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Steven Muir Jun 2014
I.
Look at him
picking daisies

II.
Would you call him
less of a man
for loving flowers?

III.
His anatomy protects his manhood
While mine de-validates it.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
They name every hurricane after
a woman.

II.
So she changed her name
to hurricane.
Steven Muir Aug 2014
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.
Steven Muir Aug 2014
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."
Steven Muir Aug 2014
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.
Steven Muir Aug 2014
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.
Steven Muir Sep 2014
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.
Steven Muir Feb 2015
I.
Communication
only becomes more important
the harder
it gets.
Steven Muir Jan 2015
I.
I dreamed someone
hurt you
and I was too far
to stand in the way
or take the blow instead.
Steven Muir Sep 2014
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.
Steven Muir Dec 2014
I.
He comes home
in just nine days

II.
I'm ridiculously happy.

III.
Missing people
feels like choking
after a few months.
Steven Muir Dec 2014
I.
December
is for bubblegum feelings
this year.
Steven Muir Jan 2015
I.
Empathy is a struggle
on some days,
and a gushing wound
on others.
Steven Muir Jun 2014
I.
You know
you go somewhere for inspiration
and all you find is

II.
"Remembrance"
"To those who died"
"Rest in peace"

III.
And the occasional
"I'll stand with you
in this *******
battle"

IV.
I want to poem
that is not about a battle
I want a poem
that says

V.
Good,
you've ******* made it.
Good on you.
Steven Muir Jun 2014
I.
Hey.

II.
Hi, I'm Will.

III.
Will?
Where have your last two letters gone?

IV.
With my femininity.
Steven Muir Jun 2014
I.
Everyone would like to be
beautiful
now wouldn't they?

II.
Don't get that
word near me.
Steven Muir Jun 2014
I.
A veritable clusterfuck of bodies
and I've told no one,
I swear.

II.
But that brown shirt
loose enough to hide my chest
and long enough to hide my hips

III.
I was "he"
I was "bud"
I was "son".

IV.
I was
happy.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
I've only gotten one
college recruitment letter.

II.
It's from an
all girl's school.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
Never read over poems from when you were falling in love.

II.
Never plants flowers you cannot water.

III.
Never paint walls you don't want to live inside.

IV.
Never buy a dress you don't feel manly as hell in.

V.
Never pick up a guitar if your fingers already hurt.

VI.
Never forget your medication.

VII.
Never forget it twice in a row.

VIII.
Never refuse candy.
Because someone recently commented that my poems may not seem fair to readers - this isn't rules for the world. It's for me.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
"Ready soon?"

II.
"Ready now."

III.
"Come on, young lady."

IV.
And it's don't call me that,
and
I'm too afraid to say it
but what a dagger
in my side.

V.
I'm not young lady
anymore,
but I just can't seem to
tell.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
You make blood look delicious.

II.
That's wrong,
and I wish I could say it with conviction.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
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.
However much this sounds like it's about an ex, it's actually just about some friends of mine.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
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.
*******.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
I would like to say
one thing I have learned.

II.
Never leave someone else
to water your plants.

III.
They die.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
He turns up the music
and pretends
he can't see himself.

II.
It helps
a bit.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
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.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
Don't bother pretending
to revel in my company.

II.
I'll love you
anyway.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
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.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
We were not made
to fight battles
against our own bodies.

II.
At least
not most of us.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
I am a firm believer
in punching humans
who threaten you.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
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.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
Honestly
if someone called me '****'
I'd only be mad
it wasn't
'******'
Steven Muir Aug 2014
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.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
I.
You know,
it shouldn't make me cry with joy
simply to see someone
like me
on the television.
Steven Muir Jul 2014
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."
Steven Muir Aug 2014
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.
Steven Muir Aug 2014
I.
Hush
twelve times
and begin again
my dear.

II.
You are worth
only more
and more.
Steven Muir Jan 2015
I.
She breathes in sunlight
every morning,
and exhales upon the clouds
that surround my head.

II.
Hair twined in flowers
and lungs full of summer air,
she's a vision
without a care.
Steven Muir Feb 2015
I.
Her smile might be
the closest this earth
will ever get to
knowing heaven.

II.
I've pressed my lips to
heaven,
and I never wish
to stop.
Steven Muir Feb 2015
I.
She wakes up late and
it's a blessing.

II.
Dawn is brilliant,
but it couldn't
stand the competition.
Steven Muir Feb 2015
I.
I am a bundle of
nerves
over you.

II.
Silly,
as it'll be
the third time we do this
for February 14th.

III.
But the thought of
seeing you tomorrow
and your smile
makes it hard to not be
giddy.
Steven Muir Jan 2016
I.
You will never be sure of the correct manner in which to exist and you
will stumble over every line every
time you open your mouth and your
mumbles are honey.

II.
You are never quite right about what is expected of you and you
are always convinced someone is being hurt because you've
gone and done them wrong and yet you have done more
right by me than anyone I have ever known.

III.
It's alright you're falling into my arms you're falling into my
arms you're not falling apart.
Steven Muir Jan 2016
I.
There is nothing wrong with you the way you,
talk the way you do the way you,
hold too tightly before you fall sleep when you,
are up against me there is nothing wrong with,
me.
Steven Muir Feb 2018
I.
Wet dreams will be fifty percent nightmare. You do not bleed but there will be blood.
Conceptualizations of the violent as ****** the ****** as violent.
You are the word survivor but you are not thinking about your **** when you put your hands between your legs.

II.
If you handcuff yourself they cannot do it again; your wrists are already occupied.
If you leave bruises dark as night on your own legs the yellow ones they pressed there do not compare and they have become weak.
A candle in a cathedral blown out is not darkness until the wax has cooled.

III.
You will become a protest ground, occupy your own body. It is not empowerment it is defense. The Russians burned cities in the wake of their retreat and it was not brave.
You will stand in your own ashes because you are better than an army (you wish you believed it).
Thus shall be your prayer, an offering of your own entrails lain upon an altar to yourself.

IV.
You have a dream that your childhood house burns down and it’s exciting, there’s a second where you feel wind and the heat and you breathe deep.
Destruction is euphoric. To shrug material is to shrug some semblance of sentiment.
Memories change in retrospect and we are made not by the other but by ourselves. Decontextualization is a falsehood.

V.
You are nothing if not connections between all you have witnessed; therefore, witness yourself.
Become worship to your actions, your body. Expect the things you expect of a deity and when you touch forces powerful enough to hurt you become that force. You are constructed and thusly you may construct yourself by your choosing.
Play god with your own guts. Trust me, you have swallowed stars and you have swallowed ****, the pain it takes to cut them out of your stomach will be well worth it when you lay them across your bedroom floor.

VI.
You are all tenses (past, present, future) but you are not tense (on edge, high strung, stressed).
The only commitment you have made is yourself.
For what do words and kisses mean against occupation of a form?

VII.
You don’t remember a period in which time passed at a constant rate perhaps because it never did and perhaps because memory foregoes time.
Time in waiting rooms is gone from your head.
Doctor’s offices are half your adolescence and they are erased; you are not sad for it.

VIII.
There was a point when you wrote love poetry for your ****** and it said in a million ways “I want your feelings for me,” and then you did not want them.
You stopped wanting them.
You did not stop loving but you do not love with everything because it is an invitation.

IX.
This is not for the masses, for you must hold your own mass. Harmonize against your own hymnals and confess to your bathroom mirror.
You do not drink communion wine and yet you lick your wounds. Drink deep, gorge yourself on yourself. Become giddy with it.
You are red wine, you are power, you are a stimulant and a depressant at the same time. You are the ebb and flow of tidal waves and you are the shore they destroy (later, you will be the shore they create). You are every force of nature and there is no necessity for comparison because you are also every force of man.

— The End —