My mom’s always been one to comment,
“Why do you let yourself be humiliated”
In response to my every cry of the rude, rude
words placed against me every day.
And when she’d ask, I’d be silent
without a proper, clean answer –
I know now.

That time I let my friends bind me to a bench once an embarrassing 2022,
use their blood-of-aphrodite cosmetics that stained my face with their factory ambrosia
all for the joke of it. A smudge of lip gloss cherry red (or blood red) on my mouth,
pointing up from the corners of my mouth making a smile (in truth a frown of regret) –
knowing **** well I would never let anyone do that to me
again. A promise I kept when I returned home that very day,
my hair sectioned into three tails that rose above my scalp into
palm trees – my mother worried for me and my future. A promise I broke to maintain
my friendships and social face within the walls of school.

No matter if it was positive or negative, faces crawling up in smiles or snickers among the
hallways, I wanted to be recognized.

My psyche status quo is crumbling like dust in my hands each minute,
powder blush – a cloud of identity has begun to form on my palms.
I feel bad for my mother, for how would she feel knowing that the son
she tamed so well, so masculine, not a hollow husk of vanitas
to be tempered with by the likes
of negative words.

Bona Glue-tainted lashes show their entirety and reveal remnants of humiliation,
how stupid actions now leave their stupid reminder.
They begged me to try them.
Once, twice, thrice – until I said yes to shut them up.
I remember my eyes being forced open like a
greedy man trying to receive the pearl he
swam deep in the ocean for, forcing the clam
to open.

If the clam doesn’t want to open, it doesn’t want to open.
Yet, I let them stain my nacre with their concept of “humor”
and the bullets of their insults instantly concealed by the same words every time:
“It’s just a ‘funny’ joke.”


My body is torn between respecting one another or myself, and I always ask myself:
“What’s there to respect about myself if people don’t like me?”
This toxic belief shaped into a vessel with  arms and legs, two big eyes, brown skin
(Not to be confused with the likes of curry, I’ve received one too many comments)
A face stuck in the yesteryears of people pleasing.

I let them come for my eyes, my skin, my nose, my lips
My cheeks, my teeth, my ears, down to my chin
My neck, my chest, my bony chest, to my skinny arms
that wrap their melanin membrane tightly around my bones, my fingers,
my weak joints, all the way back to my flat stomach, my waist, my hips,
my frail legs that can only carry me so far, my rocky knees, my swollen ankles,
my feet.
Anything to please those who use their tiny lens to gaze at my every part
To humiliate me is the attention I crave.

My body’s a canvas of ridiculement that hundreds have stained with words,
“You're too feminine,” “your ****** to hell for your personality.”
To change my name as I am insulting the many before
who held this torch of fire
To assume I’m gay for the very bits of difference
I hold as compared to the every boy in this ****** building
Their sporty builds, their bodies fit and lean, no bones to be seen
A knack for sports, a charisma unparalleled
Popularity rounds themselves around the same people copy pasted.

Calm of youth; adolescence yet to bear its fruits from within
Hitherto a descending world, before clear lungs of only air
Tales of a beast who induces slow ignorance into the minds of many circulate to he, of whom the journey will be, and the mistakes that come along.
The clear rosy membrane felt but not seen, lungs clean of filth.

Pride of growth, to when the brave warrior stood tall and mighty at his ripe advent of thirteen
Sword in his hand, braced the lair of the beast – of many things within him, porcelain lungs untouched
The vessel of breath - of he who dreams of a golden life upheld with fantasy - yet to waste
And after it all, he who’d take his last clear breath.

The worst risk taken; the quiet storm within his body aggravated
Curiosity takes the form as a metallic thing, like him a body unravelled
To the pressure of peers and the societal trend, he finally recollected the words of the beast:
“I bring only harm to the one who dares my presence, I do no good.
Breathe in my breath, I tell you. And allow my venom to silently take over.
All quarrels pulmonary may spiral up, the flesh pink balloon gone.”
Ignorance takes the form of the latter who ignored the beast's words, and thus curio turned to addiction.

The atropos of his own body lay on the bed of his imminent death.
The name of the beast was concealed, but the high and wise simply addressed it as a cigarette.
Classified a small beam of grey, enclosed within a poison baneful in every essence.
The lungs he cherished so deeply fragmented, shattered, dead.
Phlegm coughed out dust, an aching pain in his larynx
Bile accumulates and pleads to be released
The body once pure now susceptible to the most microscopic curses
Health in jeopardy, and all feels like a life sentence    
Akin to that of an elder, his lungs crumpled. And like the debris of igneous rock, the color of ashen nature
Health to be gone, health in peril
As to him, oxygen was an unobtainable dream held on a golden pedestal.
And like the millions of others that came before him, he became a victim of the beast’s ways.

you, whose body is forged of a dew beyond the murky waters -
and the glistening teeth of a countless ray of corals, a
marine bliss in it’s whole - why do you shun the world
out? why do you seek solitude entirely in your clam? for
out there, an explorer - albeit one - is eager to open the
clam and see the magnificent pearl that rests among the
oceanic pink - you who is bathed in the light of the sun from
the blue storm, of nimble hands that caress the sea and waves
with such beauty. you, who radiates like a fruitful gem of the ocean,
why do you hide yourself from all? you, the pearl in solitude,
let loose of the burden that has confined you and reveal your iridescence
to the world, for this world is already letting loose of the shine it once held
so dearly.

you say you’ve changed, but i don't see it in your plastic wails.
you only say “sorry” to avoid the burden of guilt, only to
press the foot that you placed on my back even harder.
i can still feel the silent venom of your words, to me
or not. do not take me as idiotic, because even
though this vessel of ragged skin and bone cannot
hold up physically for himself, he has learned
not to trust those who shed snake tears.
i’m not to be fooled, i’ve been fed poison from strangers
since the day i came into adolescence - all because of one thing, myself.
and it comes to life - the thought that those who judge others
are nothing short of their remarks. so, call me feminine and fragile
behind my back and act as if my ears deceive me - but they
don’t, and serpents like you i won't fall easily prey to. and easy
prey i may be, but not to be captivated in the hands of you.

popped - out of the freakshow donning a ball of red on my nose, and blue streaks of paint running down my eyes. to you, i look like a jester - but,  these lines are but tears i couldn’t shed in the form of paint to me. in  fact, coat  my entire face with the blue dye for the stains of dissapointment that spread their invisible contagion across my face - like a bacteria infecting me.
under the pale paint that has concealed my tired skin is filth and dirt that no water can cleanse of.
so circus master,
do i stay a ridiculement in this hurting society
as this pompous identity that you forged,
hiding my true blemishes & stains or
be at liberty & viewed as
disgusting as i
am always
seen as?

why must i be viewed as an anomaly in this world?
as i gaze into the eyes of those who are above me,  i can only wonder.
for what have i done that is considered sin? is my mere presence like
a gilded elephant in a room of monochrome silhouettes? i hold firmly
on the last vibrant balloon of my fleeting conviction as i walk between the masses,
wondering “what have i done to deserve this hell?” as i tread the roads
of this winding society, i let loose of the balloon, and the colors begin to drain from my life.
now, i am but a puppet of society. tie the string around my arm and carry me like a balloon,
and let me go as the days pass. let me fly into the skies to eventually pop
and plummet back down as you find your new toy, and repeat the process, as to you i was but rubber and plastic. and i am. i am rubber and plastic - let me rot for the solstices to pass as my dead body gazes into the sky for a lifetime, awaiting to be buried in the soil. i am but the pieces of the fragile material that endured too much pressure and just popped.