Real questions I've been asked by the 3 year old I care for
Dia do you have a mancave
Dia did you get new toilet paper
Dia are those antlers for the cheese
My answers respectively are fairly straightforward
No I don't but I sure wish I did
Yeah I got the really soft pillowy kind thanks for noticing
I have no idea if those antlers are for the cheese but I don't see why not.

I am generally confident with the answers I provide
However once in awhile she asks me
Dia do you have a ***** today
And I'm stumped because the answer Josie
is so much more complicated than no
Because I want to say someday you will learn how that no matters every single day in more ways than I can tell you
That no has everything to do with the way I take up space
That no is my mother's refusal to buy me bow ties in favor of silver necklaces
That no is the cringe in my heartbeat when people call me a lesbian
That no is the source of fear I carry as a shield when I *** in public restrooms
That no is what I use to bind this chest to prove something I can't prove with a yes to that question
A no is the answer that sales person gives when I ask for those shoes in my size
That suit in my size
That body in my size
The mirror in my eyes
I've had a home in the lies I've told instead of no

The world asks that question every single day and I never have the right answer
It would be so much easier if the world asked if those antlers are for the cheese.

I once had a lover that on the most ordinary of days
Out shopping for underwear
Looked at my reflection in the mirror and said
I love the boy in you
And I love the girl in you
And everything in between

Later they asked me what love is
And I said I think that's what love is
Seeing everything in between the reflection
Seeing somebody clearer than they see themselves
I said tell Me you love every piece of me
The skin I shed
The skin that hates this chest
The “it's a boy” they never said
The “I love yous” they never meant
I've spent so much time trying to find the in between where there's no haircuts
Or funny ways of dressing
Or anything confusing about my chest
I'll just keep choosing to ignore the way they say
You're so beautiful
In the same breath as potential
As if it's a credential for my anatomy

Instead tell me I'm the cutest boy you've ever had in your bed
Tell me my body isn't woman it's just the wild
Tell me flesh is nothing
I'm made of light
Tell me my light is beautiful
Touch my soft
Touch my belly button but not like they ever touched me
Touch me like I'm the kind of soft that can turn hard
A tin roof against the rain
Beating a thunderstorms refrain into music
They told me I have too much bark
Too much bite
I'm too pretty to fight

So tell me instead I'm the softest pebble you've ever skipped across your body
And ripples are born of my feathered fists and my hammering heart
Tell me softness has no gender
Tell me our body's never knew what gender meant
I want to be gender bent over till it breaks
And takes the freighttrain words of haters
But don't you cringe under the jagged teeth of their stares
**** my love into your body and hold it there
Always write a poem in my body
And use the words they spit at us
But instead infuse them with a welcome song to tell my body it's found home
Everything we do rhymes with ****** rhymes with **** rhymes with queer
These labels belong to us
The fear in these labels does not belong to us
I'm here to witness you try to live in a body you call home without trying to run away
I wish my body was made of clay so I could fit it into the box labeled
“I love you no matter what”
Will you love me no matter what

If I want you to bend me over backwards until I break the reflection the mirror tries to make of me
And find it's just glass
Like my see through skin
Try to see through my skin
Tell me you see me
I'll see every piece of you
Soft
Hard
Apart
Together
Girl
Boy
But never in a box
I'll take that box labeled “I'll love you no matter what” and I'll break it down
Leave that truth around your bones
Until you believe it can't break

That truth will be our home and we can live in that between because that's where love is.

As hard as it is to color outside the lines
It’s even harder when you have the wrong coloring book to begin with
The kids who wanna be the blue or the pink
That the world recognizes as right
When they were born into the wrong colors
Their mother held them under the wrong ballon
It should have said “congratulations it’s a tough fudging road ahead”
It could have said love lets say love
Instead of he
instead of she
lets call them everything
Cause its for shame that their name won’t fit
Any better than the clothes that don’t fit
Somedays a dress is barbed wire knit onto the flesh of a boy
Crying help me, I’m so lost and i wanna go home
This world is filled with hearts without shells
Bodies with doormats that say “welcome to hell”
Its not lack of trying
people are dying
To be the right shape of girl
the right shape of boy
When the world told them they’re not the right shape of anything

That night when he said “i’ll never be the man I’m supposed to be”
But “she” never fit me and I just wanna fit
I didn’t know how to say i’m sorry
I couldn’t say I know and mean it
So i just held him in the rain
His body gave way
Felt pieces in my hands
The wreckage sobbing against my chest
Until all that was left was a cleft heart
Torn between trying to fit into his own skin
And trying to stretch his own skin fit him
His skin begs for normal
Like a dying plead
like a prisoner on death row begging to be free
Later he said he wished he’d never said normal
When he tried to tell me what he wished he could be
He knew when he said it
It meant breaking down every shelter he’d ever worked to build
In a single second a bomb can be dropped
And some bombs take lifetimes to build
The bombs we build out of our own skins
Fitting them around the word normal like it’s our only hope
We’re making rope for the hangings and then asking why
Writing music for the hate songs and saying baby don’t you cry
Those songs are so loud they keep him awake
And it feels like a nightmare and he can’t break free
He’s so tired
I wanna wrap him in sleep
lift him up to the stars and say
“look, this is beauty “
I think he’s so beautiful it’s hard to look at him sometimes
I wanna say “ I’m sorry that  I think he’s beautiful”
When his body feels like quicksand I wanna hold out my hand
And promise to save him
But his body is a trap not safe from the bombs
That drop so loud they stop him from sleeping
So I’m keeping every piece of him as he falls apart
I’m calling him everything
So he knows he can be whatever he wants
He can be a  ferris wheel, or a gumdrop, or a bow tie, or a pink sky
I hold his tears on my lips
Try to kiss away every name they ever hurled at his body
Every hate line they’ve ever drawn in his coloring book
Every time they’ve told him he’s not what he’s supposed to be
He’s already gone so many rounds with his own demons
And the time bomb on the clock is screaming for mercy
I know the scars on his chest are nothing compared to the rest of them
Sticks and stones are nothing compared to the rest of it
His bones hurt from calling each other names
That leave bruises on his insides
So i’m standing ringside watching his boxing match against the world
And wishing with all that I have
That the world looses
And he wins the title of everything