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've got
Socks around my ankles,
A chip on my left shoulder,
And
A lover who's naieve enough
To say I'm meaningless.

You said you wanted me
To soften, to not let

The fires I have walked through char my heels

And yet
When I did lose my shell in front of you

you caught flame instead
And asked I be removed

I feel it boil in my belly
as these fingers grip the flask

it was a birthday-present
from an old, old friend…

I wonder how long it will take
before they order an intervention.

I have spent so long
honing my craft, I cannot afford
to have my choices compromised.

Go on, ****** me back into that hell
of plastic chairs and unlocked doors,
headboards bolted to the floor,
dead names carved in windows.

I will not go gentle;
allow this debauchery to go on.

I can see the canopies,
the gentle shades of foliage
disguise crumbling facades.

Leave me with my drink and willow trees,
after all, whom do I harm?

We're crammed on a couch and we're spinning

I tell you, you kiss like a poet

If there is something you want to know,
Please ask for it.

Don't go searching
A blank canvas
For strokes that don't exist.

Ask,
And I shall answer
Your gentle calls-

That is a promise,
Not a passing thought.

Banks
And the stale odor of Marlboro Golds
Remind you of a slower time
When you broke into abandoned barns and sang sermons to the rooftops
Unaware of who might listen

I'm reducing myself
And others around me
To physical commodities

No face is like yours,
None familiar
Or warm

And there you are,
Electricity running through your veins,
Determined

To make it right

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

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 kept asking me
about my memoir, as if
you'd be there
to see it's completion.

Now,
you will fill its pages
if only in vague form,
for months to come.

You, the observer
have become the subject
of this torment.

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

On Taking Up Space,

the ripples of the skin of my gentle lover-

Diligently recorded

In smudging black ink

Your work isn't very good,
You have four women who've misconceived you,
and your drinking is a bit of a mess.

You smoke too much *** and you're really beginning to fill out your underwear.

But you're writing,
aren't you?

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.

You said:

I love you so much.  Your eyes make mine want to well up with happiness  And  Your voice makes me want to create   Your body is a tool and a weapon and full of glorious purpose  And I love watching you  Do everyday things  Like put on glasses  Or brush your teeth   You're a comfort to me, A gateway to wisdom and ideas I've never encountered before   And I love you  So so so so so so much   So **** anyone  Who can't understand what that means to us   (cleaning out your inbox after the filth)

She said:

<3 I love you very much babe. You’re amazing <3

He said to her:

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

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>

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.

I'm


Okay


(At pretending I'm still living)

"The day I directed
That play in Spanish,
My stomach began to tighten."

My love was in my words for you,

Why

Did you let them burn?

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.

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

I may not have the most perfect physique,
but as I sit here,
having a beer and becoming aware of myself,
I realize that it is all that I need.

My neck, though it grows stiff on occasion,
is the perfect ***** for the face of a lover.

My spine is long and narrow,
but crunched into itself
from years of compacting.

I want to reach inside my skin and set it free.

My shoulders are sloped, but sturdy,
and carry the weight of a thousand worlds.

One of my biceps is bigger than the other,
but that's okay,
its a natural phenomenon
and when I flex my right arm
it makes me feel strong, and powerful.
Capable.

I may not be thin enough
for you to count each tiny, delicate rib, but
I have a strong abdomen
and can do many sit-ups
or pull myself out from under you,
sit up suddenly to kiss you,
and anchor myself to the earth, yes -

My hips aren't as narrow as I'd like them to be,
but my quadriceps are strong and sinuous

My reflexes, feline
and my calves pure muscle,

I know
because ever since I turned thirteen,
I have been staring at them

after soccer practice in my cleats and shinguards
at the pool as the water drips off my legs and catches in the hairs
I've worked so hard to groom
in the morning as I stretch and caress their skin-

My feet
wiggle their toes into the moist, warm earth and keep me firm
and my eyes
pry into you,
always seeking
for things unknown

I find rhythms. I search for sounds with unbearable pieces in them, and make them holy. I believe in the language of the asymmetrical eye… Broken lines of Morse code, fragments of memories. I recall them. I get drunk, I get high, I ramble into the night until I can’t anymore. I resist torture brought to me by outside forces. I think about my father and my lovers and my sister, and I weep through the barrel of my pen. I edit sober, always, diligently. I take my craft incredibly seriously. I enjoy the loops and whorls of my penmanship. I frequently forget ideas. Oftentimes I lack discipline. I am selfish about my art- is is my catharsis, I don’t trust anyone. I compare myself to great artists before me and convince myself we have a kinship. I want to be great, I want to taste fame and I am working on being unashamed of this feeling.

At least I'm here,
At least I'm writing,
And feeling full.

At least this sustenance,
This painful brew,
Nourishes me.

At least I boil and then drink the thorns
And feel no sting
Of sadness in my throat

Anymore

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.

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.

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

We met in a way
I am compelled to lie about,
simply for its lack of romance
but when I told you this,
you refused to recant
our original story.

I met you, unbridled, unassuming,
heart brimming with fear and eyes wide.
My hands shook as I offered you a drink.

Something in the room’s energy shifted when you entered,
a cosmic thing, I guess-
for a moment everything seemed to be meandering
instead of racing.

But now, all my body does is speed,
yearn to stretch itself beyond its bounds

Every now and again I feel compelled to take my pulse
out of fear of my heart’s reaction
to seeing you.

I don’t regret the frantic gasps
that lept from my chest as you touched me,
pulled me into your vortex,
no-

I won’t recant the breathlessness of my sudden, intimate confession
in the midst of our friend’s birthday-party

Sure, I was emboldened by the liquor,
but my decision was motivated
by far more than the headiness of wine-

Your eyes were the catalyst.
The way they peered at me with longing,
yet somehow expecting nothing,
just interested in what lay before them

And I remember
your sudden shift,
you propped yourself up on my chest and said it,
a declaration that stopped time once more -
or, at least, for me

So much blood rushed to my head that I feared you’d killed me
for a moment

I remember too, the brief seconds I spent
floundering in terror
before I made a statement of my own,
and tossed myself willingly into the potential killing-fields,
a sacrifice of sorts,
marred by recent pain, but still ascending.

I have to learn to **** myself
Without imagining your hands,
Your palms,
Gliding through my body.

I have to learn how to ******
Without gasping your name,
Gripping your hair.

I have to learn to remember
That your fingertips
Are not the only ones
To ever plunge inside me,

And to remember
That your absence should not be missed.

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"

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

I didn't need
A soundtrack to my melancholy,

I tell the teen

Slamming a solo
On his keyboard in the subway

You loved others before you,
Who dared to come near you
And give you a fate to suffer.

When another approached you,
Looking only to love you,
You crushed their attempts.

She's asking how she can help

And her passion to make a small difference

Both floods me with warmth and leaves me to suffer

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

You're reading
Basquiat
You're viewing
Basquiat

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

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 you're high
In the Simmons bathroom and
Taking a shower
By yourself

And you're just getting over
The scent of rejection
But her phenomenal venom
Leaves a stench in your mouth

Your breath
On my neck as
You surprise and embrace me.

Your hair, parting itself from your scalp
And leaving traces of you
In my bed.

Your eyes
Fixed on mine as you tell me of something
You've grown to admire.

Your hands
Clasping mine as we wander and explore
Through the seasons.

Your body
As it gyrates to the rhythm of your turntable
As we're dancing.

Your words
as they have fallen from your pen onto
Your notebook's pages.

Your smile
Hydrating me from across a table
As we sip coffee and talk art.

The smoke
As it slips from your cigarette
And you tell me of days gone by.

Some knowledge
That these could be things
You wish to acquire with me.

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

What silence do you send me
In lieu of compromise?

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 -

Okay, I miss you. I miss you a lot and you won't return my calls or anything, you just vanished one day, disappeared. You've finally gotten your dream, you'd always wanted to be good at not existing in the face of tragedy. You tell yourself through tumblr posts and reblogged poems that you're strong, but the reality is that your words wound more than they can touch.

You're a facsimile, a fraud, my friend. But the thing is, you're so **** beautiful when you're doing it that it's almost forgiveable. That's why, when I look into the photographs of you I wasn't supposed to see, I soften at the sight of your creases as you smile, and the nape of your neck where I used to rest, and I think-

Someday this woman is going to belong to someone else, if you can say a person belongs to anyone-

And, secondly-

That I hope she will carry my memory in her bones as far as she travels.

If I look closer at your smile, it doesn't seem real.

I've saved the pictures, I want to know if you did too. I found an old one of you in my favorite hat, the one I used to work out in, feel strong in, explore with you in. Now it makes me think of you.

I hate that you took that from me.