almost a decade after the
last time i saw my father,
i dream of his death

and isn’t that
just like, really
******* morbid?

i don’t know,
maybe it’s my subconscious
looking for closure in the
only way it knows how

if he’s gone, then he
can’t hurt me anymore,
except for when he
does leave me for real

and i look at myself
in the mirror when i
shave, and for the briefest
of moments i have been
made in his image

these tattoos, the way i grew
out my mustache and goatee,
the art that i do,
everything is haunted by him

i want to say to him,
to his back as he walks away,
‘look at me, *******,
don’t you see how i emulated you
so much and so well i
almost became you?’

is that not enough for
you to love me?
is that not enough for
you to be proud of me?
is that not enough for
you to want me?

and i know the answers
to the questions that don’t
keep me up at night,
but sometimes bring
hot, angry tears to my eyes
and a lump lodges in my throat

the wound my father left
still bleeds,
albeit sluggishly now

and i know that i have
done nothing wrong here,
because i was a child,
*******,
i was just a kid

i was just a kid

you learn from icarus,
this time, and instead of
flying too close to the sun,
you simply pluck it from
the sky like a ripened peach

eaten in one bite,
you laugh through the
blood running down your
chin like sticky nectar

and when what remains
of those great wax wings has
been sufficiently cauterized,
almost matching the scars
stretching across your chest,
you decide it’s time
to go home

there’s no porchlight left
on for you this time, and
the bed is unmade just like
you left it

but you’ll turn the lights on
as you go, moving through
the house like a ghost,
finally the one
doing the haunting

and you’ll fall asleep
alone, and wake up
much the same way,
but that’s okay

alone but never lonely,
you tell yourself,
and even if it’s through
clenched teeth sometimes,
it’s the truth

so you say your own name,
feel it on the tongue like you
imagine a lover would,
and let that sun in your belly
keep you warm on the coldest nights

my lady of the ocean
and the waves, you
soothe this wild thing
snapping at my ribs

clawing at the walls
that i so carefully built,
the sound of your voice
sends all those stones
cascading down around me

and you tell me i am good,
you tell me i am kind,
that you are proud of me,
and that wild thing throws
back its head and keens

‘i see you,’ you say,
and when you call me by
a name that was never really mine,
i do not flinch
for the first time

this wild thing and i,
we will bring you all of my
sharp and jagged edges,
the parts that i fear are unfixable,
and you love me until
i am whole again

oh, my lady of the ocean
and the waves,
i see you, too
i see you, too

a bard falls in love,
writes ballads and poems
and plays those strings
until his fingers
******* bleed

out in the desert,
the horse spooks and throws
a cowboy down into
the hot searing sand,
leaves him gasping and staring
up at an empty and blue sky

on the high, unforgiving seas,
a pirate falls overboard,
sinks like he was always supposed
to return to the ocean

and i watch myself in two
different mirrors, in a bathroom
that is not mine, cutting the cord
around my neck and holding
these two rings in my hand

these hands of mine do not shake
this time, and i briefly consider
swallowing the rings,
cracking my teeth on the cold steel
like so many empty promises

instead, i pack them away,
and do not look at them,
like these other things i will
not look at

because, while i may be
a hopeful romantic,
and a lovesick ******* fool,
i refuse to let these torches
i carry for others burn
me any longer

i will rebuild these walls,
brick by brick,
and plant rose bushes with thorns
to keep away that which does
not serve me anymore

born to be a clown,
a lover,
a poet,
a bard

building myself up to
grow into a middle-aged
trans ***, like so many
before me who never got
the chance to

and i know who i am,
spent 18 years finding the
man that was always meant
to look back at me from the
smudged glass of the mirror

i paint my nails red to
match the blood that beads
along the line of my jaw
when shaving, hands and mind
distracted by how much i
look like someone else
sometimes

but i am not my father’s son,
and i never was my mother’s daughter

i am the burning streak of light against
the dark velvet of the sky, the echo
of a revolution before my bones knew
to long for those that came before

and i am going to grow up,
i am going to grow old,
not out of spite anymore,
but because it’s what i’ve fought for,
it’s what i’m owed

i cannot unwind the
rage from my queerness,
just as i cannot escape the
chokehold that fear has on
my transness

this body of mine is holy
in that i have built myself
from the ground up

but this body of mine is
also so hated because i refused
to become a statistic

i am not going to do people
that want me dead the favor
of snuffing out my own light
before my time

in one form or another, those
like me have always existed,
and will continue to do so

through every stubbled cheek caressed,
every knuckle bloodied,
every testosterone injection,
and every time i recognized that man
in the mirror as who i was always
really meant to be

i will not be erased,
my brothers
and sisters
and siblings
will not be erased

i have eaten too many matches for
this fire in me to ever burn out

the grief that has grown roots
in my stomach winds its way
up behind my ribs with the
intention to bruise,
and lodges in my throat

fifteen years later,
and i still can’t say your
name out loud

so i cry into shaking hands,
instead, one over my face,
the other balled into a fist
that i bite down on

under the light of a cold
moon that is closer than you
are to me, i sob out all
the breath in my lungs

and it’s been so long,
my old friend,
that i can’t remember what i
said the last time i saw you

but i wish i had said more,
sat beside you a little longer,
lingered under your smile
like it was the sun after
so long in the rain

i wish you could see
what i’ve made of myself,
the tattoo on my right shoulder
i gripped so hard while tears
soaked into my pillowcase

and when you’re still gone
in the morning, gone where i
still can’t follow to the clearing at
the end of the path

i’ll brush myself off and
continue on,
until we meet again,
my old friend