Some people are so comfortable with their past;
they wear demons on their extremities like tattoos.
I am not one of those people.
I have scars that will never see the light of day,
they are painted on my legs like hieroglyphics
depicting an ancient battle.
The summer sun will never kiss that skin,
it will remain translucent white,
protected from ultraviolet rays
by fragile excuses.
I have scratches from ghosts
clawing their way out from the inside,
striving to make themselves real,
to be noticed by the outside world, screaming
"this pain
is not
metaphorical".
In my family you are supposed to play your strengths,
never let your weaknesses be known.
In their eyes I am a suit of armor.
My knees are shaking beneath pale thighs.

1) For every great skyscraper, there are petty fingers that built them.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
They were strong enough to raise a hammer, but not enough to raise a family.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
She is cold, and he is drinking, and this is our backbone.
She is alone and he is driving home too fast because sometimes you don't have to be in the wrong place to be looking for the wrong thing.
She is afraid and he is warm, this is the beginning spark of a forrest fire filled with broken glass shattering in broken homes with broken people inside on a broken piece of land in a city that has too much rain for someone to build an emergency room in. Everyone with a burden holds their confessions in their left palm and their beggings in their right and no one ends up having enough arms to hold each other.
2) One day the whole world will be in your hands too, and you'll see that sometimes darkness can blind you worse than the red glare the sun paints your vision when you stare at it with your eyes closed.
You will be brave, you will stand up straight, you will stop being royal when people stop painting Jesus with a purple robe.
Even the concrete asks the sun to make it a garden so try cracking your knuckles a little louder and maybe you will wake up as a mountain.
3) Autumn. When you wrote secrets on notebook paper and taped them underneath benches in the city park, you gave too many pieces of yourself to things that weren't made for holding that much weight.
But you said it kept you honest and there were never any reasons for me to ask you to stop giving away the parts of you I wanted to myself. It kept me humble.
4) I am alone
5) You are October in a green dress with a black mask around your eyes and you have stolen the breathe of that day. And I hope when you are 80 years old you feel a breeze sliding on the back of your neck reminding yourself of all the times it should have snapped in half during the moments of what should have been your hanging, how it takes you back to living life like you're always in the desert and stealing innocent people's money and smoking cigarettes beside rattlesnakes.
I hope you find a beach in the Caribbean that asks to be died on, I hope you learn to forgive people harder than you can cry on their shoulder. I hope you watch a sunrise that you spend the rest of your life thinking about. I feel like for that to happen you need your feet in the ocean or underneath a rocking chair, but I would settle for your bedroom.
6) But with you it was never settling.

I heard my eight year old cousin call his sister a ******
because she is bisexual.
I heard the voice of an angel whisper
Daddy says **** go to hell.

That poor boy's mind has been poisoned since birth.
He has been fed line after line
of over-analyzed,
misunderstood scripture
and he believes it is his ticket
into heaven.

I can't wrap my head around
why homosexuals would go to hell
but the ones flicking Satan's tongue at them
are saved.

Love doesn't send you to hell.

Hate does.

January is ice cold, but it never snows.
You're always so angry but you never want to talk about it.
February it starts to get warm, then there's a week of snow days.
Just when I think you're letting me in you shut me out again.
March has cold mornings and hot afternoons; the trees start to turn green.
You call me at 3am crying and you're fine in the morning; you have good days sometimes.
April is hot and cold and wet and dry.
You've never been a very stable person.
May is rain. The humidity makes my clothes damp.
You get so broken sometimes that it breaks me, too.
June is perfect lake weather. The water is cold.
I want to know all of the dark corners of your mind.
July has no rain. The dirt dries out and cracks.
I wonder how many of your smiles are faked.
August is too hot to go outside. The lake is bath water.
As soon as you get close to someone you find an excuse to leave.
September has cool evenings. The mosquitoes are awful.
Sometimes you feel at peace with your demons.
October is more rain; autumn oranges and reds and yellows.
You say you're dying and I try to convince you it will get better soon.
November is a dry cold.
I wish you would let me help you.
December freezes the plants; the leaves are gone from the trees.
*You destroy yourself and wonder why you're so broken.

When that guy in my history class
announced to everyone
that I was "checking out Macy", my project partner,
I just stood at the front of the class,
feeling my face get redder and redder
as my teach simply said
"settle down."

I wish I had walked over
and punched him
in his huge, cocky mouth.

When those boys outside the bathroom at a campsite
told me I was pretty
and grabbed both my arms when I tried to walk away
so they could "get a better look",
I ****** away and walked back to the tent
and said it was nothing
when my mom asked why I seemed so shook up.

I wish I had slapped both of them
and given them a speech
about respecting women.

When that girl in my chemistry class
told me everyone secretly hated my boyfriend
and said if she was the reason he killed himself,
she wouldn't feel bad,
I turned to face away from her
and gripped the sides of my chair
and told her to stop talking.

I should have punched her in the nose
and refused to apologize
to someone who didn't value human life.

When my boyfriend
froze dead in his tracks
while we were walking down the street on Valentine's Day
and he saw the girl he claimed to be over,
I just tugged at his hand
and told him to keep walking
and pretended not to be hurt.

I wish I had slapped that longing look off of his face;
I could've taught him a lesson
about being a lying *******.

I wish I had the courage to stand up for myself.
I want people to know not to mess with me.
I want the swollen knuckles of victory.

A soft word on parted lips
Gentle, warm and moist
Chocolate brown eyes that understand
Light kisses against my skin
that hint at something more.
I feel her laughter that bubbles forth
and we're both smiling,
it deepens and an unspoken tension
flits between us, luring and tempting.
begging to do more.
My lips part willingly for her
And I taste her on my tongue.
She is sweet and glowing against me.
The heat rises and ebbs,
touches become wanton and frantic
I plead with her to give me my desire.
wish granted
sleep stole over her after the deed,
but I am wrapped in her and awake.
My fingers slip through her hair,
at some attempt to tame it.
Giving up, I chuckle
and kiss her.
Just her.
Her forehead, her hair, her nose, her eyes, her cheeks.
And lastly her lips.
My love and my life
*how I love you.