----
1. no beauty

was it beautiful?
like sitting at a desk
riddled with indents from
keeping the scissors away from skin
rocking back and forth
with only one thing circling
through an addled mind
the overwhelming urge to die
feeling ready to write that final
chapter on a life barely lived

was it beautiful?
forty pills that seemed like
enough at the time
choked down with soda water
and so many built up tears
feeling the rot of depression
absorbing the medicine that was
supposed to make things better
*******

was it beautiful?
regretting waking up hours later
younger sibling in the next room
noticing the stumble
the swearing that came from
feeling organs clench and shatter
but nothing coming up

was it beautiful?
admitting to taking so many pills
tongue feeling shredded by the words
being asked to stay awake
but only feeling so much anger
at having failed
at waking up again
at still being alive

was it beautiful?
three psych wards
every time a voluntary check in
unable to stay safe
healing scars
bashing limbs against every hard surface
ripping open old wounds
both inside and out
there is nothing beautiful
in self destruction

2. no romance

was it romantic?
hospital beds and an iv
in the back of a shaking hand
monitored bathroom breaks
too many to count while a body
too young to feel so old
purged itself of so many toxins

was it romantic?
fingernails chewed down to nothing
ragged cuticles
raw and ****** knuckles
because those hurt just a little bit less
than constantly pulling open
scabbed over splits in
gnawed on lips

was it romantic?
looking for love to give to others
not leaving enough behind to keep
not caring about that
too busy wanting to go home
please fix this
make the hurt go away
make everything shiny and new again

was it romantic?
unable to find respite
from the mental onslaught
in the unmarred arms of another
because illness and depression
do not care about
kissing scars to heal them
or boxes of chocolate
or roses
or whispered “i love you”s
because life is not a
teen romance novel

was it romantic?
wanting to die
even while sitting next to
that person that made things
not hurt so bad
and feeling guilty about fresh cuts
fresh bruises
burn marks that could be explained
away as accidents

was it romantic?
mass media certainly seems to think so
here’s looking at you
john green and jay asher
because why should people have
struggles if they can’t be candy-coated
and wrapped up in neat little bows
with complementary
packets of tissues on the side

was it romantic?
smelling of blood
and sweat from so many nightmares and terrors
trembling and shaking
racked by guilt and anxiety
waiting for an ulcer
waiting for something to happen
to make it seem worthwhile
because in mental illness and trauma
there is no prince
no princess
no damsel in distress
no disney movie happy ending
there is no romance
in wanting
to constantly die

dear mustache,
i used to hate you
because of how dark and prominent
you were against the almost pallor
of my skin

people would
make fun of me for you
in middle school especially
but kids are mean
and i stood out in more
ways than my mustache
that would have been more fitting
on a prepubescent teenage boy
than an angry lesbian

i was
shamed into waxing you away
which hurt so much the first time
that i almost cried
but what hurt more than the hot wax
was my father
whose genes gifted me with
darker and coarser hair
always encouraging me to
bleach you away into an acceptable
shade of invisible

and then
when a switch was thrown
inside my body that had
been crying out from the still
tender age of seven that my being
called a girl was
wrong wrong wrong

you were
there still having always
come back after the wax and bleach

but that
fine line of hairs above
my upper lip
you made me feel more masculine
you made me hate myself less

you make me feel more masculine
you make me hate myself less

that was gonna be me
ya know?
well it almost was
but sometimes
i feel like it really should have been
if only i had tried hard enough

but wouldn’t you know
trazodone is actually really
hard to overdose on
so it seems safe to conclude
that when the paramedic told me
i was lucky i had woken up
he was lying

the bottom line is though
that i thought i was ready
to be that person who so
many others knew
went to school with
grew up with
but then they all would have
continued to age
while i became part of the earth again

and while i was certainly
gone for those few hours
before i woke up
soaked in sweat
tangled in my sheets and
the realization that i had failed
my heart was still beating
and when i was pulled under again
fear gripped me tighter than
my depression and
suicidal urges ever did

because i didn’t want to die
i was only sixteen years old
my sister was in the room
right next to mine
and i wondered what that would
have done to her
if she had found me
and that makes me hate myself
just that much more

but failing that
being an almost statistic
waking up
and voluntarily being admitted
into the psychiatric ward
it made me a survivor
it meant that i wanted to live
and i do
i really do

but there are so many
other scars besides the one
on my skin and possibly some
internal organs
that run like deep grooves
inside of my psyche
and i sometimes wonder
why people that want to die
that do **** themselves
are treated like they did not
want to live
when they wanted to live
the most of all

why does wanting to
have the pain stop
make them bad people?

“to love another
you must first love yourself
fore if you do not love yourself
you can not truly love
anyone else”
what a bunch of crap

the list of things
that i hate about myself
it is far bigger than the things
that i like about myself

i hate my hands
with the chewed-down fingernails
and the chronic tremors from anxiety
and so many different cocktails of medication
that has grown too big to
swallow dry anymore

i hate my mental illness
the auditory and visual hallucinations
that used to plague me constantly
and the depression
the anxiety
the insomnia
the ****** PTSD

i hate that i cut myself
for six years
and the urges still overwhelm
me more than is probably healthy

sometimes i hate that i failed
when trying to **** myself
four years ago

i am a freak in every
sense of the word
but that doesn’t bother me as much
as it used to
because all of my heroes are freaks too
and i still have so much love to give

because i grew up hating myself
raised between two abusive households
where it was made obvious that i
was not wanted by either parent
so i took that love that i was unable
to feel for myself and threw
it out into the world
for those that needed it more than me

i have so much love to give
because that is a terrible thing
to let go to waste
and i have more than enough
to go around

and i hate myself more days
than i love myself
but by giving that gift to others
before myself i think
and i know
that i am slowly learning how to
love myself again
and forgetting what it has felt like
to hate myself since i was
seven years old

so don’t you dare tell me
that i can’t love others until
i love myself
because that isn’t enough of
a reason to keep moving forward
and loving others first is how i
pick up the jagged edges
and smooth them down into something
that is soft once again

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