I.
It isn't a long time,
really.
But when it becomes a
distance,
it hurts.

I.
I had a childhood just like
you,
if you'll recall.
Playmates in dresses
and pretending we could be
princesses,
and now we've grown
so tall.

II.
We all dreamed of
older things,
thought about marriages
and kids,
and even closer, prom.

III.
But you'll wear
a dress,
and I'll wear a suit.
You'll be a princess
and I'll be
a mock prince.

IV.
It isn't like I blame
the playmates
for distancing themselves.
The abandonment is
mutual,
but it still feels a bit like
separate hells.

I.
Bite-sized heaps of fresh
vegetables, overflowing with
sauces, olive oil
and mustard,
fresh herbs and
flower petals.

II.
Hearty and light,
the bite of lemon drizzled over the
thick sustenance
of root vegetables or
shredded meat.

III.
A meal you could
eat on Sunday morning -
potatoes, eggs, bacon, with
honey and herbs over everything,
blackberry jam and toast to the side,
a mug full of
whatever you'd like,
"Comin' right up, Sir."

IV.
A gourmet of flavors you
can carry in your right hand,
and a bundle of flowers you can
hang onto with your right.

I.
He carries a camera bag
now.
Photos in
black and white
not how the Yearbook wants them
but how he does.
He needs his own approval
now.

II.
He carries a vest
around his body,
something to make people stop and
guess
his gender
his name.
Ambiguous, a little
angry.

III.
He carries himself
as if he is going into war.
But he's proud
to go.

IV.
He carries himself
as the hero
he believes he
could still be.

I.
Confidence.
The word is so foreign to me
it tastes like
cotton candy.

II.
Too sweet,
after a day of nothing but
salt and tears.

III.
I eat it like cotton candy,
too.
Huge bites, gulping,
drowning in it would be a reprieve.
Eating it this fast
will simply give me
a stomach ache.

IV.
I became
something I could love.
I don't think anyone
believed I could pull it off.

I.
I don't know how to explain
platonic love
like this.

II.
I would kiss him
but it wouldn't mean a thing.

III.
Of course I
love him, and of course
I think he's handsome.

IV.
How do I make you see
that loving someone
is not the same
as being in love.

I.
I'll die
spitting out
the words you just threw at me.

II.
I'll be disproving them
my whole **** life.

III.
I hope you're
*******
happy.

I.
Empathy is a struggle
on some days,
and a gushing wound
on others.

I.
You'd imagine me as
jealous of the boy.

II.
But he's too sweet to ever
dislike
for anything.

III.
"I'm here, you know?"
"It's okay if you aren't alright."
"You good?"

IV.
It takes a tenth of the energy
to love someone
that it does
to hate them.

V.
Feels better, too.

I.
Go to
hell
the next time
you remind me of my
body.

II.
I'm well
aware.

III.
I know what I've got
under my shirt.
I know what's
in my jeans.

IV.
I don't need your smile,
your look of condescension.
I don't need a **** thing
from you.

I.
You aren't a *******
superhero.

II.
Try your ******* best,
and you'll never be
saving
anyone.

I.
I began my year
telling people
I was a boy.
It was a good
beginning.

II.
Got so sick
I left school
could barely talk
without panicking
or doubling over
in pain.

III.
Spent so much time
at the hospital -
my mother's been
diagnosed with
cancer.

IV.
He's here now.
I'm happy with him
even if he makes
things harder
on me.

V.
Beginning
another three hundred and some days
with people
I would go into
gunfire for
unasked.

VI.
This year will be better.

VII.
It can't possibly
by worse.

I.
I like to imagine
that things will work out
smoothly,
easily.

II.
That going forward
will be like sailing
on a glass blue sea.

III.
I like to imagine
that no one will drown.

IV.
Not something I'd
imagined
ever.

V.
Three ****** up humans
might be enough
to fill in all the empty space
we've created between our hearts.

I.
December
is for bubblegum feelings
this year.

I.
She's got an affinity
for ****** up guys.

II.
****** up
in a the sense that we
hang on too hard,
cry when told we're loved.

III.
Hiding under her wings
is easy
and sweet.

IV.
It's a good thing
you need two wings to fly.

I.
He comes home
in just nine days

II.
I'm ridiculously happy.

III.
Missing people
feels like choking
after a few months.

I.
My ******* ribcage
does not work
how it should.

II.
I can barely
breathe
without a stabbing pain

III.
"There's nothing
wrong with you"
Thank you,
doctor.

I.
I will look up to
superheros if I want to.

II.
I will call myself
Captain America
if that's what makes me comfortable
in my own skin.

III.
You are not going to stop me
because you don't know what it's like
to drown
in clean air
upon seeing your reflection.

IV.
I will call myself
Captain America
and I will thrive.

I.
******* I
am falling for him
like leaves are falling
now in autumn.

II.
He is so graceful
brave
incredible
god he's so sweet to me
and he loves me
but he called me
best friend

III.
And I want to be best friend back.
I do not want to
love someone with that
track record.

IV.
I don't know how
to say
"best friend"
to someone I want to kiss
so badly

V.
But I don't know how to kiss someone
I love
as a best friend.

I.
I don't think I
ever
spoke to you
at all.

II.
Gone and
killed yourself at
college.

III.
Funny the first words I'd ever say to you
would be a goodbye
you'd never
hear.

I.
They asked me to write an essay
depicting the
glories of the
American Dream.

II.
I couldn't, but
I wrote three pages
easily.

III.
They were
the wrong three pages -
I told them about
Natives Americans
torn from homelands.

IV.
I told them about
police brutality,
the things going on in Ferguson,
and the media coverage of war overseas.

V.
I told them about
separation of church and state
and how that ought to look.

VI.
I told them
I'm not sure if I can write an essay about the glories of equality
in a country where
I do not feel equal.

I.
They are
sweeter
then anyone
who's cleaner.

II.
Mostly
a little drunk
maybe ******
I was sober
and they said
"Good on you"
and
"Why though"

III.
I have gotten
a hundred more hugs
and shared food
and offers of a jacket
to keep off the cold
in a few hours with strangers
who form this family
then with my own
family
and many of my friends.

IV.
I felt
so *******
safe there.

I.
It looks like
fog
from my window

II.
The hum of my
air purifier
blots everything out
sound wise

III.
And outside
everything is covered in
the gray
haze.

IV.
When I leave my room
my lungs -
already weak and
malfunctioning, on the best of days -
choke,
cough,
and reject what I put in them.

V.
I hope
the fires
clear up.

I.
I need you to understand
that when I wear a skirt
it's cross-dressing.

II.
It is not
"Going back to
being a girl"
it is not
"Accepting my femininity"

III.
It is
cross-dressing,
a skirt does not mean
I am female
again.

I.
His middle name
shall be his own.

II.
He shall
cast off the legality of
what he was given
on a certificate.

III.
His middle name will be
Confidence.

I.
Speak
a word
of love,
and you fall on
dead ears.

II.
Speak a word of
hate,
and you're written down,
as sin in a walking form.

I.
For
hell's sake
let me caress those fingers
and arms,
the ones you can't abide.

II.
They're so
good
they hug so strong and
they hold so well.

III.
You've written on them
these
remnants of
pain,
and it hurts to see.

I.
He is
one of my absolute
favorite humans.

II.
He is
so strong and
funny and
wonderful.

III.
He says he wants to
hurt himself
again.

IV.
What can one even argue,
besides
"Don't hurt someone
I love
so much."

I.
And it feels like
the world is crashing in
a few pieces at a time.

II.
It gets harder and harder to breathe
when I have no one
to share the air with.

I.
America
the home of the free
and the land of the brave.

II.
That may well be.

III.
But the free
and the brave
are not the same people.

I.
Hush
twelve times
and begin again
my dear.

II.
You are worth
only more
and more.

I.
Shut you're
beautiful
grinning mouth.

II.
Stop being so
hilarious
and stop taking such
good care of me.

III.
You're like
the prize
and I'm the
loser.

I.
It's one day into the semester
and they have already
assigned something
I cannot do.

II.
I'm sorry I need clear instructions,
like which format to use.
I'm sorry I need clear directions,
like how many sources are required.
Not "A Fair Amount"

III.
Maybe I'm just too stupid to
be here in school.
Maybe that's it.

I.
Not yet,
am I seventeen.

II.
When I was five or six
I imagined a world in which
my first kiss was on my sixteenth birthday
and I was wearing a pink dress.

III.
I had my first kiss when I was fourteen,
in plaid pajama bottoms
and a loose top.

IV.
When I was seven or eight
I imagined a world in which
I was a vet tech
with my hair in a bun.

V.
I am in a world
where vet school
is not interesting.

VI.
My hair
will never be long enough
for a bun.

VII.
"Be the person you needed
when you were younger"
I would have balked,
and disagreed,
I know.

VIII.
If I could see a picture of me now
when I was little
I would laugh
and never believe a word about
how I hated my *******
my hips
my voice.

IX.
I would have never believed a word of how
I'd fall in love with a girl
who was sad as night
and made me as happy
as the sun.

X.
And I never would have believed
that I would love that little girl
who had grown into a man.

I.
There has come a point
in which
it is not who I would die for

II.
It is
who I would keep living for.

I.
You know
some days
I am that person
gasping
begging
pleading

II.
And others
I am the one
to hold them tight
and say
"Stuff is going to be okay."

I.
You know,
it shouldn't make me cry with joy
simply to see someone
like me
on the television.

I.
Honestly
if someone called me '****'
I'd only be mad
it wasn't
'******'

I.
Simply because I am your blood
does not mean
I am of your ideas
thoughts
and feelings.

II.
I am told every day
that you know what's best for me.

III.
But if it's best for me
why do I never feel
happy,
safe,
it's always just
scared and mostly
alone.

I.
My story is about a boy
and a girl.

II.
Not what you're thinking,
though.

III.
She was unhappy and now he is confident.

IV.
She is gone
and now he's glad to have the bed to himself.

V.
She is
his former self.

I.
I am a firm believer
in punching humans
who threaten you.

I.
We were not made
to fight battles
against our own bodies.

II.
At least
not most of us.

I.
You think
representation does not matter
please listen for
five seconds.

II.
I knew I liked girls
when I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and I was thirteen years old.

III.
I knew I was male
when I read "I am J"
and I was
fifteen years old.

IV.
I knew I had more then
a hundred percent
when people asked me what I thought
about art of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes,
and Sam Wilson.

V.
We deserve to be
seen
and if you think you are
protecting the children
you are so far from correct.

VI.
You are
keeping the children
stuffed into the closet.

I.
Your blood family
is not the only family you will ever have
and don't you dare tell me so.

II.
You are under no obligation
to love
anyone.

III.
*******.

I.
Don't bother pretending
to revel in my company.

II.
I'll love you
anyway.

I.
Don't ******* cut yourself to bits
they'd be disappointed
and they might laugh.

II.
It's funny how the last reason I can think of
is they might care.

I.
He turns up the music
and pretends
he can't see himself.

II.
It helps
a bit.

I.
I would like to say
one thing I have learned.

II.
Never leave someone else
to water your plants.

III.
They die.

I.
I miss you
but I'm too afraid to
even make a contact point.

II.
Maybe
next weekend
and then
next weekend passes
and I'm still alone.

I.
That's what you call him,
my best friend.

II.
Simply because he wants to go into war
defend his own
and you believe that's wrong.

III.
I'm not saying I agree with him,
but I have never met
a more sincere human
in my life.