They weigh me down with each step
And I don't mean physically.
They're small enough I can get away with a sweatshirt and nothing else.
People tell me I'm lucky.
But it's funny because I don't feel lucky,
And when my laugh trips off my tongue and stutters to the floor
between the tips of my sneakers,
I don't feel lucky,
When my thank you's sound hollow like drums in my ears
After someone compliments my style and tells me I should consider
modeling
Because "women with my interesting look" are in high demand,
And I don't want to be in high demand,
I don't feel lucky,
When the man next to me at the bus stop
Scrounges inside for some semblance of modern day chivalry and
accompanies his phrase
"Lady's first"
With a wink
I don't feel lucky,
As a squeeze them,
Twin loathsome mountains of fat on my chest,
Into my binder each morning just so I
Don't have a panic attack as soon as I leave the room,
I don't feel lucky,
Every time I hesitate when I reach the bathroom doors with those
stick figure signs and I have to decide which one I want to BE today
Or be stared at in today,
And ultimately it doesn't matter because I always make sure I'm
alone when I wash my hands,
Lying on my side or my stomach and feeling the weight of that tissue
on my sternum,
I don't feel lucky,
When I walk down the claustrophobic grocery store isles looking for
the right brand of tampons and pads to stop my unwanted ******
from bleeding everywhere
And I flush beet red because I know
Above my head is a neon sign loudly proclaiming that I am shopping
for
"Feminine hygiene products"
And so sometimes I walk out with nothing and
Wake up to red sheets just to feel even worse,
I don't feel lucky,
Each time I release my bonds in the shower,
Washing away whatever dirt that day
may have thrown on my skin,
And I glance down at the scalding water cascading over my sternum,
Along my uneven collarbones,
Between the caverns of my *******,
And I realize even naked I am not myself
Am I ever myself?
I don't feel lucky.
Jogging up stairs or walking quickly to class
And feeling my rib cage strain to get enough oxygen against
The binder I subject it to,
Or massaging my back as best I can as it screams at me
Resisting the tight fabric I have pulled against it all day,
But shedding that binding feels so wrong so
Sometimes I leave it on all night and wake up in the morning and
take Tylenol
So I can function,
I don't feel lucky.
And it makes me sad because I don't want to hate myself
But I don't know how to love myself like this.

That first time we took a drink,
let the cool fecund tides rampage over our tongues,
down our throats and take up residence in the empty pits of our stomachs.
We rejoiced.
We danced.
We consumed every and all in our path, relentless,
like the silence that used to adorn our small corner of the world.
They purse cracked lips to whistle at the ******* of the women that walk past,
and clench fists as muscle bound males raise their hackles to ward them off.
We want to fight.
We want to beat the world into submission,
to restore that silence that we crave but have learned to despise.
Neon lights blind our eyes as we sway in tandem to the pulsing bass.
We are one,
We are animals.
Hurricanes tearing through our landscapes
Uncaring in the face of disaster we laugh manically,
Tilting our faces back as we peel off our skin,
Unzipping raincoats that don’t block out the sun.
Holding our arms together in a twin bed
Blocking out the ghosts of our past,
listening to the fish tank whir
remember the first time we drank,
leaning timber against the faded wall,
talking to mr. light even though he refused to answer,
our bodies melded under fairy lights,
I hold your lips on the tips of my fingers and
Your heart in the palm of my hands
And I cradle that small bird, breathing warm air
Onto its feathers to help it grow.
Tides pour through our bloodstreams,
Pounding through our systems in overdrive,
Weak hearts thrashing in their cages.
What are we made of?
Roots and veins and fragile paper skin
Waiting to be torn by the hands of unworthy suitors?
We am made of hot hard ***, and the need for more.
Something else. We are animals.  
The bars of our cages dissolve in the acid breath of our highs
We sing from the rays of the sun,
Belting out operatic tones of our lives as if someone
On the other side of the telephone is actually listening.
Instead we day drink
And night drink
And huddle in cloth cocoons waiting to transform into our saviors.
Remember that first night we drank,
Enraptured under magnetic ceilings,
Dancing together under the influence
Of a potentially better world.
Spinning star struck next to constellations
Waiting until the room stops swallowing us whole
So we can close our eyes until the morning,
Smile drunkenly high on love,
And maybe for once, we will sleep.

Hold tight to that illusion of freedom
Like the quilted lies
That, drip from your fingertips
And throw them into the
Darkness behind you
like the fabricated illusion
Of our own prosperity.
Where wrapped in others
Silken words of misconstrusion
our people lie in wait
Ready to cross walls
They cannot hope to break down.
Our land of the free is priced in expletives
Spoken brassly on shining screens
As falsified information pours out of
It,s limelights.
There are family trees burned to cinders.
Half off of your freedom!
New sale here!
Just pay everything you own,
And your family ties and voila,
Here you are in our free priced land of the free,
Your worth decided by your face,
Your speech, the hard won calluses
On your hands, open in a useless
Sign of peace
Where the homes of the brave
Hold vacant signs and empty people
Shells of what they used to be,
Standing in as the 2 by 4 support beams.
Send your sequin sympathies
To those with the money to pay for them,
To watch you twirl on stage spouting
Shakespearean lines of unfelt empathy
Attempting to assuage the audience
And pass off inequality as the new normal
The power play goes on
The curtains close on one more act of
Unconstitutional proportions
The audience
Unknowing
Applauds

Please tell me why I only
Seem to be able to write poetry
When I'm drunk or half asleep
Maybe it's because I loose my inhibitions
And no longer care what people think?
But that shouldn't matter anyway.
And honestly?
I DON'T care.
I'm good enough on my own
By my own
I'm worth enough
For myself to be myself
If that makes any sense.
I don't need anyone to
Tell me that I'm good enough
I know I am.
It's not my fault that some don't see it.
Come on,
Spread a little bit of self love am
I right?
I know when I say my name people
Don't blink so
Why should it be any different when I tell you
My pronouns.
I'm not an animal in a cage
In a zoo,
I'm **** good enough as me
And I don't REALLY need your approval
Honestly you're lucky you even got my
Name
Because most times I forget to introduce myself so
Why should the rest of me shock you anymore
Than my name does?

Today I took a shower
I stood under the water for probably way too long
I turned the water up way too hot
But today I took a shower today
And that’s something
That means im still alive right?
Dead people can’t take showers,
At least I don’t think they can,
Ghosts probably can’t either so
If I took a shower that means im still alive.
It’s funny  though,
I didn’t want to.
Take a shower I mean, 1
Because Im afraid of washing off the touch
Of your hands on my skin
Because what if I never feel that again
And If I had known that night would have been the
Last time for a while,
Until this “break” ends and you get things figured out,
Then I wouldn’t have been drunk
Because then I would have gotten to feel your arms around me for a while longer
Before I fell asleep
And I forgot before but I remember now,
I told you that I really liked you
And that that wasn’t just “drunk me” saying that.
And I forgot before but I remember now,
You didn’t say “I like you too”
You didn’t actually say anything.
And I don’t blame you.
I don’t hate you, hell I actually love you
And I think that’s why this hurts
Because I know you need time and space
And the ability to figure out who you are
And the ability to find who you are without
The added weight of a relationship
And I know you’ve told me that its nothing I did
“its not you its me” and maybe I love you so maybe
THAT’S why this hurts so bad
Because I can’t just “take a break” from loving you.
I don’t know what our future holds,
You held my hand as we talked about this
And I cried on you, about you, which is probably a stupid thing to do
But I told you I wouldn’t give up,
I said I’d wait as long as you needed me to,
Which is true. But it hurts, but I feel like im losing everything,
Who am i? I don’t know.
You have a birth mark on your hand that I never noticed,
And I miss you. But you’re right here. But I miss you.
And you know that, and you said you’ll miss me too.
And I cried on you, about you, which was probably a stupid thing to do,
But your fingers in my hair still felt the same and then you said
“your hair feels different” and I cried again
the obvious answer is because I dyed it, but
all I wanted to say was “yeah, everything does”
And I don’t know how to do this alone….
All of this running through my mind
Like the water running over my skin
That perhaps made it easier to cry….
But… I took a shower today
And that’s something.
Right?

I am the destroyer of worlds
specifically of my own,
with no regard to the landscape
I consume,
My words brazen in their wild hunt,
Uncaring for the lives of those they swallow whole.
I raze fields, create canyons
Without a second glance,
Without care or thought or reason
I shall burn the hollowed
recesses of my heart
Until there remains naught but
Ash and cinder.
Destruction is my name,
Desolation? My title.
I am the harbinger of death,
Specifically my own,
Mercy knows no hiding hovel in the caverns
of my skin,
pity lives not in my eyes,
flooded by rage
devoid of hopeful commiserations,
I am inhumane,
I am the plague
So you must run to escape me,
Oh but run you cannot
For the roots of my depression stretch
Far beyond my physical body,
Wind around our planet,
Touch soul after soul after soul,
I shall set fire to my very source of humanity,
The weakness in me which
Allows my doors to swing open,
My drawbridge to lower faithfully,
Covering the moat I had built myself,
at the first knocking promise
Of someone else caring about me in a way I
have never learned to for myself.
Yet once I glean that first bit of affection
My poison twists through any veins of love
And I seem without fail,
To corrupt the small sparks of good
That dare to show their face.
So.....
Destruction is my name,
Desolation? My title.
I am the destroyer of worlds,
Specifically
My own