Usually,
Me taking a nap means it’s getting bad again.
Genuinely there are just times,
I am tired,
But most time’s I’m not, and..
A nap is how you can tell it’s getting bad again.

How you can rest assured that I
Spend my hours listening to the demons scream inside my head,
The ones that remind me I am worth nothing,
You can tell if they’re being too loud again.

When I’m constantly rubbing at my eyes,
Or scratching at my ears,
You know it’s getting bad again-
When I mark up my thighs every few weeks because
I just don’t know what else to do-
That is for sure how you know it is getting bad again.

Even if if it’s just four or five little marks,
Throughout two weeks,
It is still a sign that it is getting bad again
That it’s getting too loud again
That I’m starting to break again.

And I’m trying to get better.
I believe learning to see those signs in myself
Has taught me how to show other people a bit better,
Without actually breaking,
Without screaming and crying at
The top of my lungs..

It’s been months since my last giant, life threatening fit like that.
I mean, where I was vocal and just about did do it.
I have small ones,
Where I ask if I can **** up,
or wonder if it’s worth it

And those are another sign it’s getting bad again.
That the stress is too much to handle again that
That I’m ****** if I don’t do something soon and

That’s how you tell if it’s getting bad again.

When it festers, I go into fight mode,
I lunge for a throat and I scream,
I yell,
I hit.

I try not to, I do, it's the first time I've ever gotten into a fight-
Much less do I really care, honestly,
I don't regret it.
It'd been coming for months,
But that's how you know for sure it's gotten really bad again.

I try to be honest, tell therapists and psychiatrists,
I think I'm doing better,
I honestly think I'm doing better until-
I break.

I'm just so tired again.

I don’t think this is an addiction.
No, honestly, it’s just the cat.
No, really, I just fell,
No, I’m positive, I hit a table and-

I don’t think this is an addiction.
If it were an addiction,
I would have to be out of control,
And I’m not doing it five times a day,
now am I?
Though admittedly I think about it,
Five hundred times a day this-
This is not an addiction.

This is not an addiction, I assure you,
when I’m well aware that’s what this is,
When I smile and say that “I’m fine,”
I hope you come to realize that most times,
It’s a lie, and-

“No, really, I ran into the coffee table,”
I grumble to my therapist.
I’ve gotten so good at hiding this that,
“No, I’m serious” and a forced look of honesty
Somehow gets me by.

“This is not an addiction,” I cry,
When I know, deep inside,
That, again, that is was this is.

This.. This is an addiction.
Cuts not healing for three weeks,
Thinking about it for hours at a time,
Wanting the euphoria of bleeding,
On the bathroom floor,
This.. This is an addiction.

This is an addiction, I scream,
Finally taking it for what it is as my friends,
My lover,
My mother,
All yell at me to put my blade down,
To lay down,
To breathe.

They scream at me
To end this seemingly endless cycle
That I’ve been going through
For a little over five years.

The nurse practitioner I saw the other day,
Told me,
“I want you to have a list
Of thirteen things
You can do before you resort
To cutting.”

And I want that to happen.

But this..
This is an addiction.
And it’s going to take a long time to recover.

So far,
I’ve managed to stop the police calls,
The hospital visits,
Some of the more larger issues.
The ones that leave me
worse off than where I started
To an extreme.

I’m still recovering.
I think I’m always going to be recovering,
I don’t think it’s ever gonna leave the back of my mind..
But this.. This is not an addiction.
This is recovery.

Hi, mommy.
Do you remember me?

I'm sure you do. You've not been gone long.
And you said you'd follow me anywhere I went.

I lost the locket you gave me.
I think an old friend who 'can't find my stuff' has it.
It makes me upset that I lost it.
I'm sorry, mommy.

Do you remember that locket?
It took us so long to pick it out.
And you gave me a thick chain,
because you know I like to play with my necklaces.

You put your little saying on the back.
'See the beauty.'
I still remember that, mommy.

"Find something beautiful in nature every day,
And think of me,"
You told me.
I remember it. I do, mommy.

I miss you, mommy.
Life's not the same without you-
Which, is to be expected,
But our house has changed a lot.

It's brown now, mommy,
Instead of yellow.
I don't like it.
It doesn't look right.

It doesn't look like home anymore.

Do you remember the color yellow, mommy?
It was your favorite.
Like daffodils,
Or some roses.

I miss those, mommy.
Every time I see a daffodil I get sad now.

Do you remember, mommy?

There's a bunch of small things about you that most wouldn't notice,
That I just happen to love.

Like the star-like pattern of little golden flecks in your beautiful brown eyes,
Or remembering how soft your lips were against mine.
Or that goofy smile you give whenever someone actually makes you laugh.
It's different from your usual, kind of faked smile.

I doubt anyone but me and you
Remember the fact that, well,
You called James Madison a little *****.
Or that my running joke with you is 'smonk the wed.'

I doubt anyone really sees the way a few of your teeth are just a little bit crooked,
Or the way your eyes and nose crinkle up sometimes if you smile wide enough.

I doubt anyone remembers that time you wore my cat ears to comicon,
Or, really, the fact that you still have them- somewhere.
Or the goofy way you called me out on instagram for not liking pickles.

I still remember feeling your hand in mine.
I still remember stealing your definitely too small for me hoodies,
I still remember being in theatre with you.

I still remember admiring your eyes,
And the way your hair curled into ringlets when it got down to your ears,
And the way it felt between my fingers.

I still remember the way your voice calmed me down,
Or the day before thanksgiving when you called me, crying,
Begging me to stay on the Earth just a little bit longer.

I still remember you next to me.
I still remember all the little things, too.

I didn’t start actually enjoying coffee until I was eleven.
The first time I drank a full cup it was followed by ten more.
It was the first day my mother was in the hospice house.

I started drinking coffee on a pretty solid basis while I was there,
I teamed it with my nutella sandwiches,
This was back when I was unconcerned about my weight.

I often watched the sunrise.
I watched it climb over the sky until the very moment it was blue,
Only a few other people would be awake besides the nurses and I,
I felt calm. For a long second.

I remember watching the sunrise and thinking everything would be okay,
Sipping my coffee, wrapped in a blanket,
Calm.

It was like that the day she died.
I stopped drinking coffee.

It wasn’t until I was fifteen I started drinking coffee on a regular basis again,
I used it to comfort me the first hour of the day,
But then it was just a burden to be carried.
This went on for two months before I just.. Stopped taking coffee.
I started drinking a friends, instead.

Sometimes, anyways.

Part of me wonders if I should start taking it again,
Let it warm me up when I wait for the bus and maybe,
Maybe bring my mother close to me.

It used to be impossible to see me without a coffee cup in my hand.

Now it is rare.
I wonder if it is my mother trying to get me to stop grieving.
Because I connect my coffee to her.

Today's cup tastes exactly like hers.

I switched homes in late June,
from Missouri to Kansas.
I came to a new school-
one I saw when I was young,
but never had much interest in.
That's not really important,
Not as important as the fact I've been trying to make new friends.

Yet so much of me is scarred,
from the isolation,
from the manipulation,
from the ****.

There are days I think I see your face in the hallway.
My gut panics, but on the outside,
I look at my friends,
or straight ahead,
and that swing of feigned confidence
goes to my hips,
and I act as if I am not afraid.

So much of me is scarred from the fear.
You made me too terrified to accept physical affection from a lover-
or even a friend-
for over sixth months.

It took so much out of me hold Adrian’s hand.
But I did it.
Ever since that break up-
minus a five month gap-
he had been the only one to care for me.
And I am so grateful for that.

But now, nearing the end of the year,
inching closer to February,
I have so much anxiety.

I am afraid you know where I live.
I am afraid you still have my phone number.
I am afraid for my life.

I had a panic attack at midnight,
because I am finally revealing
the full extent of the fear you have caused me
to my dearest.

You have made me afraid to share my pains.
You have made me experience a fear no one should have to experience.

You have made me experience terror.

Today, I typed into my Google search bar
“How to stop being trans.”

I am so desperately attempting to repress my identity I felt the need to Google it,
I spend day in, and day out, watching women on the internet talk about what it is like to be a woman.
Even now, that concept confuses me.

There is something I will never truly understand about being a woman-
That is the feeling of being female.
It’s something I’ve never really had, even though I go through those hardships and more.
I am talked about like I am an object, referred to as “it” by so many kids at this school,
Just as many of the transgender students going to my school are.

I am treated physically like an object whenever I attempt to present as a woman,
And I realize there is no way to go around being an “it.”
Nothing more than a mere object used for someones entertainment,
Thrown away when they have gotten their thrill out of me.
I am nothing more than a cancelled TV show
Who’s reruns are on at midnight, or early Sunday morning.

I am nothing more than the little wooden toys toddlers play with,
Thought of as ‘cute’ when young,
But told I am to grow out of the phase of playing with toys.
Told to grow out of the phase of being a boy.

No matter how short I cut my hair, or how tight the binders I wear are,
How baggy the jeans, or how many button-ups or flannels I buy,
I am told it is just a phase.

I have been fighting with my identity in the open for nearly five years.
First, it was an internet presence,
I learned the word “genderfluid.”
I used that term for a good three months,
And then I found a new word.
“Agender.”

I was agender for years,
Even somewhat out at the school I went to-
In the fifth grade, I was asked what I truly was.
This question is going to be repeated until the day I die.

In seventh grade, something fully dawns on me.
I am nothing more than a transgender boy with an affinity for putting art on my face.
I panic as I tell the four people I had in my arsenal at the time.
Thus begins the era of “Brodie.”

This lasts for a few months, until I am uncomfortable with the name.
I finally, for two years, settle on the name “Alexander,”
And then, at the end of eighth grade, I am ready to come out to teachers.

No one is able to keep up with it, because it had been at the very end,
But as I start my highschool career, I confidently call out,
“I prefer Alexander.”

The people in my old band class don’t really think twice, but a small murmur falls through the crowd of the homophobes in the corner.
My German teacher opens the idea with wide arms, and takes me under her wing.
I become her son.
I start pondering a new name in the last month of the first year, twisting it over my tongue.
“Julian.”
I like the way it sounds, but no one thinks it fits me.
I sigh, and repress the name until nearly the very middle of my sophomore year.

In my freshman year, I had once Googled the same question.
It has been a year of attempting to repress it on my own.
Google Search still does not give me an answer.

I realize that I am nothing more than a transgender boy.