I wish I were a boy.
I wish I could ruffle my dark hair
I wish I could kiss other boys
I wish they'd see me as a boy too
I wish I could dress in boxers
I wish my neck's apple was seen when I laugh
I wish my voice was rough and smooth
I wish girls looked at me and think
I wish he were a boy.

Try harder, it's not that difficult
The silence screams internally
I am trying to focus, but what does that mean?
Stop swaying, you are being inconsiderate
this class feels
like an eternity
Focus. Why can't I just feel seen?

Try harder, it's easy for everyone but you
You,
are fundamentally broken and wrong
Why can't you just be like the others?
You don't know anything, that's true
The beat without a melody, this song
Your thoughts are overlapping against another

Try harder, for this is an illness
This needs to be cured
Isolating from your peers
But you don't act like the rest
Akin,
you both are injured


Try harder, this disorder of yours is an excuse
This apathy towards attention is a trend
There was never this sensitivity years back
After this plea, I have something to deduce
This point of yours is a complex blend
So I'll offer irrelevant feedback

Try harder.

'I'm better' you cry
But there are tears in your eye
And I beg you to please comply
Don't write that goodbye

In three months you'll hear sirens
Not for you, but who can tell
All you can feel is the cold iron
And that hospital smell

Throw away the notes you hid
Like the marks underneath your sleeves
The medicine is out of reach
Just like the recovery they sing in bold lights

Four thin walls
Closing me in
Screams in the halls
Repent for my sins

Four blocks to run
My steps are heavy
Away from the gun
How I envy

Four breaths in
In the nearby office
No one will win
in America's sickness

He wants to be your boy
Soft and innocent
And rough, but coy
Though, he knows he'll never be intimate

You want to be a boy
A defined jaw
Ecstatic and full of joy
The most handsome boy you ever saw

I am a boy
I ruffle my hair when I talk
Standing confident in corduroy
But the definition is lost in the fog

My thoughts are disregarded like weeds
Just a bother in the concrete
Tried to be a flower for your enjoyment
As it turns out, I'm the disappointment

**** me out, one by one
But keep me around for the fun
When you bloom next to a ****
You look better than unaccompanied

Because my value is less
As it lowers your success
Compared to that of a flowers
My company just sours

Where do I fit in the mess of a kingdom?
The brave and loyal?
The soft and innocent?
Or the commanding and respected?

The soldier points her sword at me
"You know nothing of what a soldier should be"
She recites the lives she took
how she runs from death's lethal hook

I run the poet, and they stare at me
"You know nothing of what a poet should be"
They spin a tale of the nights they spend
looking for a muse, how they just pretend

I kneel before the King, and he lets me speak
"You know nothing of what a king should be"
He bellows about his isolated life with fame
without someone else to take the blame

I don't think I want to be a solider poet or king
I'd rather just run away into the woods
the woods where I live for myself
and not some corrupted hierarchy