I associate crushes with dread
A sinking feeling
Even as a child, choosing a crush was a source of anxiety
I chose the boys I wanted to skateboard like
And steal the smiles of

That's not exactly true
I'm retroactively choosing information to fit my current narrative
I'll try again

We all want to be liked
And feeling like one of the guys
And liking those same guys
Has always been entwined for me
There's electricity for me in that safety

i) One day I was looking around and trying to be like all the girls around me
ii) And then one day I stopped looking
And started doing what I wanted, and wearing the things people I was attracted to were wearing.
iii) And then every boy I was ever drawn to became absorbed into my identity.
iiii) I will become satisfied when I am a chameleon and a kaleidoscope of these masculinities

...Or when I become too exhausted by the process and am satisfied with the journey.

My thoughts of suicide are not that I want to die
It's a grasping for a lack of existence
It's so ****** up to have two things like that coincide
For something to be both your worst fear
And everything you want in the same moment.
And I think I just described my love life.
The fight for and fly away from instinct.
So a lot of my relationships were just freezing.

My body and I don't talk much anymore
But every night's a one night stand
Where brief connections are where we can barely stand to meet
My emotions and I haven't been on good terms lately
What does that say if I can't even understand me?

I hold genetics responsible for my obsessive tendencies
I think hyperfixation runs in the family
My father hoards movies
And I could count more DVDs
In our basement than words he ever ******* said to me

My brother liked rubix cubes
So he learned how to solve one in under a minute
Only took him 3 days
And I'm pretty sure the only language I ever spoke belonged to fiction

Is there a word for love that's obligatory?
The place in your chest where the hearts supposed to be?

Nothing is more my catnip
Than gay fiction
Because nothing is so enticing and foreign to me
Than love between men
Something so close to me
yet so out of reach

When I fall in love
I make a point to keep that person at a distance
Proximity breeds diapointment
And the less I know
The less I have to stop loving
That may sound tragic
But it hasn't hurt so far
Ignorance is not bliss
but it IS fleeting
It is temporarily uncomplicated feelings

Let's ignore the divorcé I've become from my body
Let's talk about my social anxiety
In public
where there's a target on my back and the darts are her and she
Let me believe
Pray one day that when I hear strangers say he
I think
I believe
they mean me

With your weight ontop of mine
Dragging tentitive fingertips along your spine
And my palms pressed against the warmth of your back
Your hands in my lap
I feel you shiver
And something in me aches to react
I can't help it
I can't help it
I say: "be tame"
But it blooms

I turn to inhale at your neck in the crook
I try to be subtle
and you pretend not to notice me look
Just rest your head on my chest
And pretend not to notice me
A quivering wreck
Heart a live wire
Is this what we are now?
A mask and a mirror?
A show for no one in the room.
We play straight for no audience.
And despite the struggle
Everything I try to muffle
It still blooms.

Ive mastered the art of hiding my body from myself
Not seeing myself naked even in the shower
Only seeing my face in the mirror
And washing myself with a cold, impersonal, clinical touch.
Being surprised new chest hair grows back
After I last plucked it from between my *****
because I haven't looked down in so long.
I learned a long time ago by body wasn't for me
But was a flesh coffin for my soul to lie in
For this pretty boy to die in
And pretty down so the outside world would stop calling me she
And being he hasn't been cheap.
Im in the process, now, of learning that it's never enough
No matter what you give to cis-ciety
To abide by their standards
You will still be catcalled
Still asked on the first date about your surgery
Still referred to as Miss with your sideburns and mustache and low octive voice.
Theyre so hungry
their nonsense says feed me
Stop wearing make up
Dress uncomfortably
Try harder
Just to please me
But they will always find a reason to kick you out of the men's restroom.
And even if they dont
Even if they smile and call you sir
Even if they ask your **** size on the first date instead of what's between your legs
Even if they ignore you on the street because youre wearing pants instead of skirt.
You wonder what they would have said to you 12 months ago
When estrogen had softened your jawline
When mac tinted your lips
And you could still hit the high notes in that song on the radio.
Would they have called you sir then?
Do you feel any more safe
washing your hands in the men's room
Waiting to be caught?

Left to your own devices
You know what the price is
Obsess on the horror that awaits you
Anyone on the inside and outside, those ready to erase you
Think of all the pain and blame
All the time they take and it takes you
And takes you a little bit longer
Think that trauma makes you stronger
Makes you a little bit harder
To relate to
And they hate you
Wait to break you
After years no break through
Everything you
every accomplishment is fake
Any time you thought you were great
Just get blocked when they discriminate
Say your oppressions your own fate
It's your life at stake
No matter how little time you take
You'll always be late
And what a cute little almost boy you could have made