Purple patches coving your completely swollen cheeks.
Gums conquering your teeth.
Bruises all over you arms.
You walk into class, and all goes quiet.
Then comes the incessant laughter.
After they calm, and you sit down, embarrassed completely.
The whispers, the giggles, the pointing, you cannot handle it.
You run out of the room and dash out of the school.
You run all the way home,
and as soon as you reach your bedroom, you drop to the floor,
screams and sobs flooding your household.
Of course, the kids would laugh. I'm ugly, I'm different, I'm disgusting.
And I've been cursed with Leukemia.

If my hands could tell a story, they'd say how your spine always looked beautiful in the morning,
when the sun's rays created shadows that danced along your back and flirted with your neck
like they'd never meet again.
They'd say how your lips always curved upwards as if they were saying hello.
If my hands could tell a fairytale, there'd be no happy ending,
there'd be no end at all.
I wish my lips could finally part to say the right things,
because all I want to do is hear your name roll off my tongue,
in the same sentence as "you're mine".
I want them to tell the story of your lips,
red, and taunting and always mysterious.
I always got a toothache when you weren't in the room.
I think I need a root canal.
If my knees could speak they'd tell you how lovely it was
to bend to curl to your legs.
If my knees could tell a story, they'd describe the cold, hard
bitter kiss of death they shared with the pavement so many times
when I found your bags at the door.
If my knees could beg, they'd ask for forgiveness.
For being too bony, too weak,
for not being able to support your dreams.
(I'd give up anything now for that little apartment in New York
and nothing but two typewriters)
If my fingers had a chance, they'd trace the familiar lines of your collarbones
and over your shoulders, because by now they've committed them to memory.
If my fingers had a chance, they'd hold yours again.
They say to stay away from broken people but I saw you as a puzzle
just waiting for someone to put you back together again.
If my eyes could tell a story they would whisper softly of your flowing hair
and pixie-like body.
They would ask you to stay.
They would jump out of my body to give you a glimpse of how I see you.
They would show you how utterly unprecedented you are.
If I believed in heaven I would tell you that you're a miracle.
That you are something I wished upon for years as a child.
You are a star.
You are a supernova.
You are a black hole, ******* me in and twisting me about until I am nothing
but battered limbs and my broken heart.
You are God with the Devil's kiss.
If my lips could move they'd say "stay".
You were mine.

Confession time,
Where's my priest?
When I was little I had it all planned out.
"In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, Amen.
It has been six months since my last confession and these are my sins."
I fought with my family.
I swore.
And I lied.
That is what I said for seven years.
I loved to throw a wrench in the machine.
When I was fourteen I added in a little tid bit to my routine.
"I am gay".
It was the longest pause I had ever heard.
And then it went completely ignored.
How rude of me to try and provoke you, father.