i can feel that i don't belong here.
feel it in their stares
their "airs" of "wisdom"
sat there the first couple days
feeling twisted
in my ways
and a whole lot more
than my gut
felt like puking.

felt like extracting
the pointy smiles
porcelain fingers of humanity
a constant war
with my painted skin.

if it is a sin
to condemn and judge
a brother
tell me with a smile
and a hand on that book
how so much hatred
and resistance
hides behind their
lash plumped eyes;
their porcelain hearts.

beating far
to the beyond that i'd go
if they could know
to accept like me.

i'm learning to uncurl
my foiled toes to the world
tread with the tips of my fingers
molding my identity, a print
the sharpest laser couldn't forget.

cast my rusty skin to the sky
so i could show them
we are brother
derived around one another
a formula.

a formula skewed
for porcelain mates turning out doll faces
on the conveyor
belt.

we are moving too fast.
i can feel that i don't belong here.
i can't feel their warmth.

this is a trick.
the ghosts of the past
are not gone.
sweeping smoke
beneath their doormats
whispering, "get in"
within their smiling teeth.
they are talking
to my rubber face.
happy to be learning to say no,
i can contentedly and stubbornly
say "are you crazy?"
and walk away.
this is something
i never would have been able
to do before.
i was never good at knowing
when indulgence
under the surface
was for pleasure
or to reverberate even further
into the echoes of pain.

notice the easy grace
in the red flag painted morning
warning some
of the coming rain.
tell them
i am typing this poem on a
phone screen
walking into a building
supposed to fill me with knowledge.
tell them
that some of these people
took in the lonely smoke
wandering around
in the night
looking for a warm mouth;
they are high today.
tell them
that some of them
don't need the bitter whip
of substance
to substitute for beauty.
tell them
i have walked away;
and let them know
that i
am the happiest that i have ever been.
                                ~