I wish I were a boy.
I wish I could ruffle my dark hair
I wish I could kiss other boys
I wish they'd see me as a boy too
I wish I could dress in boxers
I wish my neck's apple was seen when I laugh
I wish my voice was rough and smooth
I wish girls looked at me and think
I wish he were a boy.

Try harder, it's not that difficult
The silence screams internally
I am trying to focus, but what does that mean?
Stop swaying, you are being inconsiderate
this class feels
like an eternity
Focus. Why can't I just feel seen?

Try harder, it's easy for everyone but you
You,
are fundamentally broken and wrong
Why can't you just be like the others?
You don't know anything, that's true
The beat without a melody, this song
Your thoughts are overlapping against another

Try harder, for this is an illness
This needs to be cured
Isolating from your peers
But you don't act like the rest
Akin,
you both are injured


Try harder, this disorder of yours is an excuse
This apathy towards attention is a trend
There was never this sensitivity years back
After this plea, I have something to deduce
This point of yours is a complex blend
So I'll offer irrelevant feedback

Try harder.

'I'm better' you cry
But there are tears in your eye
And I beg you to please comply
Don't write that goodbye

In three months you'll hear sirens
Not for you, but who can tell
All you can feel is the cold iron
And that hospital smell

Throw away the notes you hid
Like the marks underneath your sleeves
The medicine is out of reach
Just like the recovery they sing in bold lights

Four thin walls
Closing me in
Screams in the halls
Repent for my sins

Four blocks to run
My steps are heavy
Away from the gun
How I envy

Four breaths in
In the nearby office
No one will win
in America's sickness

He wants to be your boy
Soft and innocent
And rough, but coy
Though, he knows he'll never be intimate

You want to be a boy
A defined jaw
Ecstatic and full of joy
The most handsome boy you ever saw

I am a boy
I ruffle my hair when I talk
Standing confident in corduroy
But the definition is lost in the fog

My thoughts are disregarded like weeds
Just a bother in the concrete
Tried to be a flower for your enjoyment
As it turns out, I'm the disappointment

**** me out, one by one
But keep me around for the fun
When you bloom next to a ****
You look better than unaccompanied

Because my value is less
As it lowers your success
Compared to that of a flowers
My company just sours

Where do I fit in the mess of a kingdom?
The brave and loyal?
The soft and innocent?
Or the commanding and respected?

The soldier points her sword at me
"You know nothing of what a soldier should be"
She recites the lives she took
how she runs from death's lethal hook

I run the poet, and they stare at me
"You know nothing of what a poet should be"
They spin a tale of the nights they spend
looking for a muse, how they just pretend

I kneel before the King, and he lets me speak
"You know nothing of what a king should be"
He bellows about his isolated life with fame
without someone else to take the blame

I don't think I want to be a solider poet or king
I'd rather just run away into the woods
the woods where I live for myself
and not some corrupted hierarchy

How much abuse faced
By the divergent kids
Not even traced
Back to the inhuman grids

The thought of difference, frightening
Coursing by the lust for control
Deforming them by touching
The most vulnerable parts of the soul

The title vulnerable graffitied over valuable
Innovation of this generation unbound
Not differently-abled, but disabled
Abuse goes on, the kids are not found

The storm rubbles in the eye
Of the man who never said goodbye
The lilac clashes against the fire
Home is the one place he is the liar

And the passion of flames fills his ears
The loudest screams, he does adhere
From the doubt he set at an early age
Caught in the cycle of endless rage

The scarred lips touch his own
The array of curls is not unknown
To the limit of time he did not speak
But in the stars the fire does seek

Her smile lays upon my glassed eyes
The replaced I was, I cried
She smiles with an evil grin
The fate of my sister she did spin

Now I am the second choice
She’s left to rot, echoes her voice
The next best thing to come to her
Guess I am just here for a leftover

The darkness of my own kind shoots daggers through my soul
Their eyes with the last flicker of light leave my saddened thought
How could one akin to me have a heart as black as coal?
The string of fate the ones different they have fought

Even with similar address, together not alike
Different to another, both disbanding
Never did anything except teach how to fight
Similar from another, neither understanding

Smile to all of them to make everyone's day better
But then your mouth starts to hurt
but you keep on smiling
because who am I if I don't advert—
my eyes from everything, they're all lying
It's 11 at night, I want to sleep
but sweat trickles down my neck as I weep
The labels are crushing me telling me what to be
I just want to recognize myself in the mirror and say "Hey! That's me!"
I am tired of being the stupid and dumb friend
but if I'm not, I might not be able to mend
Mend the souls of those who cried when nights were stormy
And I know someone would do the same for me
but it feels selfish if I don't say sorry.

The bright light reflects
from my tear filled eyes
With countless vents
It is time to say goodbye
And I don’t reach out

My identity is a circus act
For those who find it amusing
I am not to overreact
Yet I am still self accusing
And I don’t reach out

I have to put up with more
Than anyone else
I have more to endure
In a world of parallels.
And I don’t reach out

I’m the human embodiment of Atlas
Holding up everything unfurled
But the sky isn’t just mine, alas
Not everyone is rivaled
And I reach out

The Bible says not to judge anyone, but does that apply to yourself?
The Bible says to love thy neighbor, but am I my own neighbor if I live alone?
The Bible Says to forgive others, but is their a limit I need to reach?
The Bible Says to love thy enemies, but what if I am the enemy to myself?
The Bible says not to lay with a man, but am I even a man?
The Bible says to not ******, but would I still go to hell if I was the victim?

On the church steps sits a boy in a skirt and a button up shirt
A book lies on the skirt of the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt
"Why are you not inside?" I ask the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt
"They kicked me out" Replies the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt

The church has "All are welcome" on its doors, refuses the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt
"What's your name?" I ask the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt
Nothing is said by the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt
I adjust my skirt and button up my shirt, as a girl in pants and a blouse welcomes me, the boy in a skirt and a button up shirt

I do not know you now
My memories are not my own
Manipulation you created
Sinks through my bones

The man who laughed at the smile
Called him akin to Helen of Troy
Who did not know his own child
He does not understand the boy

Not a helpless girl who was stolen
She can not speak for her own
But a free boy who is known
He is not used to being alone

The confidence is overwhelming
The ability to think freely
But all father knows is yelling
He is a new man completely