
Skin on skin, fingers twisted in hair
To feel he was alive.
She tasted like cigarettes.
She never was able to kick them
Wanted a pack a day but could only afford
A smoke every 6 hours
Every 6 hours, like clockwork
Stumbling through the back door,
Desperately reaching for a light.
She counted herself lucky that her only vice was smoking
(the ******* the corner opposite had a
nasty coke habit)
Yet he didn't care what she tasted like,
Just that he was tasting her,
Feeling her,
Drugged on the way her eyelashes caught the light and the way her breath
Rasped the slightest bit when he grabbed her hand.
He was a regular, got good treatment
She knew to treat him good, don't complain
Still she couldn't help but feel degraded,
Worthless when her face was pressed to the ground,
Focusing on breathing and trying to shut out
His little gasps and noises as he got what he paid for
Still she couldn't believe where her life had gone,
On her knees, ignore the fact she was
Half an hour late to her smoke break, because she was here making a living.
She can only buy her cigarettes because  
She knows *** sells.

Exhaustion.
body melting into itself, cushioning
reality with hazy unfocus.
i feel fuzzy around the edges,
static buzzing in my ears.

Stage makeup only looks good from
The distance of an audience,
And thick foundation doesn't erase stress,
Only sleepless nights.

snow is strange to me;
like soul pieces and frozen tears
landing gently in my hair
biting sharply into skin

Kindergarten teaches
"Hands to yourself"
Were you sick that day?
Because you didn't hesitate,
Touching me without consent
I'm violated

"The best things in life aren't things."
I agree.
Empty space around my ribs is far more
Fulfilling
Than eating dinner.

Your soft white-tan hands never brush mine,
Only connected by our two spoons in a pint
Of ice cream (which is good:
In my broken state I could kiss you). Drown my confusing pain
In milky, sugar coldness,
Hazel eyes, blue eyes not meeting much per
My choice.
My memory blushes at his comments,
I can't think of you here as the
Same you who wore the denim shorts
We marveled at- they were very nice shorts
(He said you had a nice ***)-
But I was more intrigued by his sideways glance,
Brown eyes flickering slyly over not your ****, hips,
I felt undressed.
Like he was wondering whether the *** under my loose jeans
Was anywhere near those denim shorts.
Spoons dig through cookie dough chunks
In near silence,
Evening shadows lengthening across grass, sidewalk edges
More perfect and straight
Than any attraction I've ever had.

Silver drops of starlight fall like a river
To gild your eyes and nose and hair
And make you sparkle, here and there,
With all your precious memories,
My dear departed giver.
Your smile lingers on my reflected face
With cold corners crunching up my eyes,
Building ice-green walls of mirrored lies
With nothing behind but another void,
An abscess of empty space,
Filled with stars of blackened lead
That stay awake, but yet unlit
For being confronted with ****** slits
They smolder redly, richly hidden
Until the darkness they can shed.
A sword to cut the twisted tines
That enthrallingly entangle
And hopelessly mangle
Was found in Love,
And now I shine.

Delicately pink hearts gently unfurl
From nests of lively minds;
There is nothing weak about Southern women
We are supposed to wear ugly dresses,
Enamel bugs,
French scarves that wrap around and
Tie us all together from the inside out
Football and sassy new haircuts might not make faces look younger,
But they can lift spirits
And just because you spend all day advising others
Of their secret trials
Doesn't mean that you can hold your family in a cage,
Golden and happy though you may want things to be.
Remember that if you feel new, an outsider,
Your personal tragedies seeming too much to bear,
You will always find comfort in laughter
Especially if laughter through tears is your favorite emotion.
You might not pick up boys or money,
But friendship steeps in small salons
Like sweet tea.
Prickly sarcasm and pessimism aren't always the hallmarks
Of a heart devoid of caring,
It's just a natural response after two deadbeat husbands and
Three ungrateful children; somewhere in all of it is a promise
Of hope.
And even in a barren womb new life is discovered,
And even in death joy is found,
And even through pain,
Sisterhood blooms,
Delicate steel petals enveloping grieving hearts.

I love summer Sundays,
Cloudy, the threat of rain hanging over the town,
Pressing thick, humid warmth and heavy silence
Down the little side streets and carefully tended gardens.
Up early, sensing the sun starting to climb the backs of the clouds,
Feeling light and life dripping through blue spots in the grey.

We laugh at him,
My friends and I,
In our bubble of teenage invincibility
We laugh at him,
Skinny and ungainly,
In shirts one-half size too big and
Kakis  that were probably $10 at Meijer's.
We laugh at him,
Hair carefully gelled and combed to cover the
Bald spot where too many nights of
Indecision and loss have rubbed it clean.
We laugh, his awkwardness fueling our
Shameful antics,
Shrinking him until he appears no more
Than an irritating fly with
Strangely sad eyes and  
32 years of small-town memories not
Validated,
Never appreciated.
We laugh at his first-time fumbling and confusion,
Not knowing how to handle us,
In our smug overconfidence and
Judgement like one thousand pins,
How to reach beyond our stubbornness
To teach us something worthwhile,
Something beyond the plan.
He sits like an origami bird that was made
Without instructions,
Perched on the corners of old desks,
In storage rooms of old textbooks,
Wrinkled and refolded.
Yet his sad eyes and open vault of memories makes him
Stronger, stranger, than I, we, have ever seen in the
Four walls of our learning.
Favorite books and winged metaphors
Fly
Next to seeds of joy and a father's death,
Twenty-two pieces of musical
Coping
That we laugh at,
That we see as a pitiful attempt at rejoining life,
That we scorn
With our teenage invincibility.
It's alright.
We know the value of less than nothing-
Our judgment means nothing.
His too-big shirts
And lyrical memory will
Exist
To anchor a life
Far after we have left,
Lost,
Wandering.

I saw a picture on the internet of a sign
That said “Welcome to Amsterdam. When it’s hot, please dress for the body you have,
Not the body you want. Thanks"
In the vicinity was a large woman wearing a pink crop top and leggings and the
Image was captioned
“Look who didn’t follow the rules!”
I assumed this rogue internet commenter assumed that this woman,
This beautiful, curvy, confident woman,
Didn’t want the body she had.
Why is it always assumed that fat people hate their bodies?
I’m fat and this IS the body I want *******!
I love this body!
This body has ******* privilege!
This body has enough melanin to tan easily in summer but not enough
That I’m going to be unjustly persecuted for my skin tone.
This body doesn’t get too cold in the winter.
This body has a home and a family and food to eat!
This body is ABLE to run and jump and walk wherever I want
This body is disease free.
This body can fit into a variety of clothing and look good.
I mean it isn’t perfect -
This body has had an eating disorder.
This body has self harm scars,
This body doesn’t always feel like it’s the right gender
This body has lived through 4 school district changes, a cross country move,
Depression, anxiety, a suicide attempt, high school graduation,
Bullying, finding out that I’m queer, finding out that I’m loved,
My first week of college, 16 days of living on a hiking trail
Thinking I’m ugly and realizing I’m beautiful
But I still want this body!

It’s the only one I have

The heart of an angel
Condemmed to Hell,
Was as fragile as glass,
And shattered as it fell.
She denied what she had seen,
But it was far too late;
Try to find yourself,
Try to accept Fate.
She wept and pleaded
To no avail,
This was her life
And she must prevail.
Her broken heart reformed,
But it was no longer clear as glass.
A smokey cloud engulfed her
As her profound shame supassed
The limits of her mind.
So she took the only course of action,
And I watch my angel cut herself,
Staring at her reflection.

Pen glides on paper,
As smooth as black ribbons
Draped across the snow,
Or black thread
Stitching up white silk.
The lines of words
Imprint themselves into my brain.
I breathe language,
Feel my heart beat with songs,
Dream in the rythm
Of poetry.
Eventually, the
Ink
Forces its way into my veins,
Carried throughout my body
So that I bleed
Ebony rain.
It infiltrates me
Until I am crying
Midnight tears.
My hearts pumps the
Unformed phrases around and
Around again
Until I dissolve,
Becoming a mirror of darkness
On the floor
To inspire another writer.
'Tis the fate of the poet:
To become one
With one's work
And dreams
And life
And soul.

She says the best thing I can do is have a
Safe space
A place that is just my own, a
Slot in the world where I fit
Safe and cozy like my favorite book,
Reading it until it fell apart.
The best part of the story was when he (all the characters always the same)
Doesn't give up and finds his forever friends, forever home.
I always wanted a forever home,
A place to be me.
The old She said the best thing I can do is
Stop the negative thought cycle.
Okay, let me flip that switch to off,
You know, I don't pay you to state
The obvious, or tell me impossible things.
I left Her.
The new She says to
Have a plan. Hard to do when your life
Is hurtling in 12 thousand directions,
Brains plastered against skulls and walls from the velocity,
Gasping for breath, panic attacks,
Need sleep, need food, neither look good -
But I digress. She says to stop making excuses
And to stop apologizing,
As if I could not express my sympathy to those
Who have to deal with it.
I'm sorry- sorry - not sorry.
And yet...
Some mornings I wake up and it feels so
Good
To not be who I have become.
I, like a miser, hoard the moments that don't
Hurt so much,
Moments of him, moments of me.
Strange, isn't it?
It aches deep down to be me, but I wouldn't
Be anyone else in the universe
I guess that's just life...
She smiles when I tell Her I'm doing okay
It scares me, like She sees that I'm actually
Drowning
In sorrow, in between my breaths
She says to take lots of walks, and I agree,
For once liking the cold bite of November on my face.
My birthday month is awfully dreary, but She seems
To like this time of year,
She says it is good for cleansing the soul,
Not sure I believe Her
She says to trust Her
Not sure I believe Her....