your warped limbs
dance under the sway of your breath
your notched fingers
wind around the minerals of your toes
you are light
and your capillary rivers
pulse with nothing grander than life

you are an everlasting cycle of rebirth
your heart is heavy
and although you tremble
benevolence remains in your eaves

mother,
you are taken for granted
but your tidepool eyes
and mossy complexion
are the work of nothing less
than the waves of the cosmos

i'm sorry that i cannot calm down.
trust me,
i wish that my love
did not feel like lightning to the chest
and i wish i couldn't paint and shingle humans
thread through the water & electricity
and call them home

i promise you that
i beg for the ability to never crane my neck
and stare the darkness in the face

i wish that because i feel so much
i think others are feeling too little
and i wish that every TV wedding
didn't make me weep

and i don't expect you to-
**** that, i expect too much

i wish the notches in my bones
were a little less deep

and that i could forget the white-hot happiness
so that it wouldn't crush my ribs
to say goodbye

Wear pink, never blue. You are a princess, not a hero. You are a hero’s shining and docile wife. Little girls will read stories about your appearance, not your achievements. Princesses and wives keep their hair clean and their man fed. Why be the breadwinner when you can bake it instead? Keep the house and the children tidy. Do not play with the toy cars or the small green army men. The small plastic tires will tangle in your hair and the pointy guns will poke at your delicate fingers.

Learn to wash the windows. You’ll be yearning through them for your entire life. Keep them clean to remind yourself of what could have been. Learn to dust the shelves. You will stock them with reminders of what life means to you. Scrub the doorknobs raw, for when you go outside, you must keep clean. Your name will become household if you are any form of *****.

Express and feel emotions, fleeting and open as a blustering curtain. You’re expected to be emotional, so never hold back. When you are shaking with anger, do not be afraid to scream. Holding back is for men. Whatever you do, do passionately. Men are for making ends meet and stoic thinking. Feel the need for these things and only find these needs met in men. Your dreams are to marry ideal qualities, not to have them.

You will fit nicely into a box. You are only a respected female if you meet these standards and requirements. Your hair must be shoulder length or longer. If it is not, you are a lesbian and are handed a bad connotation. Cover all unacceptable skin. If you do not, you are a **** and are most definitely asking for any ****** advances to come your way. Your ribs need to be as visible as your smile. If they are not, you are fat and clearly lazy and unproductive. You will only listen to approved music and think approved thoughts. If you do not, you are a **** and an anarchist and a god-hating liberal. Each of these is a nail in your fragile plywood box. You must be oppressed and not let a hateful word escape your rouged lips.

You must listen to your father and respect your elders. Your mother is not a direct authority figure. She will discipline you by saying that your shirt has always clung to your stomach and your hair is quite oily these days. Your elders know more than you do. When you state a fact or news event, it will be met with either an “I know” or a “that’s not true”.

You will learn to covet appearance above all. Your acceptance speech when graduating college would be null and void if you had forgotten your eyeliner. You have been raised with books about long blonde hair and being rescued. You are not allowed to save yourself. You will wait until a man can sweep you off your feet and that will be the end of it. You must be skinny and made up for that day so that he can pick you up physically and mentally.  

Do not play with the toy cars or the small green army men. The tires will tangle in your long blonde hair and the army men will make you think of power.

his family says they'd accept him
it’s scrawled in permanent marker across their smiling faces
what will the neighbors think?
blood is thicker than water, but they’re parched

but the monster under the bed is
those whispering thoughts
he knows they'd all have
engrained into their pre-dispositions
of a cookie-cutter America

the kids at school
the snickers and sharp talk
protected by the armor of his back being turned
up front labeling
"insert your coin and I'll spit out acceptance, only .25"

their drooping faces sewed into smiles
with the thread of a rainbow flag

more and more individuals
are made to waltz
to the familiar song of being trapped

the door to his closet is jammed
he’s bisexual, not bi-species

I've studied you like a doorway
so that I know your in's and out's
like how you shake your head when you're mad
and how you show your love in weird ways
like picking up my speech patterns
and how I don't send you things early in the morning when I know you're not awake
because I don't want to wake you
and how you only make that cute screechy noise when you see dogs or boy's faces
and when you bite your nails and fix your hair I know you need a hug
and when you force me to listen to rap music I know it's because you want it to give me the same happiness it gives you
and ****** I think that's the purest form of love

Since age 5 I was taught
to wear loose clothing
and not talk about eating.
"No, you can't have that shirt
with the Hershey's logo across the front.
You're already overweight,
let's just slap a label on it."

My mother doesn't know that
every day I still hear her voice
telling me to tilt my head up
in pictures and to go outside already.

I remember age 9 as my dad
telling me I was smart and my mom
telling me I couldn't buy that shirt
because it clung to my stomach.

I was taught to never talk about food
because it would always be met with
"of course".

Mother dearest, I know you meant well
but your coaching lead your little girl
to value the size of her thighs over
what she learned at school today.
You wanted to protect me from
the world, but didn't protect me
from myself.

Teaching is not telling me that
I had no willpower at age 8
and you forced me to accept myself
because nobody else would.

But trust me, mother,
you were never consciously hurtful
so I need to let you know:
the next time there is a little girl
that looks up to you, do not tell her
that she has to watch what she eats
or she will never get respect.
Do not tell her that "It's your body,"
when she asks for just one more brownie.

Just make sure that you love her numerically more
than that number on the scale.

my ears ring
and my stomach churns
a holy choir lay before me
and yet I go home
and let the sadness swallow me whole
falling asleep in rivers of salty sorrow
it's been 7 years
of building and molding and technique
I've begun to heave through broken lungs
I'm encouraged every day
only to return to my stained pillow