Two boys on
the bridge,

each, the other,
his;

they gaze across
the bay—

they could be there
one day.

Another glass
(bodega red)—
Christmas lights,
all buzz-eyed bokeh—

I want you close,
my nervous tic,
my lunar love,
Cassiopeia—

this holiday I
said too much,
I made a fool of
both of us—

but I don’t drink
to disappear—
I drink to kiss
my fearless lover.

I look at my chest the way I'd look at a wound
I know it's a part of me,
I know it's there,
But it feels temporary,
And a little gross,
Like when I sliced my thumb
On glass at 1am.
My binder is a bandage
And it's hard to take it off,
Because I feel the wound open up,
And my back hurts from wearing the bandage,
But it's so much better than
Seeing where my skin splits in two

Naked

She’s transparent as the tear drops that stain
her pretty face by smearing someone’s hate
under her eye liner and mascara. Don’t listen to

what people say. It shouldn’t matter. But it
does. She’s as sheer as her stockings
when she starts talking. You can hear the pitch

in her voice change, as a sliding trombone. See her eyes
glaze over, as a honey dew donut. Notice her head
drop, as boulder rolling down a mountain. Your words

become a smoking gun that you blow  in streams of
vowels and consonants. She’d rather have it all
fall out than implode. She’d rather be as is,

unclothed. Her heart is diaphanous too. It’s as delicate
as a loose tooth. And when it comes undone she
stores it under her pillow and grows a new one.