I stand here too still
Like a tree in a meadow
Though trees are alive

I.
try on the boy who hated his body. he feels comforted rather than uncomfortable when the people who love him say he doesn't have to. that it isn't the wrong body, or one beyond repair. that it simply is. this boy is okay.

II.
try on the boy who hated his lips. he feels safe rather than threatened when the boy he trusts says he wants to kiss him. he has trouble believing it but gets closer everyday. this boy is okay.

III.
try on the boy who hated his name. he has people who know him, and love him, and take the name he's made for himself and love it.  he melts when these people attach his name to him, and to affection, and to recognition, and to appreciated. this boy is okay.

I.
try on the boy who doesn't know what kissing is. just that he can't tell anyone. can't show anyone. this boy thinks he's supposed to shake.

II.
try on the boy who tries to reclaim his own lips. who gives up. and instead, he tries to tear them off for years. he tries to make others help him. he tries to drink things that burn until he can't feel them.

III.
try on the boy who kisses in the dark and can see this one clearer than any other. he isn't afraid or shaking or intoxicated. it burns nonetheless. he stares at this boy he can't see, this boy who knows what he's done to his own mouth and somehow isn't appalled. who somehow wants to be the first good thing to touch him.

I.
try on the boy who thinks of his body as a burial ground. who knows it is a minefield. who can feel it becoming a forgotten land, that no one who has loved him has touched. this boy thinks they wouldn't want to.

II.
try on the boy who digs graves in himself. who sets off the mines. who tries to forget the body that's been so hurt by obliterating it. this boy wishes no one would notice the marks he leaves, because they never noticed the marks anyone else left.

III.
try on the boy who feels guilty. because he put more value in what the people who hated him thought of his body than the ones who love him. because he flinched from the ones who loved him even though he wanted their touch, wanted to know if he really was a body and not a wasteland.

I.
try on the boy who thinks his name is girl. is sister. is daughter. he thinks his name is the one that means everything he's never been and never wants to be

II.
try on the boy who watches things burn and tells no one his name. because they would take it. because it belongs to him and he needs time to fill himself up with it before he can trust himself to share it without losing it

III.
try on the boy who demands people use his name. because it belongs to him. he demands people recognize it. this boy is not afraid to tell people unapologetically what they will call him.

I.
try on the boy who writes, in his head, on his wall, on the bathroom counter, on himself, rarely in his books

II.
try on the boy who draws, the things he loves and the things he hates and the things he wishes he still cared about and the things he wishes he could hate

III.
try on the boy who carves, in wooden chairs, in tree flesh, in his own