The first time I heard the word
Lesbian
I was 8 years old and
They came from lips I'd just kissed.

I thought it was swearing,
That if her mother
Had heard her say it
she would be grounded for a week.

When it sits in my mouth,
It still feels heavy,
And my stomach churns the way it did
When I skipped class.

I'm not the only one who,
Growing up,
Thought sexuality was insulting,
And struggled to find myself there.

But I still feel lost,
And sometimes I'm convinced that
The words I think are the worst
Are the ones which fit best.

The dirt and the heavens have sat and shown us everything at once, telling about the heart has grown gray hairs on it's brim waiting to be groomed.
I say they are roots, not hairs.
I say all the words anyone can ever spill into you are a rainstorm or a desert and they are going to make you wilt or drown you but either way you are as much of yourself as you can be.
We live in a world that is plagued with shadows that are taken apart by sun beams and sparks of the moon yet they do not know how to stop coming back to our hips like black horses that ride with what we allow Them to ride with.
And they sleep like they know there is a tomorrow, they have courage welded from wind and reverence from the cathedrals of giants that do not know how to be anything less than their very own purpose.
I think of the chapels of light, and the towers of dark, and how there are not even kingdoms filled with both of them, and I am reminded that they love each other too much to be consumed with the presence of one another knowing the world may stop it's dancing.
I hope come to be that way.
That I learn to love someones precense so much I cannot bare to be around it.
Infesting the night or the stars dictating the day as if something that cannot be held is not worth hoping for.
I think of what does not return and what does return, and ask that I have the wisdom to know the difference between what keeps me from seeing, and what has spent it's entire life giving my eyes gifts wrapped in flesh and blood and bone and filled with secrets not made to be kept on shelves or shoulders.
This world is not a child that can lie on your chest in slumber and fall asleep as easy as it wakes up. And I say, there cannot be evil where there is music, and that both what we give, and what we take, are the mosr beautiful thins our bodies can produce and that,

that is what is hidden in between shades of the Earth and her silence.
And from the loss and the blind places of land,
we run.

You caused a dive-bomb reaction in the pit of my stomach.
10 days until you're gone.
In ten days you could fall in love
if you try hard enough
in ten days you could get addicted to something
like nicotine or your hands on my waist
in ten days you could learn a new language
and whisper it on the crook of my neck
like every night when you told me
me pareció mi hogar en ti
which roughly translates to
i've found my home in you
i am constantly trying to convince myself
that you can't make a home out of a human being,
but when i'm lying in my own bed
i can't help but catch myself saying
"i want to go home"
there are still nights that i lie awake and wish you were next to me
although the love you had for me died
as soon as you found Rachel.
I have always felt like a girl,
but around you i felt like a woman.
you made love to the curves on my hips
without ever having to remove clothing
and i had no idea that fingertips could cause liberation
until you kissed mine.
As soon as your lips touched my skin
i knew i would dream about you for as long as i live.
You always had what i needed,
drugs, alcohol, love, emotion, friendship.
Every day for years i would make my way to your house
and you would have a the drugs waiting for me
and as soon as i felt i could fly through the clouds
i ended up swimming in your body
unable to force myself to stay above surface level
because you always drowned.
The screaming matches that were produced
about you wanting to die
scared the living hell out of me because
i realized i was not enough for you.
you told me nothing was sacred,
that no spine was too straight to snap into submission,
that every layer of skin could be clawed off,
and that's why you feared the scars on my body.
Your first stare was a look of horror,
but then it was a look of love and you knelt down next to me
and kissed every inch of my body and i thank my body
for learning how to thank yours.

In ten days you will be gone,
and you can never love someone as much as you can miss them.

Forgive me, Father, but I'm no sinner
Crossed the finish line first but I'll never be the winner
And it burns like fire and stings like dry ice
To be a god ****** virtue disguised as a vice
To be an ant in a farm full of cows and sheep and pigs
To be kindling in a fire, burning like a twig
Forgive me, Father, if I'm not who I should be
But I'm not a sinner for just being me

She is drunk.
I am drunk.
This is not a poem.
She is beautiful.
I am not.
This
Is not a poem.
Tomorrow i will be sober
And she will want to be drunk
And this is
Not a poem.
She is leaving me
And i am not
And this is not
A poem.
She is crying
I am (trying) not to
And this is not a
Poem.
She is beautiful
And i am drunk
And this is not a poem

I am selfish enough to want to get better
but i am backwards enough to not take any steps to get there.
I like the sound of Mozart in the morning
if your voice is unavailable.
I am willing to take a man
and hide him away in my pocket
as long as no one else can see him.
I am more than a human being
but less than a ship
because I can drown on command
but have no external survival devices for those around me when I'm gone.
I am like water
because I can slip through your fingers
but I am able to stay solid as long as I stay away from your lips.
I am like the sound you hear
in unbearable silence
driving away at your eardrums begging to be heard.
I am the branch accidentally tapping on your window
because he made me do it
and the Wind is a hard fellow to deny.
I am that three-leaf clover you mistook for a lucky one
so you split one leaf to make four
just to make others believe you've found something great.
I am the illusion of a father figure that your father should have been
although he is still here
and you have not found enough space in your heart for forgiveness.
I am the claw marks on your back after you've been ******
not by a man who loves you
but by a stranger who's sole purpose was to not let you get away.
I am composed of sweet smiles and sad eyes
of carbon monoxide
of unimaginable poisons and tales.
I am the fear of your future wrapped up in a bottle
I am the fear of your tomorrows molded gently into pink raised lines on your body
I am the fear of yourself suspended gracefully in the air disguised as smoke
but i am indefinitely known as the words you are afraid to speak
in fear that they might shatter.