pirate with a fear of drowning,
bard with a fear of loving,
but i lashed myself to the mast anyway,
and sang until my voice gave out

and that’s the same kind of
fear, in a way,
so close to giving in to the sweet
call of the unknown,
wondering if the loose threads in the
well-worn sleeves of your sweater will
finally unravel if i stray too far
from where i’ve been holding on

i won’t dash my ship upon the
rocks this time, will stay out
past the breakers and squint up at
where i imagine you to be when the
bright yellow from that lonely lighthouse
bathes my sins in gold

maybe i’ll even walk away
just about unscathed, too,
promises that still echo across the
empty stage of my heart,
eagerly awaiting when you’ll be able
to, willing to, understand this tongue

and there’s fear in that, too
under all that love, it’s just fear,
and this shouldn’t come as a surprise

and maybe this one isn’t for you,
but it’s certainly about you,
just the same

on the last bus of a
four transfer trek,
watching as the mountain,
covered in snow under all
that blue, blue, sky,
grows larger before me

but i’m not going home
no, i’m going to drink
and make merry with that
wild sea captain i fell in
love with as a younger man

and there’s not quite enough
liquid courage thrumming through
my veins and warming that
darkest pit that lurks in my stomach
to admit i never fell out of that love

though, if i lean a little closer
on that cracked leather armchair,
or if our hands brush when
playing best two out of three
with a board game, then no one
else needs to know

and when that wild sea captain
of mine declares himself a broken man,
i will not argue, because that’s
not my place

nor will i presume that this
is a fairy tale and i can somehow
love those jagged edges back together,
or that this is something to be fixed at all

and because this is no fairy tale,
since no greater force compels me,
i can be a constant of my own free will,
bringing with me baked goods and
loud laughs over cheap beers

i can love that sea captain,
not in spite of,
but because of,
those jagged edges

the song on the radio
makes you think of
yet another middle school
dance you didn’t want to
be at

but your mother had
already given you the four
dollars for the door fee, and
wouldn’t be back to
get you for another few hours

and it’s dark in the gym,
atmosphere that feels suffocating
and stagnant to you sporadically cut
through by bright winking lights

the little black dress with the
pink band around the middle is
accentuating all the wrong parts
of your body, and you long for
oversized hoodie, sneakers, and jeans

and the only boy you want to
dance with, doesn’t want to
dance with you

still don’t know if you want to
be 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 him
or 𝘣𝘦  him,

still won’t know, over a decade later,
thought this no longer keeps you up at night

but you want his hands on
your hips, think and hope and pray
that this simple gesture could
ground you in girlhood

and this boy, with his tawny hair
and kind eyes, doesn’t know that
you’re a boy, too

and neither do you, right then
all you do know is that you’re a
girl who feels wrong in her skin,
and even worse in that
little black dress with the pink
band around the middle

and the boy you want to
dance with, doesn’t want to
dance with you

I. “i’ll let you know
when i get home,”
i say into the space between
us as the only man i’ve
ever truly loved embraces me
like i’m something, someone
to be cherished

i turn and wave one
last time before the trees block
the view of the little cabin,
then i take four buses back to
my empty apartment and
ache just that much more

II. we go out, or i come
over, and when you drive me
back home you wait until
i’m inside before driving away

even when i fumble with
my keys, your love is
still patient with me

III. “text me when you
get home,” i say,
and you do every time

even if you forget once
or twice, you apologize
twice as much, and i
love you all the
more for that

IV. i cry into the
sink full of dishes that
i’m washing my way through,
hands too soapy to wipe away
the tears

but i grab a threadbare dishtowel
to see what you’ve got to say,
when my phone goes off

V. and i’ll dry my hands,
and my tears,
to text you back:
‘i love you, too’

eating cold pad thai
from the carton,
breakfast lunch and dinner,
slouching in threadbare
pajama pants

sitting in the shower
with no water running,
alternating between laughing
helplessly, and crying just
the same

i’ll bite down on my
knuckles hard enough
to bruise, the tender
spots where my fingers bend,
muffled and muzzled this grief

playing pallbearer at my
own funeral, equally haunted
and haunting

i am nothing but a ghost,
rebounding off the walls
of this long since emptied house

and you’re somewhere
i can’t reach quite yet,
and i don’t have your number,
but you still have mine

so give me a ring sometime,
and i’ll pretend you’re close enough
to twine our fingers together
just one more time

how strange it is,
my friend,
to age and grow older
without you by my side

bending down to pull
up my socks this morning,
and my *** left shoulder
cracks in a way that didn’t
hurt then, but promised
to later

my left knee also cracks
when i go up stairs now,
and even though you can’t
tell right now, because i went
and shaved my head,
i’m starting to gray at the temples

i feel simultaneously the
oldest, and the youngest,
that i’ve ever been

on that day i woke up
and you had been gone for
sixteen years, it felt like that
first time i’d fallen and landed
on my back and for a terrifying
few seconds, i couldn’t breathe

i haven’t been able to
take a full breath
since the last time i saw you

surprised to find that
the blood staining my
teeth belongs to me,
this time

eat your heart out
and all that,
i suppose

but when i served
that heart to you,
having carved it out
of my already scarred chest
with the knife that you
had already left in my back

well, you just stuck
up your nose and said
it still wasn’t enough,
i still wasn’t enough

were the potatoes i
served as a side over cooked?
was the dessert too bitter?
did the sobs i muffled into
the crook of my arm turn
your stomach?

did the meal turn
to ash in your mouth?
i certainly hope it did

you were my love,
my muse,
my five year plan,
i wanted to ******* marry you!

naive of me, huh?
to think someone so dissatisfied
and unhappy with themselves
could ever love me back
in the way i know i deserve

all you’ve ever known
how to do is use someone up
and then spit them back out

you left me in
worse shape than i was found,
bitter and jagged,
hollowed out and wary

your name leaves a
bad taste in my mouth

and the same
wild blood, well,
it thrums in our veins

a bard and a siren,
a poet and his muse,
your hand in mine,
and my hand in yours

take me out past
these paved highways
to those grassy fields
where the wild horses run

we’ll sit on the hood
of your parked car,
splitting a six pack
and sweet summer peaches

and i’ll fall in
love with you
all over again

because i don’t have
to beg for mercy,
or confess my sins,
or cage this wild thing
that lives in my chest

your hands are tender enough,
your words soft and kind,
to soothe that black boneyard dog
that paces over and over
what i’ve had to bury

and there in the sun,
i know you won’t ask
me to dig any of it up

so i’ll knock that
old dirt off my well-worn boots,
and with the sun at my back,
and you by my side,
i’ll plant flowers there instead

two beers and three tacos in,
the clover pendant falls
out of my necklace

while you superglue
it back in place, you look
over at me and ask,
“you’ve still got this?”

i have the first one
you gave me, too, that
i wore until it oxidized

because the materials
that you work with now
weren’t as nice then, but
i didn’t feel like myself
without that cord around
my neck

and since i am a bard,
a poet, a lover, and a hopeful,
hopeless, lovesick fool,
i want to say something back
about true north and true love

i’ve charted the stars in the sky,
and the wind in your sails,
and how the sunrise looks
when i’m making us breakfast
in the morning

it’s that soft glow,
the way you look at me,
that sets my heart ablaze

but that’s not what you
want to hear, is it, my love?

so i’ll flash you a quick grin,
toss back the rest of my
cheap beer, shrug, and say
cheerfully, “of course i do”

the only gift from
god that i ever accepted
have been my teeth

and i will take
this gift, stained with
years of coffee, crooked and
chipped, and i will
sink them into
your flesh

don’t you see, my love,
i am a rabid dog,
broken free of
its choke-chain

nothing is going to
hold me back

from chomping at this bit,
from swallowing matches until the
darkest parts of me finally burn out,
and from feeling the hot beads of your
red, red blood as they burst
across my tongue

and if i can’t make
a home within the curvature
of your lovely ribs, well,
then, maybe i’ll just
devour you instead,
my love

and this wild thing
within the scarred confines
of my chest, well, it
keens at the distance between
your hand and mine

and maybe it’s better
to let sleeping dogs lie,
just this once, but then again,
i’m just old enough to know better,
and foolish enough in love
to do it anyway

and what if you
didn’t **** her,
but i did?

what if i slithered
up from the cracked
and barren ground and
made myself at home
behind the cage
of her ribs?

how did you feel
when i cut her hair
for that very first time,
and dyed it once,
and then again?

do you feel like
i am wearing the skin
of your girl?

do you keep yourself
up at night, asking
why your baby girl
grew into a ****,
and then into a man?

you didn’t share in that
same relief, a homecoming
after far too long away,
that i felt looking down
at a chest that was bandaged,
sure, but was finally flat,
did you?

how did you feel
when another man,
that was never going to be you,
taught me how to shave?

what did you feel,
when the longer i was
on testosterone, the
more i looked like you?

never was made to
be a daddy’s girl,
was i now?

but i wasn’t made
to be your boy, either

the image i have
taken great care to sculpt
myself in has never
once been yours

won’t admit to being
a good man, if that’s
something i’ve ever
really been

but, oh, i’ll admit
to being selfish in
a heartbeat

i want, and
i crave, and
i yearn

and i’m just a
love letter to you,
in a language that you
can’t yet read

and that’s okay,
because the love,
well, it’s still there

this torch i’ve been
carrying for you,
this candle i’ve been
burning at both ends

surely the sun must still
rise, cast warm light on
the darkest and most jagged
parts of me

let me be your first
port in a storm

let me be selfish,
just a little while longer

i am awoken by
the sounds of rain
thundering down onto
the patio outside the window
of what used to be my room

dragging myself from the
warmth of bed, i go
through the motions of
pulling on clean clothes
and brewing coffee

pausing for a sip,
i take a peek around
around the corner of my
laptop, and find that the
pond has flooded

water laps further up the
stone steps like a
hungry ocean, and rain
continues to fall

waiting for the flood,
like it will smooth out
all my jagged edges,
i imagine myself as
a fish

maybe a trout, caught
by a starving man,
held aloft in strong hands
as the hook is pulled
from my mouth

and when that knife
slips down the seam
of my tender belly, i’ll
welcome the gutting, because
it’s him wielding the blade

take from me what
is of use, and discard
the rest, like plucking
thin bones from between your
teeth, and i wonder if you’ll
think of me then

when the reaching and
pulling, and dragging arms
of the ocean i willingly walk
into, take me into the mouth
of that verdant beast

and the house floods,
sends coffee mugs and
empty bottles tumbling,
smashed on the rocks
of this longing

and when the rain
lessens just enough for
sunlight to arc out across
the expanse of that endless
sea that stretches from one
end of the horizon to the other

and you’re out there
on your paper sailboat,
you’ll realize that we’re
under the same blazing sun
once again, and smile like
you do, just for me

the father apologizes
in this story, but you’ve
already torn out the last
few chapters, so you
don’t know why,
or what for

maybe he’ll hug you,
this time, or run a hand
through your hair,
maybe make you breakfast?
or just call you his boy

and wouldn’t that be nice,
to be your father’s boy,
for the very first
******* time?

and i’ll bite the
hand that held me,
alright, and i’ll
bite the hand that
beat me even harder

it’ll be his blood
on my teeth this time,
instead of mine

i’ll hold the knife
he gave me in a steady
grip, and excise every
last bit of the hurt
he left behind

and the father apologizes
in this story, but it
doesn’t fix anything

and the fear of a child
still haunts the man
that i grew up to be

i tuck the knife
that was in my back
into my front pocket

this thing inside my
chest, it keens when
i wipe the blood off
on a tattered sleeve

and i’ve just been
cold for so ******* long,
i don’t know how to
feel any other way

and what do you
mean, when you say that
you won’t hurt me
this time?

the knife trembles in
my grip, and i won’t
believe you,
i just can’t

i won’t beg to
be touched with gentle
and caring hands,
won’t ask nicely,
won’t ask at all

this thing, seeking a
safe harbor nestled between
my ribs, bares crooked teeth
and snaps at anything,
anyone, that gets too close

and so i take
solace in what i know,
tell myself that’s enough until
i believe it

and i do not
yearn, and i do
not ache, and i
do not wish

and there’s a knife
in my hand, and blood
on my shirt, and there
will be no rest

there will be no rest

i once again find myself
to be lovelorn
lovesick,
and foolishly so,
when it comes to you

with a heart too prone
to pining for its own good,
i dream of donning a silk gown
and sharing a dance with you

let me long,
and ache,
and wish,
just a little longer

maybe you could have
loved me once,
in the way that i desired,
but that’s not in the cards
i find myself holding this time

and there’s no tricks
up my sleeve, no clever
metaphors like crashing my
ship upon the rocks of this
longing again and again

just watching the dappled
light from rising sun casting
its warming rays across the back
of a chair with two hats resting
on either side

and maybe that’s enough,
maybe it has to be

it is raining,
when i leave you,
and when you hug me,
bathed in the warm glow
of yellowed bulbs in
your kitchen, i never
want to go

the scent of the
blanket i laid under
clings to my flannel, and
makes me think of you

if i press my nose
to the sleeve, i can
almost convince myself
you’re in the next room

but it’s just me here,
only the pattering rain
for company, still writing
hopeless hopeful hopesick
poetry about a man
i am not in love with anymore

my heart stills knows you, though
looks forward to every time that
we meet again, and you’ll take
me in your arms and remind
me again that i exist

i am as real to you
as the cheap beer slowly warming
in my hand, or the cake i baked
because you asked me to so sweetly,
or that smile of yours that always
feels like it’s just for me

i see you,
and i know that
you see me, too

and sure, i guess that
the rituals i am constructing
here are a certain
kind of intricate

intimate?
INTRICATE

can’t just come right out
with it and ask to be held,
so i’ll provoke you instead,
my love

your fist,
my mouth

my bloodied teeth,
your soft neck

tighten your hands in the
collar of my threadbare jacket,
and at least you’re
touching me, then

and it feels like i’ve
written this before,
walking in tracks that
already match the soles
of my well-worn boots

and maybe i have, and maybe
it’s been about you
every ******* time

1..when i think of you,
i find myself as a teenager
again, both of us standing
in the middle of my messy
bedroom, with the curtains
and door both shut

and i don’t remember
who kissed first, but i
know how it felt when you
bit the inside of my lip,
and hot blood ran down
my chin

maybe there’s a greater
metaphor wrapped up in that,
but you were my first in more
ways that just a kiss
that ended ******

first girlfriend to first
boyfriend, growing into
who we were supposed to
be, side by side

until we stopped, and
i lost you somewhere
along the way, and i
never did find you again

i don’t want to
find you now, my first
and last of so many things

i try not to think of you,
and i wonder if you feel
that way about me, too

2..when i think of you,
i am 14 years old and
in what i thought was
love at the time, again

i’ve done a really
good job of forgetting you,
can’t even remember the
color of your eyes,
or how it made me feel
to wake up in your arms

you were simultaneously one
of the best and worst things
to ever happen to me

but i remember how
it made me feel when we
met for the first time at
the mall, and you took my hand,
looked me in the eyes and said,
‘i’m not afraid of people seeing
me holding your hand’

3..when i think of you,
we’re eating sushi and
drinking cokes,
meeting for the first time

it should have ended
then, but i’d gotten a taste
of what it was like to be
looked at and seen,
and wanted more

you never did look
at me like that again, though,
and it still makes me angry
to know that you wouldn’t
hold me, or even touch me,
unless you were ******

4..when i think of you,
we’re kissing in the cold
garage of your ex boyfriend’s
townhouse, and you’re touching
my cheek like i’m something
that deserves to be held tenderly

walking home in the
dark, feeling drunk off of
what might have been love,
i drafted a poem in my head
about another man
and we both wanted
there to be a love story
for us so ******* bad

but all you did
was use me up and then try
to take even more after
you’d already bled me dry

5..when i think of you,
it’s in the context of all
those pretty lies you fed me,
that i happily lapped up

and you were surprised
when i’d had enough and
bit the hand that held me
in a way that could have been
tender, but only made me bitter
in the end

6..when i think of you,
there is good food warming
my belly, and *** in my glass

we could go play
pirates together, and forget
what it is that holds us down,
that which we must carry,
if only for the night

and i don’t regret
loving you like i did,
oh captain of mine

7..when i think of you,
it’s like coming home again
after having been gone
for just a little too long

and i’ve been madly,
deeply, head over heels,
in love with you since i
met you when i was 16

when you read my
own words to me, and
i liked how they sounded
on your tongue, you made
me feel seen, feel known,
in ways i never had before

you know how to
soothe that great snarling thing
that lives between my ribs

you tell me i
am good, i am kind,
i am known and seen and
loved, and i believe you
every ******* time

under the cover of
near darkness, with the setting
sun painting the clouds in the
richest of hues, and a light patter
of rain falling onto the trees,
i will say, “follow me”

and lead you by
the hand deeper into the forest,
where the glow of the sunset
hardly reaches, and i will say,
“here’s where i buried
a part of me”

you’ll ask me what
part that would be exactly, and
i’ll drop your hand to hang
my head and reply that i
don’t know anymore

you nod, and drop
softly to the forest floor,
pushing dirt aside like
you know exactly what
to look for

and maybe you do,
always able to coax out
the bitter and broken parts
and then hold me until i
am myself again

then, freeing a small
box from the wet earth,
you stand once more to
present this long-since buried
thing to me

part of me is
afraid to take it, which you
also seem to know, and tell me again,
“you are good. you were made to
love and be loved in turn, just like
we all were”

and we’ll bury that
box again together,
albeit empty this time

and you’ll take my
hands in yours to lead
me back out into the
velvet blue beauty of the night

and you’ll say to
me, with my head resting
on your shoulder,
“i’ll always be there to
walk you home”

and
and
and
i will always know
this to be true

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

sore and sweaty in the
dishpit at work,
well-worn boots on my feet
that i’d had for years before
i even knew what the words
queer and trans meant

and the black jeans that
i’ve been wearing for two days
to go with the black box dye
staining my hair

laura jane grace sings to
me through the radio
speakers about being androgynous

and i think about my gender then,
feel the ridges stretch where *******
once sat when i reach just far enough
to grab more dishes stacked beside me

mostly, i think about how
my girlhood felt like the steel jaws
of a spring loaded trap,
and no matter how hard i tried,
i could never gnaw off my
own limb to get free

i think of the testosterone for
a little over five years,
and a double mastectomy,
and the $200 to change my
name and gender marker

i ran from my girlhood
as far and fast as i could,
into the arms of the man
i made myself to be

and then i think of you,
long hair and longer legs,
twirling around in that skirt
i gave you

your womanhood is a gift,
one that i am forever humbled
to witness you reveling in,
watching you embrace everything
that i felt held back by

for you, to be a woman
is not a steel trap,
nor a choke-chain
or something to run from

for you,
to be a woman is a
beautiful thing,
and how beautiful you are

this ship and i
have both got ribs,
crafted from wood and bone,
both housing something greater
than the sum of our parts

but even wood,
even bone,
can splinter and break

and, my heart,
my love,
there is no sign of land

perhaps there has not been
for quite some time,
but like the lovesick fool
that i am, the majesty of

the open ocean and the bright
skies above captured my attention
more than that lonely little spit
of shore growing ever smaller
in the distance ever could

and maybe the answer that
i seek slumbers at the bottom
of the ocean, far from the sun
and the salty tears
of silly bards

for i never was much of
a sailor, much preferring the
company of you and a bottle
of spiced *** to the creaking
ship boards under my boots

and there is no sign of land,
and i hope i never get sober,
and maybe i’ll get to see
your lovely crooked teeth one
more time as you smile so wide
and hold me close

and wouldn’t that be nice,
oh captain of mine?

it’s not that i hate
the girl i (maybe)
used to be

i just never wanted
to be her

and there were no
instructions for me to follow
on how to pretend
to be like the other girls

how to wear skirts,
dresses, long hair in braids,
how not to flinch when
called my mother’s daughter

and the way that the pretty girl
with the long brown hair
saving a seat on the bus for me
made me feel like my heart
was in my throat and beating
its way out of my chest
all at the same time?

how was i supposed to handle that?
wanting to hold this girls hand,
and being almost overwhelmed with
joy when she actually let me

and the first boy i kissed
told me i was a pretty girl,
and it made me want to puke

and when i was able
to fix all that with testosterone
and top surgery and not even
bleeding when i shaved for the first time,
can you blame me for wanting
to forget that i ever was her?

i just didn’t know how to
miss someone i never wanted to be,
how to grieve for this girl
that always felt so wrong
in her own skin

and while i still can’t
remember her as fondly
as i might one day be able to,
i love that girl

i love that girl,
holding a bouquet of bright yellow
scotch broom, with messy braids
and the holes in the knees
of her jeans

you were a shooting star
that always passed me by
and i wished on you
everytime

maybe you’d let me
hold your hand,
lay my head on your shoulder,
stay one more night

yelling my wishes
as a cloudless sky
watches me, reaching for
the man in the moon with
my booted feet firmly planted
on the hard ground

and maybe if i could
find enough wooden boards
and rope, i could build a
ladder that would reach you

but is that something
that you would even want,
my love?

that’s not really something
that i can ask,
would ruin the magic of this
hopeful romantic,
falling in love again and again

so i’ll settle for a star,
hold it close in my steady hands,
and think of you as i fall
back to earth

while it may be true
that the way to a man’s
heart is through his stomach,
i chose to crack open my
ribcage for you

and your longing was just
as hungry as mine,
two beasts that devour
in the same way

what a feast
my heart would make for you,
my love

all you have to do is ask
and i will fill this table to creaking
with all the foods you enjoy,
and drink to chase back the light

and maybe i’ll leave in the morning,
or you’ll beat me to that particular punchline,
but when we were
when we are
together

i forget the rest

i say to god that he
is just another absent father
and he tells me to
eat my vegetables

i want to ask where he was,
my father?
a god that i
still don’t know if i fully
believe in?

but because i am
a good son,
i will set the table,
carefully lay out the silverware

ladle hot soup into clean
bowls and bite the inside
of my cheek until it bleeds
when my father says that
i purposely gave him less meat

and i want to ask him,
is this all i am to you?
another mouth to feed,
somebody to blame for your
mistakes and the alcohol on your
breath as you scream at me?

where have you gone,
father of mine,
this mythical man that
walks among the clouds,
and what should i pray for?

a father that loves me,
that wants to parent me,
when does this begging to be
seen as his son,
as anything,
taper off into anger?

because i am down on
my knees here,
but still there is no answer,
and i don’t expect there to be

the sea chases a sailor
from one port to the next,
licking at the well-worn tread
of his cracked leather boots,
soaks the cuffs of tattered breaches,
pulls at thread-bare long-coat sleeves

maybe the ocean reminds him of you,
and how even the deepest bottles
of *** must eventually come to an end,
licking dry lips to find the
last vestiges of salt

or the taste of you
still on his tongue,
wild and carefree, an unbroken thing

like this heart that still beats
within his chest,
undeterred by the passage of time

maybe this is a waiting game
that you both know well,
waiting for your voice to ring out
over the swells to warn this weary sailor
of the rocks just up ahead

(besides, a ship is just a ship
a sailor is just a man wed to the open ocean
a lighthouse is just another lonely port)

a welcome and a warning
that drives the two of you further away,
asking himself if it’s worth it
to crash upon the jagged edges
of your cliffs again

and already knowing the answer,
as he stops and turns
to meet the waves

men like to romanticize the sea,
and with a mistress like that,
can you really blame me?

but the sea does not care
for my affections,
the pretty words that i spin
to describe her beauty

and this is something that
must not be forgotten,
that this great watery expanse
cares not for your boats
or beating red hearts

for she will drown you
just the same

and yet, once named
the search will not stop,
or the loss will haunt you

sometimes, lover,
the call of the sea
sounds like your name

and i have searched for you
as long as there has been
breath in my lungs

and with a love like that,
can you really blame me?

i wonder if building
a house inside of myself
wouldn’t be the worst thing,
the worst choice i’ve ever made

and i chose to love
you on purpose, ya know?
brought fresh pine and soft rugs
to fashion you a table and chairs

but what is an empty table,
if only a centerpiece to display
all the times i dashed my own
heart upon the rocks?

still, i can’t blame the soft
and rain-soaked dirt of your soul
for not being able to nourish
the flowers i so carefully planted

so i will take these wooden planks
and fashion myself a little cottage,
maybe with a wrap-around porch and
window boxes,
and wouldn’t that be nice?

because these hands of mine, lover
they know not the days old
stubble on your cheek, or tucking
bright yellow dandelions and buttercups
behind your ear

but they do know
how to build something from nothing
something from what once was
a ship, a lighthouse, a table

a sturdy front porch
that always has the light on

yearning like a choke chain,
like a feral animal
chewed off its own back paw
caught in the jaws of a
steel trap

and what you did to me
didn’t hurt any more than
what i did to myself

though,
what did you do,
besides tell the truth,
that you couldn’t love me back?

how could i resent
you for that,
my love?

because i did what
i do best as a hopeful
romantic and self-proclaimed bard

i fell in love
let this yearning make me
into a love-sick fool

only ever a fool for you,
which is a nicer way of saying
i broke my own heart
before you ever even
got the chance to try

and maybe there’s
a certain kindness in that.
holding all this yearning at bay

trying to find a good metaphor
to say i still love you
and not have it sound desperate and sorry
at the same time

my fiery-haired siren
this lady of the ocean and the waves
she says over a static-y cell connection
that i feed her heart,
that i am a garden

and suddenly,
the darkest parts of me
are bursting with sunshine
colored in shades of gold
for what feels like the same time

she tells me
that this garden blooming
isn’t just flowers,
it’s bees and green grasses
and the running horses

and i want to tell her
that i will always run to her
like the circle of her arms around
me is always calling me home

and i want to gift her
sweet wines and cheese,
and all the words i have
to offer, because she deserves them

and it’s not her siren call
that led me here,
but one heart recognizing another
as a place to sit and rest for a while,
to plant more flowers and watch
the wild horses run

stranger with my face,
where have you been?
where have you gone?

can’t find the answers
watching myself shave
in the ***** mirror,
where blood that we both
once shared drips into
the sink from a cut
on my chin

do you remember when
you wanted to prove
that i wasn’t your son,
until you had to
pay for it?

because i do,
and laugh every time
i tell that story
like it doesn’t still hurt

as if i don’t look
exactly like you;

and a door closes,
but a window doesn’t open

after all, there are no exits
in this hallway constructed
from grief that slowly
curdles into hate

and i could drink about this,
but what’s the point?
this is a hurt that knows
how to swim

but i’d like to toast anyway,
so here’s three cheers
to absent fathers,
the boy he never wanted to see,
and the man he never gets to know

unsolicited and unwelcome
a man bigger and taller than
i am demands to know what it is
that i believe in

and when i tell him that
i believe in love
he tells me that i am wrong

and i tell him he is
making me uncomfortable
and finger the cap on the canister
of mace in my jacket pocket

i do not tell this man
that he doesn’t know what he is
talking about, nor do i
ask just who the hell he
thinks he is to tell me
that my belief is wrong

i believe in love
in the way my friend wears
the pajama pants i bought him
and makes me pancakes and coffee
for breakfast

i believe in love
in the way she hangs the art
i make for and send to her
in the houses of her home,
willing to bring a massive
canvas all the way to alaska

i believe in love
in the way they welcome me
into their heart and their home
and lets me make them dinner
and clean up after like
domesticity is what you make of it

i believe in love
in the way my sister
calls me her brother
for the very first time
and doesn’t laugh when it
makes me cry

and i believe in love
like one could or would
a god,
but my god is not cruel
my god is not distant

my god
is in the bus fair he makes sure
i have, and then offers if i don’t

my god
is tangible and believes in
me like i believe in it

my god
makes sure i’ve eaten and drank
makes sure i get home safely
and asks me to text them
because they’ll worry if i don’t

there is a choice to be made here
a crossroads, if you will
and i very much do,
thank you

i can either keep beating
the dead horse of what
you did to me

or, what,
forget you?

like how you made me feel
when we first met and the cliche of
this boy is gonna break my heart
so i better break it first
ran through my head

isn’t it funny,
dearheart,
the lies we tell ourselves?

but you lied to me, too
in more ways than one, and
the coercive and manipulative man
i spent five (miserable) months with
was not the kind artist i
really could have fallen in
love with

i don’t care what happened
to that version of you anymore
because melancholy and remembering
do me no good

you taught me a lesson
unintentional though it may have been,
that flowery words and pretty poems
don’t mean anything without actions
to back them up

you knew just the right way
to break down my walls
to make me feel safe and loved
and i won’t forgive you for that

but i will forgive you
for enough
to forget

a bard believes in love
with all that he is
and all that he has

holds it in
his two trembling hands
regards warily sometimes
as judge, jury, garroter

making a home on
this island in the middle
of a vast ocean was
an act fueled by love

and maybe there’s a story
to be written here
about the lines in a
sea captain’s handsome face
carved there by roaring
wind and raucous laughter

maybe there’s a story
in the way a siren’s flame-red
hair fans out around her lithe form
where she stretches to gift
the bard pearls and a promise
of never being alone again

and maybe there’s a story
in the way a kitchen witch
welcomes the bard into her home
and a seat at her grand table
holds him steady against
the rocking of a weather
beaten pirate ship

there’s a story in these people
the bard has willingly tied himself to
how he immortalizes them in love
and the written word

keeping the lighthouse
like a beacon and a promise
of a love not like a choke-chain
but a fistful of flowers freely given
again and again and again

it’s something like a love letter,
the bard thinks to himself,
draping a well-worn jacket
over the captain’s shoulders

you’ve returned to me again
followed that bright beam
from an island lighthouse
out of the ocean depths

and over the wooden floorboards
to this table,
laden with the kind of soft
cookies you like,
and just the right amount of ***

and certainly there must be
a kind of magic imbued
in the way the captain
glances at the bard
with a twinkle in his eye

that hints at the star
he used to be,
when he sailed towards
a much closer horizon

and watching the captain
wrapped in his coat for a change,
the bard remembers why
he fell in love with the captain
all over again

and when the captain
has sailed out upon that
vast and salty ocean once again,
the bard will press his face
into a jacket sleeve that

the smell of the captain
still lingers on,
and pretend that fabric
were his wind-worn skin instead

and think to himself, yes,
there is surely something like a love letter in this

you made me feel
like i was hard to love
and that’s something i
can’t find it in me
to forgive you for

after all, what good
am i to you
if there’s no ***?

seems like the answer
to that is a naive and
generous $400 and that
hoodie you stole from me

i told myself that if you
were happy, that was
enough for me,
for 5 ******* months

and what do i have to
show for it?

a last dinner together
that you were 40 minutes
late for, that i ate alone,
which is ironically the best
meal i’d ever had with you

and i think of you
years from now
doing to another partner
what you did to me

and in the midst of this
anger and hurt, i pity you

because, dearheart
when it comes to lasting love,
selflessness, reciprocity,
and symbiosis

your cup doesn’t
runneth over

it just runs out

the pecans i buy
are not for me,
can’t justify a price tag
like that on myself

but when i see them
on the grocery store shelves
where the star bucks baristas
know me by name
all i think about is you

pecan sandies, mostly
but it goes good with pumpkin, too
and i know you’d agree

and i think about all these
things i have baked for you,
like trying to fill that hollow place
in both of us with sustenance
will make that darkness
a little less oppressive

who’s to say it won’t?

and there must be something holy
in the flour dusted on my black shirt,
hot oven in an even hotter kitchen
when you asked me so sweetly
for something i had never made before
and how am i supposed to say no

how could i?

and you weren’t mine to love,
much less fall in love with

but, just the same,
that’s not something i can bring
myself to regret

stranger with my face,
where have you been?

i realize in therapy today
that i do not know my father

can’t remember the color of his eyes
or his address,
but i still know what he used to drink
when i was a small boy,
and surely that counts for something

old crow grog,
bottle pushed far back enough
on top of the fridge that i
couldn’t reach

and i guess i should thank
him for that,
shouldn’t i?

but if that’s all i have to thank
my father for
whose dna i share half of,
then what’s the ******* point?

tell me how i find the poetry
in a father that abused me
and then abandoned me

this man that didn’t want me
when i still thought i was his daughter,
and really didn’t want me for a son

what do i do with that?
how do i make it stop hurting?
how much gauze must i pack into
this gaping and gangrenous wound that
my childhood left
before it stops bleeding for good?

i was a kid,
i was just a kid
that needed his father,

but that’s never been something
i was willing to beg for,
nor should i have to

a bard falls in love
and then lies to himself
about it for what feels
like a very long time

easy enough to say
that flashes of long blond hair
and blue eyes could just be
a trick of the light

surely this kickdrum in
his untrimmed chest
is the same as a pounding
headache from trying
to drown out this aching
with a different kind of amber

but when the bottle is dry
all that’s left is a steadfast
kind of certainty
that the only lie here is
his own fears

and the heart wants what it wants
compass he’s not quite sure
how to read

pointing in only one direction
leading him around the bend
and through the nights
to your front stoop

knocking with steady hands
and hoping you’ll open
the door

the witch comes to visit
with soup and a story
sets an old *** on
the bard’s little wood-burning stove
and he watches as she works,
perched on a stool

and the witch, she tells
the bard about the stars,
how they always remember
and live for thousands of years

there is one star in particular
she weaves a tapestry about
with her words,
but only where that star cannot hear
taken by pirate ship upon the waves

she speaks, with something like
fondness and resignation
about how this star,
he fell in love with the moon

and when the moon was
too far for him to follow
his love turned towards the ocean
and how it stretches from
one end of the horizon to the other

the bard knows this star well,
of course, often wakes with him
slumbering still, between the
bard and the closed bedroom door

the witch then asks the bard
what he is tied to
and the bard tells her who
he is anchored to

and, setting a bowl of
soup on the well-worn table,
the witch says, with unmistakable
fondness this time,
“then you are a fool, bard of mine”

the bard nods in agreement,
almost tells the witch he
only eats lunch for her,
but suspects she already knows,
so says instead,
“aye, and a fool in love
is the very worst kind”

and the witch will agree,
because the bard is right

but, she will also tell
the bard how this star,
he loves a man
with scars through his eyebrow
and across the palm of his hand
from building a widow’s walk
with the star’s name on his tongue
the whole time

and there is an honesty
in loving someone to the point
of creation again and again,
is there not?

there is a steady drip of blood
running down your chin onto the floor,
crouched in front of the
open fridge like an animal

the single light from inside the
big white box illuminates
your hunched back, plays over
each and every vertebrae
that pokes out of
the skin

too thin
too much
always too much

so cold and alone in this kitchen,
fistful of raw hamburger meat to keep
that snarling beast under wraps

your lover slumbers in the next room
so afraid of waking them
when your skeleton twists into a new shape,
this new form replacing the fertile
blood that comes each month

raw meat warmed up by sweaty palms,
a sort of DIY choke-chain, holding
back the sharp teeth and terrible snarl

scrabbling claws to go with an
empty womb that will remain forever barren
you are okay with this,
preferring the purge of smaller
animals from a human stomach than
losing so much life-blood that
your body counters with anemia

your lover knows about this,
sometimes rubs your back through the worst
of it, runs gentle fingers through your
sweat and dirt clogged hair

it is okay, this new normal,
this exchange of one pain for another
an emptiness that will never be filled,
and twin scars of puckered pink

meat to mouth, lips pulling back
to allow for sharper, longer teeth

there is a steady drip of blood
running down your chin onto the floor,
this you will sop up later
with sponges and the promise of a warm
bed where the person that loves you
as a man and as a beast will
open their arms and
tell you to come back to bed

i yearn to make a house
inside of you
using stark-white ribs
for an a-frame

your lovely blood
waters the dandelions
and clovers nestled in
wooden window-boxes

i would like to
nestle myself inside
of your chest cavity, lover

pluck your heartstrings
like they were a harp
and i were something more
than a lovesick bard

loving a man
a wild thing in the shape
of a sea captain that
doesn’t know how to be
loved in that way

and i’ll watch your mouth
chapped lips pulled into
a grin, notice my blood
on your teeth

because, captain of mine
as much as i have been
fed on your affection and the promise
of an always returning
you have been fed on me, too

after all, the lone table
on this ship tossed about
by the mighty ocean waves
has always been set
for two