people always told me to hold onto the spark but it only ever got me in trouble
neurosis crawling up my spine and stunting the growth just below my neck

I am stunted, those boys in baggy school blazers and leather shoes will grow into men and I've barely got an inch on them

a savant of sorts, sure, but I'm not a child anymore
my ways hold me back; my ways hold me down

the spark I was told to to hold on ever so tightly, it hurts peoples eyes and burns their fingertips

I will not grow
I will only die down and submit to
the natural elements

disintegrate along with the vapour of the candle when it burns out

I feel as though I comprehend language more than the act of communication itself
I can recite definition and etymology
Spell it out loud for you
But understanding of language is no substitute for understanding of the other, to truly convey meaning

And oh, I crave to communicate but all I do is speak
in my fight or flight of thought, deconstructing and analysing
Oh do I crave to be understood

clanging against disequilibrium,
Oh do I throw myself at the door and ****** my fists beating at it
Oh do I scream and rip the handle clean off
Oh do I cry and wish good wombs had borne better sons
Oh I set the whole world on fire for its sins and seek forgiveness of mine

But I am unable to reach through the barrier
I cannot touch or be touched with words the way human beings do
I have miscomprehended everything all along
And as much as I crave a saviour I have made peace
That nobody will ever know me
and that my words are all I have

echolaliac epileptic, easily defined by clinical terminology
my body is cumbersome though my skin is thin
the isolation disorder is double consciousness, watching through my own eyes,
it is out of body and it is lonely
(as am I)

I don't even think about it anymore because it would crush me. it would eat me alive. starting in my gut, dissolving through the fat like acid tossed in someone's face. you'll see right through me like my skin is made of glass. empty greenhouse. bricked windows. only weeds and mold grow here.

I try to act natural, try to blink like a human might do
but I can't help but check, check, check
the TV is off, the computer is off, the plug socket is on

where is that sound coming from?

I fiddle around with the truth in my hands
trying to mold it into a shape I can stand
(that isn't age 7 when I didn't understand)

I look up and say with a pensive sigh,
"I've never made love to anyone,"
because that is no lie

but I promise myself, there is hope for a body profane as mine
a ****** I will be! and I'll make love for the first time-

to a lover, to a tender hand,
to another boy and not a man

in the queen-sized bed, on the soft white sheets
intertwined and in love, our bodies will meet

Victor Frankenstien went shopping through morgues and cemeteries and picked out only the very best features,
stitching them together with string and tape

the flowing black hair and the delicate pale skin,
it should have been perfect

but once the lightning struck and the creature opened his glassy eye the truth was revealed

you can't make a person that way
not a good one anyway

the hair was matted and the skin that looked so fresh on a corpse was jaundice

the monster was a monster by design, even if it was not intentional

I understand what it means to take what seems so beautiful on other bodies and stitch it together haphazardly trying to make something perfect

I have Victors hands, the hands that play god

but more than that,
I have the sickly skin and the glazed-over eyes

I have the very best things I saw in everyone else

a gentle angel with one million eyes to watch over her children,
I took her kindness
a wretched holy beast that could never be hurt, I took his aggression

I stole ideas and attitudes that resonated with me,
I stole the rebellion that I saw the righteous wear in books and on TV
I stole the heart that some sweet girl wore on her sleeve with faith in the world around her
I plagiarized, I became everything I thought was beautiful

with my Frankenstein hands I had created a self to live in, an idea to thrive in my useless body

I thought I could live as the perfect boy, the perfect person

but the ideas split off, still inside me
growing and expanding and bulging out of my skin
my bones crack under the weight of so many people within

the sweet, the angry, they were always at odds

a monster, a monster that lies in poppy fields and dreams about love

a sweetheart, a sweetheart that slices rats in half just to see what their insides look like

I am not the perfect thing I wanted to be
I am fractured like the bones I had to rip apart to make them fit

I am too little too late and too much too soon all in one,
not enough, never enough, far too much to bear

I am the god I swore was dead,
I am taxidermy animals that don't look quite right

I am fractures of what I wanted to be

I am Frankenstein
but
I am also Frankenstein's monster

I grew up
wanting to be you
because you were
cool and mature

the cigarettes,
the alcohol,
the ***

the peak teenage life
that this little boy
idolized

and in the end
I did end up like you

but I realized you've always been
a scared, scarred child
like me

and the life that we chose
isn't really a choice

it's the curse that came
from an old man's ***** hands

and while you tried to wash it off
you dragged me into the bathtub

and your
beautifully manicured hands
were filthy

you grabbed my wrist so hard
you might have broke it if I tried to resist

I wish I had snapped my arm out from your grip
and shouted for my brother

but I didn't do that
I kept quiet

because I wanted to be cool like you