you willingly subscribe
to the belief of a god that
encourages you in
and then rewards you for
condemning those that
are seen as other
or different than yourself

but that is not what
the true meaning of this
so called good book
is calling upon you to do

but still you do
picketing funerals of gay people
wishing death upon those
that are of different abilities and minds
and willfully supporting conversion therapy
as if there is enough electricity in this world
to make me stop loving men and women

and this god
this vision of a man
with white skin and long brown hair
but not enough length to make him seem feminine
with his flat stomach and the
fabricated willingness to absolve
us of all our sins
by, ironically enough, being murdered
he still does not scare me

no, what scares me
is what you do in the name of your god
what you believe him to be saying
that because i am a trans man
because i am queer
because i tried to **** myself
i am going to hell

but doing this
using your god
a man proven time and again
to be of middle eastern descent
with an ***** ****** mother
and two fathers
as an excuse to incite violence
upon others
how does that not make you
ask yourself if this is what
he really would have wanted?

but when you can
take this person and raise them upon
a pedestal that forgives you of your hate
what does it matter
what they really said
what they really believed
and that they loved all equally?

this probably has something to do
with why i like to see jesus as a woman
sometimes a trans woman
but mostly because women are
of a gentler human variety
a nurturing sort
inhabiting the universal image
of a mother

and i know that this
god, maybe the one that
i pray to when i don’t know
what else to do
i know that she loves me
despite everything i have done
to others and to myself
she loves me
she loves me
she loves me

----
#1
i remember being a little girl
and holding my friend's hand
who was also a girl
and nobody even gave it a second thought

because the kissing cheeks and
lips but only on a dare
were just us being kids

and even when i wanted
to hold the pretty girl’s hand
who sat next to me on the bus
it wasn’t a big deal
because we were
just friends
just kids

#2
i remember being scared
because i wanted to marry
my girl friends
and live in a big house
with dogs and window seats

but still this wasn’t
a big deal or something to make
a fuss about
because i was still just a kid

nevermind the fact that
i was 12 and then 13
and i had kissed my first girlfriend
in the middle of the street
on a halloween night

and when the lady answered
the door she smiled when she
saw us holding hands
because my costume made
me look like a boy

and the candy sank like a rock
into my guts while my heart
made its home in my mouth
and when my girlfriend asked
me to come and cuddle with her
early that next morning
i rolled over and pretended to still be
sleeping

#3
i remember being a lesbian
meeting my girlfriend
at the mall
and she took my hand immediately
and told me that she wasn’t going
to be scared of doing that in public

and i fell in love with her
the first time i heard her voice
over the phone and through
the grainy webcam on my ****** laptop
and every time her name popped up
on my phone screen
i loved her even more

#4
i remember being a high school freshman
being called a ****
and a *****
and a ******
because of my haircut
and the way that i dressed

and when my bestfriend left
because of the bullying
i felt so alone and afraid

because i was surrounded
by couples that were socially acceptable
since they were a boy and a girl
and i hated their ability
to hold hands and kiss in public without
being bullied
being beaten up
being kicked out by their parents
and being killed

#5
i remember the first crush
i had on a boy as a boy myself
and it was exhilarating and terrifying
because i was social suicide
being queer and transgender

nevermind that i could write poetry
or sew buttons onto pants
or paint
or draw
or cook
or bake
or anything else

because my liking boys
and girls and people who
were both or neither or somewhere in-between
wasn’t cute anymore
since i was grown up

it made me a target
a big red X painted on my back
and to some it made me less than human
because loving who i did
made me a sinner

#6
i remember holding my boyfriend's hand
at school and how ashamed i felt
because of my palms sweating so much
and how afraid i felt

but i also remember how freeing it was
and how i almost cried the first time
he kissed me on the cheek

and i know my girl-self
who was so afraid and angry and sad
would be proud of me
because i hold nothing back now
and i don’t let that fear show
because loving who i love
and holding the hands of boys or girls
or people that don’t conform to either one
does not make me bad

it makes me brave
it makes you brave
it makes us brave

there’s this thing i have
a way to cope with the
anxiety that even though i am
almost done with therapy
for as long as i like
is still a constant thing

you see, i count
by even numbers
maybe because ending
on an odd number
makes my breath puff
out before leaving my lungs
and my head starts to spin

i count evenly
on each inhale and exhale
the number of scars on my arm
the years i spent putting those scars there
the times my mother told me she never wanted kids
and how long it took me to get over that
before she went and said it again

and i count the times that
my mother has said sorry
though that takes less than all
five fingers on one hand
because the things that she has
not apologized for
still keep me up at night

like sending me to school
with fresh bruises in the shape
of her fingers wrapping around my upper arms
like chasing me up to my room and cornering me
and shaking me with spit landing on my face
from how much and how loud she was screaming
like trapping me up against the corner
and pressing her ******* up against my back
and grinding up against me
until i said “enough”
and she replied in swears and blaming me
like her basically sexually assaulting me was
somehow my fault

and when i told the counselor
at my school what had happened
after my friends agreed i should go
that led to my telling a cop through
sobs and so many tears what my mother
had done how she had used me
i counted the number of pills i had taken
two years prior
in an attempt to take my own life
and felt a feeling like i should have known
that forty wasn’t going to be enough

born a host in a body
that was not mine
curled up against small ribs
nestled between vertebrae
so invisible but still there
still real

teeth ground down into
a snarl in the first feeling of anger
at the name and gender
slapped onto this new body
a body whose tongue is too
floppy and unlearned to protest

wrapping tighter around new body parts
blossoming like bruises after
that initial contact of skin on skin
bursting at the seams of this vessel
that can only cry out
wrong wrong wrong

because i have always been here
bursting into full-fledged existence
at the tender age of seven
when my girl-body still lacked the
words to say that this body is not mine
and being called a girl makes
my guts curdle
makes me want to peel off my skin

and here i am now
just like i have always been
making my home in a body
that was meant to hold something else
a daughter
a sister
a neice
a granddaughter
and maybe a mother

but this cage of flesh and bone
it will not hold another body
because in a way i have already birthed
myself up out of the years of pain
and confusion

because i have always been
i have always been
i have always been
i have

-

#1
*******, i am really drunk
accidentally slammed three beers
pretending that the neck of the bottle
was your lips

#2
part of me wanted to text you
staring up into the sky
praying that the stars would swallow me
and my fingers itched to type out
so many things that i would regret
in the morning

#3
and i imagined telling you
confessions of how i felt
and i imagined that little cursor
blinking back at me like so much
apathy and words swallowed
over and again

#4
and i have kissed
my fair share of people
with lips male and female
with faces smooth and some scruff
or a full beard that i envied
but girls have the softest lips
always have

#5
i wondered what it would be like
to kiss you then
holding your body to mine
hoping you would forgive the splits
in my lip that anxiety helped me put there

#6
a good describing word for how
i felt then with three beers and good food
making its home in my belly
would be “blissed”
i was blissed out on ***** and food
and my pining for you

#7
i am sober now
woke up earlier than i would have liked
but then again i fell asleep at 10:30pm

#8
and this thing i feel
it’s like a combination of regret
and disappointment in myself
for not just telling you how i feel
and for needing liquid courage
to get myself to that plateau
of spilling my guts or backing away

#9
and i have forgotten
what my favorite drink tastes like again
in favor of the words to describe
how kissing you for the first time
would surely feel

#10
and i have never felt fireworks
when kissing someone before
even the girl i thought i was gonna marry
and i’m not so young now
and a little bit more cynical
but i wanna feel those fireworks with you
and i still haven’t texted you
and i don’t know if i will
and i don’t know if i should
and i am sorry for being like this

parents tell many lies to their children
for example:
there is no monster under your bed
there are no monsters in your closet
jaws can’t get to you through the shower drain
i’ll love you no matter what

cynical huh?
yeah yeah i know
i gotta work on that
but then my writing would be so boring

so those other lies
they don’t really mean much
in the grand scheme of things
and there other ones for sure
like heaven and hell being real
and you go to hell for being other
and not for the things that you do
to yourself and others

but that last one
is what really messes kids up
and young adults
and suddenly you’re twenty five and
flinching at the parent’s voice
raised at their child to almost
a yell and it is carrying
from five grocery aisles over
and asking yourself just what the hell happened
to get you where you are today

my mom told me that last lie
and i believed her
but not enough to tell her that i
was a lesbian until i had told
what few friends i had at school
and even our dog

and i didn’t tell her at home either
because i wasn’t an idiot
and could smell the alcohol on her breath
when she picked me up from school

so i told her over appetizers
and then maybe a burger at
a restaurant that charged maybe
fifteen bucks for a slice of cake
and she told me back that she
would love and accept me no matter what

and that night
i almost told her that i had felt different
like a freak
like a monster
like i was broken
like a boy
since i was seven years old

but looking back now
from a different gender and sexuality
with scars to prove that where i came from
no child should have to go through that
i am so glad that i didn’t tell her
anything more than that i was a lesbian

because that next morning
she broke the promise that she
had been making since i was
a baby and then a child
that she would love me
that she would accept me
no matter what

and there was fresh alcohol
on her breath and ****
stink sewed into the fabric
of her clothes as she yelled
at me that i wasn’t being authentic
to myself and that i wasn’t being
my real self and that
i just hadn’t met the right boy yet

i stopped telling my mother things
like how i felt wrong in my sexuality
like how i wanted to die
when i started to bleed each month
like how i went to bed with blood
stained onto my wrists
like how i starved myself down
so she would maybe love me again

maybe that’s why
when i finally found the word
for what i was at sixteen years old
i told my blog
and the friend’s family i wished was mine
and the dog again
before i told my mother
that i wasn’t really a girl

and only then did she accept that
i had been a lesbian for the past
three years as a way to throw that
back in my face
because i couldn’t be a boy
if i was a gay woman
and i couldn’t be a boy
if i had no bottom dysphoria
and i showed no signs of it
as a child
but she was just too drunk
and ****** and absent to notice

and she tried to tell me that lie again
how she would love me
how she would accept me
no matter what
but that was followed by how she
still saw me as her daughter
and that was the first time
surprisingly enough
that i thought about slitting my throat

so parents lie to you
they lie about a lot of things
like how they will never die
the things you see aren’t real
the voices you hear aren’t real
you aren’t a monster for being you

so parents lie to you
they lie about a lot of things
like how they say:
i’ll love you no matter what
i’ll love you no matter what
i’ll love you no matter what

i’ll love you no matter what

you are more threatened by
my existence than you give yourself
credit for

and honestly that just baffles me
because i have a hard time killing spiders
and loud noises make me jump

but you don’t care about that
you just care about what you think
is in my pants
and the fact that the gender that is on
my birth certificate is different than
what i was assigned at birth
and my name is different too

but you don’t even care why
and even if you do
it is likely just a farce to give you
more reasons that in your mind
qualify me as a freak and a monster
and a horrible person that is willingly
mutilating the body that god gave me

well god has never had ears for me
and i do pray
i promise that i do
and never mind that it’s usually swearing
but if there really was a god
i like to think that he wouldn’t have stuck me
in a body that i have spent more time
wanting to destroy than actually living in

and i still don’t know
what about that
threatens you in any way
but you sure do feel threatened enough
to **** my brothers and sisters
with guns and knives and
your cruel words
over and over again

and not all of us are old
though 20 in the life of a trans person
could be considered old
since the chances of being murdered
jump a whopping 1%
to transgender individuals having a
1 in 12 chance of being murdered
and a 1 in 8 chance if they are a trans
person of color

and a good number of those people
are children and younger than
your sister or brother
who may be 14 or 12
there are so many deaths
every year
and the only reason that is given
is they were transgender
they were everything but white
and cisgender and heterosexual

so again i will ask
what about my existence makes you feel
so threatened that you think it is okay
to **** me for no other reason than
my daring to live as a male
instead of dying as a woman