You are an oxymoron;
happy and sad,
bittersweet,
a fine mess,
and clearly misunderstood.

Being with you
is sweet torture
that leaves me
wanting more.

I never realized the discontent within me
or, I did, and I ignored it, happy to shut it out
when my soul didn't fit the definition of woman that God provided
I told myself, actually told myself, that I could be a man of Christ
and I held to that in the quiet of my heart, silently
When I was little I used to pray to God that he would make me a boy
I used to cry myself to sleep because there didn't seem to be a solution
there was no way, except for a miracle, maybe one day
I'd wake up and everything would feel right
and as my hips grew in I couldn't help feeling upset
that my jeans would never sag and I would never be angular
I didn't know that blocking out these thoughts wasn't normal
I didn't know that most everyone didn't have these thoughts
I used to dream about growing out my beard
I only watch straight **** and I'm not sure why but I think
it's because I have never seen myself as a woman
I used to play outside with my shirt off, fighting off the dog with my 'spear'
I thought I was a warrior, I thought I was a king
I thought I was one of God's golden angels
I thought my voice was low when I began to sing
I made friends with boys and had crushes on girls
just like all the other boys
and when they left me it was the saddest thing
My teachers told me I should just play with the girls
and I cried. What child, when told to wear a dress,
tells her mother that it was the worst day of her life?
What child wants to grow out her leg hair and have pecs, not *****
what child wants short hair and a beard and narrow hips
what child wants to kiss girls in a chivalrous manner, not
like a woman stealing a girl away from her heterosexuality,
what child feels like she's in a costume when she dresses up
and wears makeup, what child immediately removes her nail polish?
who am I? Am I who they say I am?

619 Miles
9 hours and 38 minutes
The distance that separates myself and the girl
I can’t take my mind off of.
Because
It is said that for one person
There is another built to fit perfectly
Woven together on a planet of billions
A soul mate.
Now that is cheesy and completely absurd,
Especially for an asexual….
But I’ve never felt this way,
About anyone.
Especially not….a girl.
Heterosexuality has been the one term that has defined me
My whole life.
For 14 years I was sick at the idea of being anything but.
But that word is floating further into oblivion.
Echoes of my parent’s homophobic hatred.
Palms start to sweat as I blush like crazy,
Staring at a computer screen that has never been more important
My heart seems to leap out of my chest.
And, it is just so absurd for me to feel this way,
Because she is just so amazing,
And I am average at best.
But it is insane for me to care about her as much as I do.
Having known her for 24 hours
But she gets me, through each letter we seem to read unwritten messages.
As I get to learn more and more about her
The more I wish she was here.
Because she is the one girl I’d actually take the chance with
The one I wouldn’t be afraid to tell my parents about.
My chance to escape this closet I've hidden in my whole life,
And it is impossible to comprehend
How she could ever feel the same way.
Why she would ever feel the same way.
Because 9 hours and 38 minutes
The distance that separates myself and the girl
I can’t take my mind off of.

From my bedroom window,
I can see a lime green ribbon
Constricting itself around a tree.
Lynching the last inch of life
From a being
That stood strong for a half of a century.
As each leaf wilts and falls it is a reminder that nothing is ever permanent.
Everything dies eventually.
In our family,
Green is worn proud
Above our hearts
The star of David guiding us on our way
But something to be ashamed of.
A color that condemns our family to endure your sympathetic stares
That follow us everywhere.
It is as if we are the main attraction of your circus:
Come see the dying, the crying, and the bald.
But to us, one ribbon wrapped around are hearts
Represents a million words wrapped into one.
Especially the ones never said.
The I love yous
The I need yous
The I’m sorrys
And the goodbyes
It is an endless cycle
Of CAT scans, and chemo, and radiation, and surgery, and blood tests, over and over.
If only to slow the process of
Cells detonating themselves
In a body that was never strong enough to fight it.
Strong arms cannot hold the weight of their daughter’s broken hearts
Or their sons missed football games,
Or their wives plan less anniversaries
When they carry their own mortality
We never knew that our man of steel,
Would become our man of sleepless nights,
No longer able to carry his children to bed at night.
The only person to guide through our disjointed lives
What ifs become your safe haven as well as your nightmare?
And your reality becomes mixed with fatality.
And eventually, you don’t know the difference.
Prayers become a lost hope,
Church becomes a last resort
And treatment becomes useless
Because it is a diagnosis that no one can escape.
I never understood “When someone is diagnosed with cancer, everyone around them is as well.”
And dad know that when I look into your lifeless eyes
Mine will mirror it.

If it was just for attention, we wouldn’t try to hide it.
If it was for attention, we’d do it on our face.
Take the razor and paint a pretty picture
Of the life we never wanted.
If it was just for attention
We wouldn’t lock the door
Of our bedrooms, our bathrooms.
We would do it,
At the dinner table
With a butter knife.
If it was just for attention, if you noticed
We’d say “yeah, feel sorry for me yet?”
We wouldn’t say “it was the cat”
Or “just a scratch.”
If we did it for attention,
Why would hurt this bad?
Every day you wake up with a constant reminder of the things that you did,
All of the tears that you cried,
All the fights that you lost to the monsters screaming inside your mind,
“Help me!”
Help me, two simple words.
A cry for help most people never heard
Before she buried herself in the ground.
But yet we knew,
We could see it behind every bracelet stacked on the next.
The way she always wore long sleeved shirts in the summer.
The way she grew silent as if her soul was being crushed into a metal form.
Like being put in that casket.
What people don’t realize is she was one of 13 million kids from 6-17 every that **** themselves every year.
That is 13 million people that needed help,
But yet, in our society if someone wants to die,
They’re crazy.
But what is crazy?
Crazy is killing your best friend by ignoring her cries.
I am crazy.
She had schizophrenia.
And bipolar disorder.
And dysthymia, which is basically just a complicated term for depression that doesn’t go away.
And yet, she never knew it.
She never knew that it was curable
Because every second she thought about herself.
All she thought was “attention seeker”
She never got help because she didn’t want them to know how bad it was,
Or how much she needed them.
And, I know she told me once before,
“I want to die.”
But yet, I heard stuff like that all the time,
Not from her, but from people who don’t know what it’s like to wake up every morning, but yet never wake up.
To be addicted to the razor like a drug
Every cut, every little bit of blood that bleeds out.
Is one less thing, you have to worry about.
So don’t you dare tell me I am an attention seeker!
Because, if I wanted you to know.
I’d do it, on my face.

You stab me in the back with a knife,
and I apologize for bleeding on it.