Mozart,
deaf,
died, eventually.

Picasso, pervert, died; Whitney, Winehouse, drugs, dead; Elvis, Methamphetamine, died

(on the toilet).

Van Gogh,
missing an earlobe,
died.

Plath,
head in an oven,
in front of her kids,
Woolf
Patron saint of insanity, I guess
waded into a river and-

River. River Phoenix. Drugs.

Natalie Merchant wrote that song about him in 1995.

Flash forward.
Me, twenty-one, drunk.
Proprietor of a collection of lackluster poems.
Sold their small, nonbinary soul to the Devil
in exchange for a fortune,
gone.

So,
My shirts are ragged and I
Drink too much on many occasions and I
Often reek of cigarettes and untold lies and I
Can't seem to keep myself steady for more than a minute but
I

Can write a love poem that'll make you go to pieces
And I
Will calculate the distance to the stars and find out how to launch you there
And I
Won't rest until I see it completed.

Sure, I
Can't control a sentence for more than a few words and I
Barely know my thoughts and I
Am a rambling, insecure mess and I
Don't know where I came from, but
I

Can help you find a home here amongst the shadows,
And bellow out your name so it infinitely echoes

There will be a digital trace

Of this in the morning,
And I will know
That I was alive

Sitting on the couch with a beer,

Thinking about how much worse
My life would be if I
Had Chlamydia.

Bug bites.
Goose bumps.

"I'm totally down to chill if you are"

This man I don't know
stopped me in a room full of paintings,
asked me if I knew that
Helonias was having an ******

as she clutched the head
of John the Baptist
and pierced the tongue
that spoke against her-

I had always thought
the woman was mourning.

Her face seemed contorted
in statuesque grief,
but, no -

She was *******
as she mutilated
the first cousin of Christ.

How, strange, how brutal
a thing to know.

This OCD means
I scrape at my scalp with this dusty razor
until only raw skin is left.

This depression means
I call on my mother
to re-open old wounds
and spill blood for me.

This anxiety means
I read her old love poems,
scared of whomever received them.

This dysphoria means
I have frequent nightmares
and wake up clutching my head,
making sure
that my hair is still short

and I dream, sometimes
of using a saw
to hack off my *******-

This dopamine means
I feel all of you
and see all of me
like nobody else.

Yesterday in a court of law,
I was called a Sir.

I carried on the proud lineage
Of men before me,
Who fought and died for their country
And loved without abandon.

Pasta makers, butcher's boys,
Painters, and writers.
I claimed my place among the ranks,

One I had dreamed of
As a child,
Staring into the face
Of my great-grandfather
And his father before him.

Don't you dare blame any of this
On my star sign,
Or yours,
You are just as culpable

For breaking,
Tormenting
And leaving

When I am with you,

My smile can blaze

And my muscles

Contort themselves into positions

I never imagined possible

I brim with compassion.

My strength comes from encountering fear
And gazing into the eyes
Of whatever form it takes.

It lies in my acceptance
Of vulnerability as great as the trees
Whose aged, gentle leaves
Shade my fragile skin
And restore me as I slumber.

This confidence is a new development,
And I do not always bear it with grace;
But I trust in my abilities
And love for living,
(A rare thing! A new thing! A grand thing!),
Which I defend fiercely
And with great care.

Shame upon whomever seeks to shatter
The tranquility of another!
May the yellow eye of terror
Fixate on them
And inspire redirection.

You weren't my muse.

I wrote love poems to you,
Not about you,

And there's a difference.

I cradled my words alone,
They did not need your touch
To thrive

You said, in small text:

<p>OKAY. Let’s talk about this. </p>

<p>✨CW: transphobia, mental health stuff, strong language✨</p>

<p>[Reblog the hell out of this post. It’s about to be important].</p>

<p>I woke up this morning to my girlfriend, my partner-in-crime, my best friend, my favorite bean, sending me this photo. She couldn’t believe that it was real and thought that I was playing some sick joke. </p>

<p>Good ******* morning. </p>

<p>Listen up, whoever you are, you entitled little ****. Your opinions, attractions, desires, whatever they are - they DO NOT MATTER. Assuming, based on the context of your post, that you identify as a guy, let me just say this: </p>

<p>You are a small man. You’re using the guise of anonymity to objectify a radiant woman whose depth and breadth you can’t ever begin to comprehend - and I’m not just saying that because she’s mine. You’re also transphobic as **** - and clearly don’t understand that trans-ness and genitalia are actually (and often) far removed from each other. </p>

<p>I’d like to think that I don’t need to explain why the comment “your girl ain’t a girl no more” (in addition to being grammatically terrible) is NOT acceptable, but in case I do, here is MY two cents on the matter of MYSELF. </p>

<p>I fought for this body. I bled for this consciousness, I shined light into places in me that I didn’t know existed and found depression, dysphoria, trauma, and loads of anxiety. I nearly died for this body. If it hadn’t been for a select few people who saw me for the love I was worth, I wouldn’t be alive to write this post. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact. </p>

<p>I’m telling you, stranger, this because there is more behind your words than you know. Each time you take your privilege and cishetero advantage for granted and allow misguided, bigoted words to fall out of your disgusting face-hole or fingertips, you’re reminding me of how I almost died for this body and consciousness. How my girlfriend and countless others like us have been subject to vast physical and mental torment for our queerness, our trans-ness, our SELVES.</p>

<p>I’m addressing you not as you, but as the mass of people you represent. I’m posting this on behalf of the 22 trans people who were murdered last year because of ignorance like yours. I’m posting this on behalf of feminine-identified people everywhere who deal with the wrath of objectification, sexism, and violence that your very actions embody and permit. </p>

<p>

On Taking Up Space,

the ripples of the skin of my gentle lover-

Diligently recorded

In smudging black ink

I've been very vulnerable lately. I am vulnerable, and I'm not sure how to exist within it.

Well, see, society (what is it? It lives and breathes but is often undetected- like a cyborg) tells us that vulnerability = femininity, in order for both to mutually invalidate the other- because in a patriarchal society that feeds on myth, there is no room for either of them, as they provoke questions. But once you're out of the spectrum,  things begin to change.

I'm beginning to view patriarchal systems of oppression as post-apocalyptic worlds - something which, through my interest in science fiction, is important and familiar to me. It makes this life seem equal parts more bearable and more gruesome, because, on one hand, nothing seems real, but on the other, everything appears to be hyper-realistic and predictive of some sort of massive disaster. Oftentimes I'm not sure which to side with.

I'm also keeping a journal of things that I do to make myself feel better & gendering them as society would just to see what I'm like inside. It's interesting to see that I'm a mixture of gendered behaviors, but that pain itself is not gendered.

My trans friend says that's contradictory. He believes that society exists purely without gender, intrinsically, and that since we create gender for ourselves as a means of oppression, I shouldn't be trying to figure out how I relate within that system, but rather attempting to break out of it.

But, hey- better the devil you know than the devil you don't, right?

I'm aware that our drinking might be damaging
to our livers, but
there's something amazing about seeing ourselves
without filters.

The pull you described-
I thought it was imaginary
as I'm not the best judge of my own character
and when you met me, I thought I was a *******.

Sometimes, I still think I'm a *******.

But you've molded me
into something far better,
a form I am proud to inhabit,
a soul I enjoy feeding
and feeling inside me.

Yes, you're an inspiration
and yes, your form and mind keep me awake
at night, imagining
possibilities-

ways to kiss you, adore you, be a better man for you -

(and yes,
I gendered myself

partially because you've made me realize
that my Self is a canon
of hope for others like me
and that I should cherish it)

There's nothing more precious to me
than waking up next to you,
feeling your eyelashes flutter
against my cheek as we rise,
procrastinating leaving our bed
because it's warm and inviting-

or feeling your breath in my ear
as you tell me your stories,
secrets
that I won't ever mention
to anyone-

You'll have everything I can give
in my emotional reserve.

You'll have my joy, pain, oblivion
and all in between.

You'll have time, love, patience, faith,
whatever you need,
my love,
ask
and it shall be granted

You know what it's like to sleep beside me
And wake up to my morning breath, you know
What it's like to sink yourself into my depths,
Together
You and I know everything.

A woman once told me
I was an open book with tattered pages and
I do not think I can agree with this, but
Whatever kind of book I am, you
Have taken the time to learn me
And sift through every page
Marking and highlighting
Your favorite passages
With your clay-stained, summer hands.

You have seen the rivers of light run through my eyes
And you know that I grew up without a family, live without a home, and
While you understand these things you also know
That they are not why my love for you
Is so strong, and I cannot thank you enough
For knowing that.

When your hands meet my flesh, they are not surprised that it is startled by itself
And take the time to soothe
The fearful currents running through it
Back to sleep.

When your eyes meet mine, I'm reminded that
I have never felt so familiar
In another person's gaze.

You ground me, rescue me from chaos on occasion by reminding me
That it is never too late to be new-

And I ought to slow down my hurtling mind
More often than I do
To tell you this,
And write to thank you.

When you touch me
sometimes time stands still
and sometimes it rushes.

I often can't tell
which is which.

You're either electrifying me
or cooling me down,
or both (?)

Flip my switches,
peel back my hardened layers
to see how the pistons
move inside me

the impetuous blood
streaming through my veins

See, taste, take all you want
from my slim pickings,
unraveled from crowds before you,

but still, they're there.

And though I don't have much to offer,
I'd love to offer it to you.

I've been using my computer's HDMI chord to connect to a T.V. in order to game, but I've never written poetry on it.

The magnification of the words and the fluidity of the transfer from keyboard to screen is magnificent.

It's giving a kind of otherworldly, surreal feeling to the pieces I'm creating.

i hate that our parents taught us to muffle our emotions

and i hate the need for a cigarette that i feel in your car



i hate that when i was younger i told myself to stop writing songs

i hate the need for loving that i feel when i'm alone



but it is going to be alright sometime

it is going to be alright sometime

i feel this soft



you don't know what to do when you're cold and lonely

your sit on my bed and watch tv

the seasons are changing

your hands are frigid and you are messaging your girlfriend

telling her existential things,

bringing her into your crisis



now you're remembering when you were thirteen

and in love with ingrown ivy

and your best friend...

who told you she could never love you and said so in the cryptic bubbles

she drew in your poetry book.

you're feeling kind of restless and you know you can't contest that

there's no way

to get out of this highhandedly-



so you turn away

and you make up words to fill the pages of



your soft leather book

and you think of sweet summer, somewhere special and you crawl

into your bed

where you can be warm

and blend in -

On the day you left me
The wine hit my chest
As soon as I woke.

The skies opened up and wept

How fitting

Talk to me more about miscommunications.

Tell me more about
These jumbled lips,
Misshapen teeth,
Boxed-off smiles you're carting around.

Convince me one more time that you're so perfect,
Please.

Cut my wings and ask me to take flight,
Again, I dare you.

I was strong
And in need of redemption
I was lost
And deserved a response -

Craft another elegant lie about how you loved me
And I'll use it as fuel for these flames.

The crimes of my heart are swift and brutal.

Tell me again
you find masochism attractive,
and I’ll show you
true devotion

We are hiding things.

Secrets looped around the roots of our teeth,
nestled under our tongues,
sliding down our esophagus

Winding their way throughout our rib cage,
inching towards our hearts

Feel less dread when you think about the complex nights you've had,
stupors you've fallen into,
lovers you've kissed.

Those things are okay,
and everybody does them.

Eat your breakfast on the fire escape, and watch the birds.

Read a little every morning, too
and remember that "morning"
means "before twelve pm."

Breathe a little, darling,
and not just into the mouth
of a stranger.

You said to keep my eyes on you,
but I was busy memorizing
the way your cadence rose and fell
and how each syllable
altered the contours of your face;
and you revived everything around you...

I'm not a person for promises,
or seeds sown out of spite, but there is something so fascinating about you-

how you glide and breathe
so effortlessly by me

and I think that maybe, you could be my sun
if circumstances
and solar systems
allow

I was immersed in you

For a hot moment

Until the rains came

And when the fog lifted,

I was rebirthed

And sank

Your bruises fail me.
Your clinics and doctors fail me.
Your out-dated policies, lack of tribunal protocols
fail me.
Your guidelines, endless forms, paper guzzling rituals
fail me.

I owe you nothing. You will receive whatever it is that I choose to bestow upon you with either love or discomfort.
You have no choice.
The time has come for a systemic revolution, starting with the Self.
I owe you nothing. You cannot change me nor hinder these evolutionary processes.

Your scalpels fail me.
Your nip-and tuck, ****** relocations
fails me.
Your aesthetics fail me.

Make room for me in this ocean, or I will drown you all alive.

Your triumphs fail me, too.

She is always looking behind her
To see what she's dropped
Out of fear,

I do the same
Out of curiosity.

We've smashed against one another,
Desperate to connect but unaware
There was a simpler answer
To our misconceptions

What love has died inside you,
Shriveled at the thought of me?

What silence do you send me
In lieu of compromise?

I am slowly desensitizing

Myself to the word

"Babe"

Bedsheets. A distant memory that is all but forgotten-  fading flesh and neurons straining to recapture the scent of a long-ignited, distant flame...

You know this is all yours,
I mean,
Who else
Could it possibly be for?

I haven't cried in weeks.

I'm not sure if I remember how.

The desire swells at the back of my throat,
the muscles constrict and burn, but when the blade is just inches
from plunging through my neck, I stop

and pour another glass of wine

Their healthy trans-ness
in the face of my own desolate relationship
made me sad

and thorny

but so, so happy for them
and their ability to thrive

Well,

I'm a bastion of something, to someone, I guess,
I just can't understand it.

I explain things all the time
To people with half-minded hearts and half-hearted minds,
Who might mean well but are conditioned
To think of nothing but themselves.

And yet I see myself in other people?

I'm a mercenary for a god I'm just inventing
And nobody will follow me, not yet
Because they're waiting out the seasons.

I'm a different person in a different body at the beginning of each new day,
I can't repeat myself.

I say nothing to my reflection as I morph,
Consistency wasn't a gift handed to me
(Much less, taught).

I'm a caricature of someone,
But yet, I don't know who.

So but what gender are you?

I don't know, the answers to that question hide behind a door that's closed and I can't seem to get it un-stuck.

So please,
Do not come up to me on the street and ask me if I give a ****, because I don't

My soul cannot be owned or bought
And in order to understand me, you need to forget all the binary lessons you've been taught.

So, but what gender are you?
Why don't you come up here and define me? Please, take a shot

Put this nervous, wandering soul back where it belongs - in a box

Next to you
I slow my breathing
To memorize the rhythm of yours,
Which calms me from the memory
Of nightmares

I was always
The first person awake at the sleepover;

Maybe one or two girls awoke
But everyone returned to rest with ease
Except me -

I've long been looking for things to fill those spaces
Between sleep and wakefulness ;

I had never considered
Writing to you

I’m unsure of why everyone is here.

I’ve always wanted to see Louisiana,
with its cobwebs and crawfish,
the distant yells of Marlon Brando
Still throbbing faintly in the night

Unleash your depths
And let me drown, I

Want to learn how long I will  submerge
Before my lungs burn up

And my eyes bulge out
Until I can no longer feel the pressure

"You know,"
he says
as he fiddles with his Joy Division shirt,

"The human race
has escaped the food chain
and that is why
we are ruining the earth"

I described myself as a writer to my new therapist today.

That was cool

and it made me want to start making art again.

You're reading
Basquiat
You're viewing
Basquiat

Basquiat is etched
Into my arm
You are reading
You are thinking
Of me

I didn't need
A soundtrack to my melancholy,

I tell the teen

Slamming a solo
On his keyboard in the subway

These days,

Everyone I talk to
Is a Sagittarius
And I am terrified

Of each of them

You've gone home now,

Departed on your bike in your baseball cap

And I can still feel
The echo of you on my skin

I don't know if anybody told you
that you look like young Winona Ryder,
or that the skin around your eyelids
looks so perfect when you smile, but

You're a devil

And you move just like you like

And no one can tell you anything
When you bite your lip that nice

He said to her:

So you date guys? Cause like your girl ain't a girl no more so hit me up ;)

Today you are going to pick up your only winter jacket from Hers. On the train you are shaking. You pick up a large bottle of Zinfandel at the liquor store down her street and spend $10 that you don’t really have. You walk up to her street. Four boys and an older woman (mother, landlord?) crowd a portion of the sidewalk. You brush past on the gravel, almost slipping. A form that strongly resembles hers is in the driveway; your heart threatens to leave your chest. This walk is eerily familiar to you. Music is crowding your thoughts and you slip out of your headphones, unsteadily approaching the porch. You sit. She is moving her car so her roommate can go out. You don’t know what to do.

She says “what’s up” like you’ve seen her do to people she doesn’t know very well but wants to flirt with and her eyes betray no warm recognition like they used to. She asks if you should come in?  

I just picked up liquor, I can share it with you if you want to have a drink, you say. There’s no way that your nerves are going to steady themselves on their own.

I don’t know, we’ll see. Cross the threshold. Door closes behind you. You are trapped now. You knew this would happen. You want to go upstairs, up to her room, climb the familiar steps and strip naked, settle in your niche in the bed like you’ve always done...

Bookcase isn’t where it used to be. Curtains are different, or new. Couch is ratty as ever. You remember the nights you used to spend making food in her kitchen, nursing her stomachaches on the couch watching ****** TV and laughing in each other’s eyes during the commercials. Breaking each other’s molds and melting away from the rest of the world.

Did she fix the window from where that guy tried to break in last semester?
No. The curtains are just new.
Oh, nice.
Drink?
Definitely.

You’re handed a pumpkin-flavored hard cider and this relaxes you a little, because you’ve always felt cooler than you actually are when you’ve got a bottle to gesticulate with while you’re talking to someone. It’s really just a mask for social anxiety, a cute 8oz bottle of conversation lubricant. Apply as needed. Consult a doctor for intense pain lasting more than four hours.

You two try and talk. She asks why. You can’t speak. After a few minutes of holding up, you fold, crumple.

Hoarse, tense. Your throat is burning and she isn’t doing anything as your knuckles around your knees wrench up your jeans and turn white telling her about how Heather died and how Chickee is in the hospital and just had a seizure from the meds they were using to keep her from dying of pneumonia and now she’s lost whatever precious vestiges of memory were left and remembers nothing at all and you’ve been fighting daily to keep your mind from running away from you, doing this all on top of work and courses is stringing you out so thin can’t she see that you just wanted you to have time to take care of yourself holy **** -

I know you hate me now I know and I’m never going to escape the hurt I caused you because it feels to you that I just left but I didn’t ever want to leave it just had to happen

We see relationships from two different vantage points
((Did she **** her neighbor))
Why are you on a dating site

It’s a tool you’re using to force yourself back into social interactions but it's also a necessary evil. There aren’t too many queer women to find anywhere but the internet anyway, they’re all in hiding during the day in a batcave or something -

Why did you leave me
You never thought it’d get like this
Coward

Leaving after you tell her to ******* because she asks you to, walking out with my things onto the porch and a cigarette in your mouth desperate to inhale something that’s toxic as if the carcinogens will take effect right there and you’ll drop dead of all kinds of diseases in the middle of her walkway

She comes outside with letter keep this read it you’re not going to like it but it’s all I’ve got for you and it’s what I’ve wanted to say
You don’t want it, you say, you don’t need this cancer sitting on your desk and silently invading your life
******* take it
You stand in the street reading the letter and it’s all about how she thinks you’re some heinous ******* who just left her and took the easy way out when things got difficult.

Maybe you did, you’re a nihilist, you don’t think there’s a point to anything and you do like things when they’re easy for you, it hurts less that way- but doesn’t everybody?

People who say they’re saints are lying to themselves.