While having a heart to heart one night,
My friend informs me that as a straight person, I will never understand what it's like to be closeted.

That there is a reason people understand the term "gay suicide" without context,
That love looked like moth wings that would flutter away or wither at touch,
That the secrets and shame are like locks on the door from the outside and you realize that there is no one out there with a key.

That same friend once asked me if I've ever thought about joining a nudist colony.
She said that the comfort I find in my own skin and my ability to separate naked bodies from beds was admirable.
I told her, there was a reason I never read her my poetry.
I told her, I don't wear make up at Wal-Mart.
That I turn off the lights but still let him love me.
I read to estranged ears.
That bareness was something I would never grow into.

"Darling!" I told her, "there are some things you just aren't meant to see."
I have been truth-or-dared to strip naked, and its not as easy as you might believe.
There is a little something that sits at the back of my mind I like to call "modesty."

Modesty can be defined as the quality or state of being unassuming or limited in the estimation of one's abilities.
"Darling," I wanted to tell her, "You have no idea what these hands are capable of."

There was a time I was proud of that.
They were small and feeble, but holding a blade firm they became strong.
They became what I needed.
My skin became less of a barrier and more of a costume. When I slipped it on, I became original.
I became identified, if only to myself.
The scabs were a serial number the First World girl who was a little too white,
a little too straight,
and a little too doubtful could call her own.

But I was a little too weak,
and a little too lonely
and had a little too much time on my hands to wrap around the knife.

They became my drug. I became a liar.

My skin became an apology for everything I thought you should blame me for.

There was a time I would have done anything to show you, but I have always been a performer.
No one ever asked to see the curtains close.  

My friend told me that I would never understand what it's like to be closeted.
That secrets and shame are like locks on the door from the outside and you realize that there is no one out there with a key.
The tally of every moment I'm locked in is a timeline of my mistakes, visible on my own skin.
There are some things you just aren't meant to see.

he'd picked up all the pieces
putting her back together
and fixed all her mess
with a non-promising forever

she was a seed planted
and so was he
she was plain in red
but he'd already figured her beauty

she was a flower child
and he was a stem sturdy
she was an artist in the wild
and he'd admire her blatantly

she had blossoming petals
and he had growing leaves
she was special and above all
his only reason to live

she was a ****** rose
and he was ordinary left with nothing
but with her every cut and dose
he was there to stop the bleeding

she was a dying flower by may
and he'd just started blossoming
she kept pushing him away
until the day he'd stop trying

i was the wilted flower
and he was the beautiful one
i needed him more than ever
but he was long gone

*-djs

You slipped right through my fingers
(I never really had you any way)

I could swear up and down you don't care for me. It makes things so much easier.

Flashback to you kissing my freckled cheek while I'm asleep. Telling me words I've save for later. I'll turn them over and over in my head like worry stones.

Flashforward to you sitting with me in a crowded place. "We're just friends," you say evenly. I try my best not to squirm. Because we were never just anything.

I knew I'd pay the price for this. But who was I to give up a body that fit so well into mine?

You dowsed my ribs in gasoline when you first spoke words of your affection. You consistently threw lit matches at me.

Now you recoil and Jesus Christ, how do I begin to put myself out?

Do I even want to?

You show me a match you've saved for later. I don't know if able to reconstruct myself for the hell of it just to watch it burn later

Don't think I wasn't destructive before you. I am, and I will be infinitely. I am thinking of how my smoke built up in your lungs. Exhale now. Doing what's best for all involved parties.

"Do you know what it was like being around you, knowing I couldn't hold you?"

In that moment I'm certain somewhere in another life I would have loved you. Because all I ever wanted was the kind of romance I could write about it. The kind of sadness and longing that settles behind your ribs. If it had been a book I would've dog eared us and wept. But this is my life, real life and I can't just this back on the shelf.

He turns his back to me,
A exasperated attempt to flee,
Those feelings which arose,
Those feelings of a rose,
Seemingly sweet aroma of scarlet,
Yet one touch makes a harlot,
Thorns protrude and penetrate your skin,
Against good nature to your kin.

In the burning right hand of the bald city,
denizens frame calories and count instagram blessings
while beacons of hope refund inspiration in USADA *** cups.

Abyssinian maids wail over yesterday lovers
who wore Ginsberg’s skirt with less  pizzazz
and watched bedbugs **** blood off knee caps
wondering, what if Jesus Christ drove a Nissan?

As bullets of paragraphs fall Vietnamese pesticides on my head,
The dusts off my breath sing homilies
With letters of broken leather whiskey,
For even in the most dishonest jest,
clandestine toothbrushes are overrated
and every first false lie is the only truth.