I am human. I am just like you.
There is nothing different between us.
But that’s where it gets complicated.
I am not the same as you. I am a different person
I have a different life. I have a different background
I have a different face.
I have a different past, and I have a different future.
If you look around yourself, this is true for all of the faces that surround you.
But we are the same, right?
We are all human; we are all part of the same earth
The same creation story. But that’s not true either.
Your creation story might be different than my creation story.
And your story might not accept me as a part of humanity.
I cannot change who I am. When I was born
I fell into a concept most of you didn’t.
The faces I first saw were so similar. Both bearded.
Short hair, tears running down their faces.
Two men sobbing tears of joy. Their daughter had been born.
The first two years of my life I thought that having two dads was normal.
Little did I know then, it was. But not the normal other people think of.
People think normal is a mom and a dad and two beautiful children.
I was never able to call anyone “mommy,” and I turned out perfectly fine.
My whole life I have been surrounded by men loving other men
And women loving other women etc. My best friend has two moms.
One day, when we were seven years old
Someone came up to us and said
“Hey, your dads should get married to your moms.”
I laughed then and walked away, but I never realized
How much that would hurt five minutes later.
Those words were like knives. They burned like fire.
I wanted to go back and yell at that kid.
His ignorance blinded me, and I could not speak.
His words didn’t leave my head and never have.
I like boys, yes, but guess what? I also like girls. And that’s normal.
I can love a boy, but I can also love a girl.
I have been telling myself this my entire life, and I realize that it’s true.
It’s who I am, and I can’t change it.
I don’t want to change it, because I am human
And you are human, and you can love whomever you want.

Oh, to see without my eyes
The first time that you kissed me
Boundless by the time I cried
I built your walls around me
White noise, what an awful sound
Fumbling by Rogue River
Feel my feet above the ground
Hand of God, deliver me

Oh, oh whoa whoa is me
The first time that you touched me
Oh, will wonders ever cease?
Blessed be the mystery of love

Lord, I no longer believe
Drowned in living waters
Cursed by the love that I received
From my brother's daughter
Like Hephaestion, who died
Alexander's lover
Now my riverbed has dried
Shall I find no other?

Oh, oh whoa whoa is me
I'm running like a plover
Now I'm prone to misery
The birthmark on your shoulder reminds me

How much sorrow can I take?
Blackbird on my shoulder
And what difference does it make
When this love is over?
Shall I sleep within your bed
River of unhappiness
Hold your hands upon my head
Till I breathe my last breath

Oh, oh whoa whoa is me
The last time that you touched me
Oh, will wonders ever cease?
Blessed be the mystery of love

I left my heart in
the arms of someone
who didn't deserve it.

I lost my heart in
the eyes of someone
who lost me.

I found my heart in
the words I write
that free it.

All I speak is nonsense.
The words float around in the back of my brain
Waiting for their turn down the slide.
He tells me, your words don't flow
Quite like the petals from the rose that lays across your chest.
All the vocabulary I had to learn
To avoid the blisters on my back from the leather belt
That wrapped itself around my father's waist.
The dictionary I was beaten with if I did not learn its contents.
I can't look at your face because you remind me of him.
The gold buckle on the front of your waist
Matches the ideals in your mind.
I can't love a man who reminds me of the man
Who can't accept me for who I am.
I can't love a man because my father taught me
That love is a man yelling into your ear telling you to be perfect.
To change who you are to fit his image of a "trophy."
My mind is wired differently.
You may not realize beauty when it stares you in the face,
But I don't expect you to know it when it takes time to find it.
I can love you or that girl sitting on the bench across the park.
You can't tell me otherwise.

No means
No.

It does not mean
Touch me and
Hold my shoulders
Because you are
Too drunk to stand.
It does not mean
Kiss me and
It certainly does not mean
You can come in because
We are closed.
It means back up
And go away.
It means I do not
Want you touching me
So leave.
And don't come back.
Please.

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.