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4.5k · Jan 2017
30, 29, 28
Boaz Priestly Jan 2017
when you first look at me
and i mean more than a furtive passing glance
what do you see?
and i only ask because i have read
that employers have this thing where
they will analyze a hopeful-hire
in 30 seconds
and then they go off of that
mere 30, 29, 28
and so on
all the way down to 0
of whether or not they will get the job

now i am not asking you for a job
because i do not want to work for you
and you are not offering me a position
as caretaker, worker, cleaner, lover
and even if you were
it would not be accurate
because i am so much more than
30 seconds

because in such a short amount of time
that only allows a quick once-over
all that you will come away with
is a mix of stereotypes and an impression
based off of what gender you think i am

30, 29, 28
purple haired freak, clown, butch
27, 26, 25
girl, must be a lesbian, what a ****
24, 23, 22
must have been a cutter at some point
maybe still is, but who can really say?
because the world we live in is getting colder
and hotter and colder and layers upon layers
is the only way to go
21, 20, 19
is she a girl or a boy? who does she think she is?
what should i call her?
18, 17, 16
she she she
15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
0, 0, 0,
girl girl girl

(now let me tell you what
i gleaned from the 30 seconds that
you looked me up and down
like i was nothing more than a slab
of meat and you wanted to
dig a knife into my and cut me into little chunks

what i saw in your eyes
it was not nice
and i saw the moment when you
labeled me as a female
because of my *******
soft and supple and right ******* there
and the societally stereotyped feminine pear shape of my hips
all the way down to where there is no bulge
because how can she be a ******
when she hasn’t got any bottom dysphoria, huh?

and sure that’s a great question
it’s so clever and original
why can’t you just be a tomboy?
why can’t you just be a lesbian?
why not try being bisexual?
but really the question
the million dollar question
is why can’t you just be a girl?

well because i’m not a girl
and i have known this
since i was 7 years old
and that was ******* terrifying
because i knew for a fact that
i was something else than the doctor
had labeled me as after glancing at
my new born baby self
and thinking: yup, ******=female

and i tried being a tomboy
wearing ripped jeans and converse
and keeping my hair short
wearing baggy sweatshirts to hide
my *******
but it wasn’t enough

and i tried being a lesbian
actually since i did not know what
transgender meant
let alone that there was a word to describe
what i had felt like inside for
9 long **** years
i rationalized that i must have been a lesbian
because that was a quick-fix-easy-answer
to the cuts on my wrist and the misery
i felt whenever someone called me a girl

and i tried being bisexual
which came after a lesbian
and before transgender
and yeah sure i guess it worked
but not for long
and then it happened and i knew what
transgender meant and that
i wasn’t a tomboy
a lesbian
or even bisexual

and i tried being a girl
but it very nearly killed me
and then it happened
and i knew who and what i was

i am a transgender male
my sexuality is pansexual
and no i do not have *** with pans
though that’s really original and not something
i’ve heard so many times already

but i know that i am not a woman
and your 30 second analysis of me
does not help you at all
because you see me through a lens
of female, butch, lesbian, she, she, she
and that is not who i am at all)
2.3k · Oct 2016
Bio Poem
Boaz Priestly Oct 2016
My Bio Poem
in third person:
Priestly
Author
Who wants to start T, legally change his name, and top surgery
Who needs therapy, medication, and to stop living in fear of being killed for being queer
Who feels like a freak, fear, and righteous anger
Who fears being killed for being queer, never getting “better,” and having his PTSD define him
Who would like to see that his trans brothers and sisters stop being killed, racist cops be held accountable to their actions, and the world becomes a safe space, ******
Lover of men and women (though not bisexual), caffeine, and the smell of new and old books
Resident of Rhododendron, Welches, Portland, and the LGBTQ+ community
Stout

My Bio Poem
in first person:
Priestly
Author
Who wants to start T, legally change my name, and top surgery
Who needs therapy, medication, and to stop living in fear or being killed for being queer
Who feels like a freak, fear, and righteous anger
Who fears being killed for being queer, never getting “better,” and having my PTSD define me
Who would like to see that my trans brothers and sisters stop being killed, racist cops be held accountable for their actions, and the world becomes a safe space, ******
Lover of men and women (though not bisexual), caffeine, and the smell of new and old books
Resident of Rhododendron, Welches, Portland, and the LGBTQ+ community
Stout
This was another class assignment, in Psych, that I really liked and decided to post online.
It's called a bio poem, and this is the format:
First name
Word(s) describing you
Three things you want
Three things you need
Three things you feel
Three things you fear
Three things you would like
Three things you love
Where you live
Last Name

I did two versions of the poem, one in third person, and the other in first person. I will post/label them both.
2.2k · Jun 2016
I SAY
Boaz Priestly Jun 2016
you say fifty people
I SAY FIFTY GAY PEOPLE
you say nightclub
I SAY GAY NIGHTCLUB
you say the shooter was mentally ill
I SAY HOW DARE YOU PERPETUATE THE STIGMA
THAT MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE ARE SOMEHOW DANGEROUS
WHEN THERE HAVE BEEN COUNTLESS NEUROTYPICALS
THAT HAVE DONE HORRIBLE THINGS OF THEIR OWN VOLITION
you say this was isis
I SAY HOW DARE YOU CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THIS ISLAMOPHOBIA
THIS WAS THE WORK OF ONE MAN
ONE MAN WITH A GUN
AND NOW FIFTY OF MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS ARE DEAD  
SO I SAY HOW DARE YOU
TRY TO MAKE THIS ANYTHING ELSE THAN WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY IS
THIS WAS A HATE CRIME
AND THE WORST SLAUGHTER
-BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IT WAS-
IN HUNDREDS OF YEARS
AND IT WAS A HATE CRIME AGAINST THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY
SO HOW DARE YOU TRY TO DOWNPLAY THIS
TO A MENTAL ILLNESS AND AN AFFILIATION WITH ISIS
BECAUSE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS ARE DEAD
AND YOU SAYING well this happens to other people all the time
ERASES THE FACT THAT YES I KNOW THIS HAPPENS TO OTHER PEOPLE
BUT THIS HAPPENED TO GAY PEOPLE
AT A GAY NIGHTCLUB
AND NOW A PLACE THAT SHOULD BE SAFE
FOR MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS
AND FOR ME
IS NO LONGER SAFE
BECAUSE A MAN WITH A GUN DECIDED THAT
SINCE WE ARE DIFFERENT THAN HE IS
WE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO LIVE
2.1k · Oct 2016
Transphobia Crashcourse
Boaz Priestly Oct 2016
“Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”
Witty comebacks always come slow when gender is involved, especially with new questions. Surely not new to anyone else, but new to him, at least. Though, it wouldn’t take much to trigger a response, no matter how aggressive or shocked and sad that response might be. But this one, though. This was new. Having never been asked this before, he had no weapons to combat this, to shoot down the asker with a well-placed glare and a retort that would shut them up right away.
He did try, he really did. You have to give him credit for that.
But then his throat choked up, and he fled. The only thing he managed to choke out was that he was going to go now. That was it. Shut down so quickly. From fearless and untouchable to an anxiety attack shaking its way up his spine and into his hands.

“Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”
And there it is again, he thinks. That one sentence wrapping tighter and tighter around his windpipe.
It was a challenge hurrying down the stairs without falling, because the anxiety had him in such a tight grip that he could hardly breathe.
Then there it was, those dreaded bathrooms.

“Are you a girl or a boy?”
There was not time to spend fifteen minutes or half an hour or all day standing between those two things. With his mind screaming MALE, and his traitorous body screaming FEMALE, he ducked into the women’s restroom and stumbled into the handicap stall.

It started then.
A barrage of everything that he had ever been asked because all that people saw were his body: *******, thick thighs, wide hips, a pear shape with curves in all the right places, and it made him sick.

“Since you haven’t had the surgery yet, aren’t you still technically a woman?”
“Butch?”
“****?”
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
“What are you?”
“This is my friend, he’s a transvestite.”

It’s too much, with the tomboy comment still rattling around in his exhausted brain.
And with each thunk of the back of his head against the tiled bathroom wall, he tried to shake them loose. But they wouldn’t leave. Why wouldn’t they leave? He knows that it isn’t true. None of those people know anything. Their questions are out of mostly out of ignorance, and not malice, but, gods, they all hurt so much.

He talks then, a harsh whisper making its feeble way out on the wave of each choking, silent, sob.
“I tried. I tried so hard. And I’ll tell you why I can’t ‘just be a tomboy’ because, ******, I was a tomboy. And you wanna know what that got me? Six years worth of scars on my arm and shoulder.”

He drags the remains of anxiously bitten-down nails down his arm now, over and over again, leaving angry red trails through the pale lines on even paler skin.
“I’ve know that I wasn’t a girl since I was seven. That’s pretty, funny, isn’t it? The not knowing, it almost killed me. I mean that literally, but sometimes swallowing forty pills speaks louder than words.”

The phantom voice, branded into his eardrums and stamped angry and red on the graymatter of his brain, speaks up again. “Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”

And he knows what the real question is now.
Why can’t you just be a girl?
Why do you have to be transgender?
Why can’t you just be happy as a girl?
Why can’t you just be a tomboy?

Getting up off the ground, scrubbing tear tracks from his cheeks and off his glasses, he presses the back of his throbbing head against the tiled wall, whispering to everybody and nobody, “SHUT UP.”
Last week or so, some ******* had the bright and transphobic idea to ask me why I couldn't just be a lesbian. Huh. Believe it or not, that was the first time anyone had asked me that. Sure, I've been asked lots of other uneducated and malicious questions, but this one caught me so off guard that it triggered an anxiety attack that had me hiding in the handicap stall of the woman's restroom, sobbing and banging my head against the wall. Yeah. That was fun.
Anyway, I turned that ****** thing into a school assignment/spoken word/rant/******* to the transphobes kind of thing. It is cathartic, and makes it easier for me to let this particular ****** thing go.
Boaz Priestly Apr 2015
RIP -A Poem For Leelah Alcorn
Do not tell me
that it gets better
when another one of my
people another one of
my sisters
and surely thousands of brothers
but this sister
who I didn’t even get the
chance to meet
this sister
whose blog I only knew about
thanks to her suicide note
this sister
whose parents can’t even respect
her pronouns after she is dead
they did not lose a son
they drove a daughter
their daughter
to end her life
and even after her body
is not yet cold in the ground
still call her son
your darling son died years ago
and now your daughter is dead too
and she isn’t coming back
this isn’t an accident
I know what suicide looks like
I have almost been a victim many times

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister is dead
and she is being misgendered
in the news articles and media

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when she
Leelah Alcorn
that is her name
was pushed to suicide by an
uncaring un-understanding world

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister is dead
and her parents still have the nerve
to beg for sympathy and call
her a boy
even after death

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when we are still killing ourselves
only to be written off as mere statistics
and gender-identity
sexuality in and of itself
still isn’t taught in schools

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister is dead
and I cannot attend her funeral
all I can do is write ****** poetry
and hope that she forgives me for not
being able to speak around the lump
in my throat

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when countless people that were
born in the wrong body
that do not fit the norms
will be misgendered at their funerals

Do not tell me
that it gets better
because the harsh reality is
that thousands of us will
live life in fear
drowning in a hopelessness
and sadness that nobody else knows
because not all of us have accepting
families and friends
and our suicides will be written off
as mere accidents
but nobody steps in front of
a semi on accident

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when my sister died knowing
thinking knowing thinking knowing
that her parents didn’t love her
they loved their son
they will mourn their son
when it is their daughter that died
and she will never know a true mothers and fathers love

Do not tell me
that it gets better
when the harsh truth is that
if I do not change my name legally
I too will be
misgendered at my funeral

Do not tell me
that it will get better
when my sister is dead
unless you want to feel the wrath
of my transgender rage
over the injustice that is written across the scars on our wrists and signed on the dotted lines of our suicide notes

Do not tell me
that it will get better
because my sister died not
knowing that
1.7k · Mar 2017
Pro-Life, Huh?
Boaz Priestly Mar 2017
so you call yourself pro-life
okay, I guess I can pretend to respect that
which then means that you must also
respect the fact that I am very loudly pro-choice
and thanks to science
I know that a bundle of cells
and a living child are not the same thing

because an actual fetus is not fully formed
until the third trimester
and by fully formed I mean that it is
for all intents and purpose alive
but before that
there is nothing but a group of cells
there is no brain
no heart
not even pearly pink fingernails

so now what, huh?
you’re probably going to keep protesting
Planned Parenthood and harassing the people
that work there, right?
because all that Planned Parenthood does
is condone the vicious and inhumane ******
of defenseless, unborn children, right?
right?

either way, you don’t care about the child
once they’re born
all that you care about is making a woman
and other individuals who have a ******
carry this thing that is literally feeding off of them
and why should a child be brought into this world
if the circumstances through which it was
conceived are non-consensual?

because, if you really did care
if you really were “pro-life”
then you would care about the child
after it is born
or better yet
you could turn your attention and time and money
and anger to all the millions of orphans living
in the US

ya know, the living children?
with no homes?
with no parents?
packed like sardines in orphanages?
what about them?
do they not matter because they are not a group
of cells, and therefore not defenseless?
and therefore they do not matter?

because,
if you only care about that bundle of cells
and because some states actually make women
and those with uteruses
have funerals for the aborted “child”
then by default whenever a man
masturbates and then *******
shouldn’t he be made to have a separate
funeral for each of the thousands of children
that he just killed?
because one of them could have cured cancer, ******

and tell me
when I was still menstruating
should I have said “amen”
over all the potential children that bled out
of my body and into the pad
and the sides of my boxers?

should I have
said “grace” over all the
little pad mummies that I threw away?
should I have cried when I flushed
the ****** toilet paper?

because,
since I have a ******
how dare I want and feel as if I should
be owed control over my own body, right?

how dare I believe that
each and every woman
biological and otherwise
have a say in what they do with their body
how dare I be pro-choice, right?

well, let me knock you down
a few pegs with this closing statement:
if you only care about the “child” when it is
just a group of cells that doesn’t feel a **** thing
and couldn’t care less about it
once it is born
and homeless
or an orphan
or queer
then you are not “pro-life”
what you are
is an *******
1.7k · Sep 2017
no beauty/no romance
Boaz Priestly Sep 2017
----
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
1.6k · Jun 2015
abby abby
Boaz Priestly Jun 2015
abby abby
eyes of gold
what does your
reflection hold

abby abby
actually eyes of green and blue
like the ocean after a storm
your eyes hold depths that
we cannot fathom

abby abby
perfect smile
light up a room
make others smile too

abby abby
beautiful flower
strong like a tree
roots sunk deep into the heart
of the earth

abby abby
my rock to lean against
when the going gets rough
i don’t let many people cry on my shoulder
but you are certainly invited to
when and if you need to

abby abby
keep me up at night
but in the best possible way
the dreams where you are in them
leave me feeling rested

abby abby
gonna do great things
just have to stick around
to see what the future holds
a future as bright as your eyes

abby abby
platonic love of my life
i love you
i love you
i love you

abby abby
my dearest friend
1.6k · Nov 2017
not gay as in happy
Boaz Priestly Nov 2017
you killed all the
nice queer people and all
that’s left is me
with my shaking hands
and cracking voice
and fear giving way to anger
and a tiredness that nestles
ever deeper into my bones

and monday the 20th is
the 18th transgender day of remembrance
where the community mourns all
of its trans and nonbinary and genderfluid
and gender nonconforming siblings
because they were killed for
daring to be themselves
in a world that would rather
bury their dead sons and daughters
than have a child who changed their
name and gender marker
to the right ones

because being trans and queer
in a trump america
is an act of deviance and rebellion
where i could get beaten up for
using the mens room
and it would be my fault
because i am other
i am a freak
they do not understand me
and therefore that makes
me the enemy

but you have sat next to me
on the bus
in the movie theater
in the bathroom stall next to mine
while my anxiety mounted as
i waited for the bathroom to clear
out so i could leave safely
and i know when you look at me
you do not know what box
to force me into

and i want to know
you owe us all the answer
of how many more of our
siblings have to die before
you realize that we are people too
i am as human as you are
my correct hormones are just store-bought
and i had to claw my way into
the words of brother
and son
and nephew
and grandson
and boy boy boy
and male male male

but you have killed all the
nice queer people and all
you have left is me
and i am making my anger
into a louder voice
that will never be silenced
because you can cut out
my tongue and you can
take away my basic human rights
and you can even **** me

but the truth is that you will
always be more afraid of me
than i am of you
because while you ****
what you do not understand
i embrace it
The title is from a quote, the full quote being: “not gay as in happy, but queer as in *******.”
1.5k · Jun 2016
regrowth
Boaz Priestly Jun 2016
i know that
most days
the cathedral of your body
with all its dips and curves
forgotten staircases
and ripped velvet covers
on the splintered pews
is hard to love

and there are days
where you wish that your
body would have manifested itself
as a palace
made of ivory and bone
with great empty halls
that would host nothing else
but your anguished cries
and empty stomach

but these things
are incapable of filling you up
because it is hard to sustain yourself
on bitterness and past scars alone

so i say to you
my friends
brothers and sisters
my lovers
and those living in the wastelands
of themselves

cast aside these
things for you are not a church
or a palace or a temple

no
you are something
much stronger and vast
grow yourself into a forest

turn all the sleepless nights
and breakdowns and hospital visits
and suicide attempts
and those traintracks of scars
into the great twisting trunks of trees

grow yourself as big and bold
as you need to be
protect yourself
wrap up all your sharp and soft
edges and corners
into the bark of mother nature

become a forest
because
through fire and drought and storm
and flood
the forest always comes back
even the charred remains of trees
stand strong

so
i say to you
with your dark circles
and long sleeves
and chest hidden behind a binder
with all your scars
and imperfections
be a forest
because
a forest is unstoppable
it always comes back
it always grows back

and so will you
1.5k · Feb 2016
touchy feely part two
Boaz Priestly Feb 2016
“have you masturbated yet”
no i haven’t
“do you even know how to”
yes i understand the mechanics of it
you put a couple of fingers in and
wiggle them around

“why haven’t you masturbated yet”
i lied when i told you that there was
a short answer to this
either answer involves yelling
and screaming so loud
that a fire blossoms
in the middle of my chest
and my voice cracks
and people can hear me on the
other side of the restaurant

this is not a quiet answer
it is not a quick one
it is the pull of a trigger
right into who i am
and it is a cruel
slash at my insecurity

have you ever heard of
****** autonomy
or maybe personal space
questions that
a grown man
an elderly man
should never ask a teenager
let alone a transgender teenager

and the age gap
42 years
a year younger than my mother
doesn’t make this a friendly thing
it makes you a pervert

(but i will answer this again
so more people than you
can look at me like i am
even more of a freak
than they originally thought

i do not *******
because looking at myself naked
even before getting into the shower
when i brush my teeth
and my ******* swing
like twin pendulums
over the basin of the sink
i want to cut it all off

and no
at this point
i do not care if i bleed to death
i have been bleeding for years
since that first person asked me
if i was a girl or a boy

and no
you do not understand
because you were not born
in the wrong body
you have the hanging anatomy
between your hairy thighs
and the biologically male on
your birth certificate
as proof of that

there are no
scars on your arms
or on your chest

parts of you are not going to
be cut off
and scooped out
so people will see you as
and address you as
male

so do not pretend that
you understand
because you do not
and you do not try to)
1.4k · Oct 2017
steps to survival
Boaz Priestly Oct 2017
get through the day
just one day at a time
and if that seems like too much
too all at once
all loud and in your face
go by seconds
and then minutes
and then hours
make the in and out of
air in your lungs
a manageable thing

but there is no
clear map when it comes
to survival
because that looks different
for everybody
and a numbered list
could fill all the blank pages
but won’t you think of the trees

and when my depression
grabbed me by the throat
my feet left the ground
as the blueprints left my hands
the plan that i had planned
all neat and laid out
but an addled mind does not
care about that
because it is too busy screaming
and smacking itself against the floor

and sometimes survival looks
like staying up until it is
almost morning again
so you can rock back and forth
in a nest of your blankets
soaked in tears and sweat
sobbing till the line between
heaving breaths and puking
becomes more than blurred
because how do you tell
your family and friends
that you want to die
because it all hurts so much

and sometimes survival looks
like eyes sunken and glazed
shaking hands around a mug
of tea or coffee
with alcohol optional
but not much can mask the
acidic taste of panic
that comes with your heart
continuing to hammer against
your ribs

and sometimes survival
is all smiles
and laughing until you cry
and sloppy kisses
and laying in the middle of a road
on a dead end street with
the person you love most
and your hands are almost
touching and they are so
beautiful and you are alive
and it feels so good
and you are alive
and you are alive
and you are alive
and you are past the survival
and you are LIVING
1.4k · Aug 2017
drunk texts, unsent
Boaz Priestly Aug 2017
-

#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
1.4k · Jul 2015
abby (abby)
Boaz Priestly Jul 2015
abby abby
eyes of gold
what does your
reflection hold

abby abby
actually eyes of green and blue
like the ocean after a storm
your eyes hold depths that
we cannot fathom

abby abby
perfect smile
light up a room
make others smile too

abby abby
beautiful flower
strong like a tree
roots sunk deep into the heart
of the earth

abby abby
my rock to lean against
when the going gets rough
i don’t let many people cry on my shoulder
but you are certainly invited to
when and if you need to

abby abby
keep me up at night
but in the best possible way
the dreams where you are in them
leave me feeling rested

abby abby
gonna do great things
just have to stick around
to see what the future holds
a future as bright as your eyes

abby abby
platonic love of my life
i love you
i love you
i love you

abby abby
my dearest friend
1.3k · Jun 2015
my mistress
Boaz Priestly Jun 2015
my mistress
she is the wilderness
the feel of the backpack weighing me down
sinking my feet into the dirt
dragging me back with every
step i take

my mistress
she is the open sky
the constellations set over my head
and the stars burning out
and being reborn
constantly in a dance not meant for our eyes

my mistress
she is the heart on the
face of the mountain
seen by the playing children
swinging on their swings
pretending to fly

my mistress
she is the grape soda
the liquid courage
the teenager drinks
to help stave off the pain
when writing of sad things

my mistress
is the pain
the hole in my heart
that she left
when she went away
way too soon

my mistress
is the feeling of isolation
going beyond shutting yourself away in a room
that need to be closer to her
but the wilderness cannot hold you
it does not have a heart beat

but sometimes
the trees have her face
and you feel so much closer to her
think of how much she should have grown
how she should have graduated with them
******

my mistress
is the mountains and the peaks
begging me to come step over them
but they are mere ideas
shaped by the earth
and they only make my back hurt

my mistress
is being alone
where there are no hands to hold me back
but still i do not jump
because there are no hands to catch me
no arms to hold me close

my mistress
is the darkness outside my window
the rain on the asphalt
the smell of freshly cut grass
they do not bring her back
but they make life a little less painful
1.3k · Jun 2017
so much more than this
Boaz Priestly Jun 2017
i could tell you you’re beautiful
hell, i have before
a lot of times
and you still don’t believe me
and i don’t know why

but that’s a lie
i know exactly why
because i used to think
i was ugly too

i was an ugly girl
with glasses and nobody
noticed me until i starved myself
down to a double zero because
they all kept bullying me for being fat

and now i’m an ugly boy
but that’s okay
because even dead trees have the
ability to nurture beautiful
life out of their stumps

so no, i will not tell you
that you are beautiful because that
word is used so much and has so many
different definitions of what it is
and isn’t that who is to say what
it really even means anymore

because to me
you are so much more than a pretty face
and kind words

you are the sunrise after a bad night
where i thought i would die
before the sun rose above the tree line again

you are the rain after
a scorching hot day that makes it too
hot to wear my binder

you are the forgiveness
after i tried to leave
and still you stayed
even when i kept on
trying to go

you are the food
that i am still learning not to
be ashamed about eating and enjoying
because weight is just a ****** social
construct like so many other things

you are the calm voice
and steady hands
holding my own shaking ones
when you bring me back
from my anxiety attacks
and promise me it will be okay

you are there
you are here
you are
you are
so much more than beautiful

you are my friend
my confidant
the love blossoming behind my ribs
the scars that wounds become
the pain and happiness and tears

you are so much more
than you think you are
Boaz Priestly Dec 2018
i am
--am i?--
yeah, i think i am

drunk drunk drunk
and signing myself up for
selective service so i
will be able to access my financial
aid and not have to cough up
almost $2,000 for one term
that me and my bank account
just really do not have, ya know?

and that little dropdown menu
well it doesn’t offer the option of:
“i am being forced to sign up for this
so i can afford college”
because i guess that sounds less
appealing than my being recruited
during lunch while i watched my fellow
(cis) male students dislocate their shoulders
doing pull ups so the older boys in uniform
would be proud of them and
maybe even give them a
nice little lanyard

because after over $100 to get
the right name and gender marker
on my id and $60 to get a new
birth certificate
i’m male enough for the government
to want to make into cannon fodder
but i’m still not male enough to
use the men’s room without the
threat of being verbally harassed
or physically assaulted

and that just makes me so angry
because here’s “bone-spurs donnie”
a known draft dodger of
at least 5 times who had the money
to pay off any doctor he wanted
trying his hardest to ban trans
people from enlisting
to fight in a war backed by a country
that wants them dead

yet that little M on my id
that i paid so much for
makes me eligible to be blown
to bits or come back to
a country that doesn’t want me anymore
with my brains scrambled from
shell shock and ptsd

because this country is willing
to pretty much force-feed young men
into the bottomless belly of the
war machine

always stoking the fires of the
military industrial complex with
money and unscarred flesh
and so much lies
and so much fear mongering

and i am just so tired
of having to fill in that
little bubble with my ballpoint
pen and a click of the mouse
pledging what could easily be the
rest of my life to being
riddled with bullets
miles away from home

just so i can grab that
financial aid
that perpetual carrot being dangled
in front of my oh so
transgender and queer nose
so i can afford an education
and not become another statistic

another person that the
united states of amerikkka
has failed
1.2k · Nov 2016
Snow On The Mountain
Boaz Priestly Nov 2016
The ominous clouds of Winter gathered silently over the unsuspecting children of the mountain
ready to cover the children
in her cloak of cold
bringing the ice crystals
hanging down from the eaves of the houses
beautiful but deadly
like so many things in life
but spring will come again
and Mother Winter
will be on the sidelines
waiting to welcome
Persephone back
with slices of pomegranate
and her long fingers of cold
waiting to glide over the earth
because as we all know
there is a time to live
a time to die
and a time where
the flowers will break through the frozen ground
and the earth will come alive again
and your coffee will be just the right temperature
your socks with only a few holes in them
will still keep your feet warm
and you will be so happy to be here
because the world is a beautiful place
and even
Mother Winter needs you there
needs you here
to keep the seasons turning
and i need you too
1.1k · Nov 2015
My Omelas -Boaz Priestly
Boaz Priestly Nov 2015
Last Friday, 11/20/2015, I came out to my class as a transgender male, in the name of Kantian Ethics. This type of ethics is named for the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. The basis of his ethic is very similar to the well-known Golden Rule, though his version is worded in the older style of dialect: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
His version of the Golden Rule is the first of three in The Categorical Imperative. The second one states, “we can’t predict the consequences, so actions must be governed by what is morally right.” The third, and final one is much more blunt, stating, “we can’t use other people as a means to an end.”

The debate we had, where one side was for Kantian Ethics, and the other side was for Utilitarian Philosophy, was sparked because of a short story by Ursula Le Guin, titled, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.”
The short story is set in this fictional, utopian, town called Omelas. Everything is good, and all the people are happy. There is no need for drug-use, and the town is really up to the reader’s imagination to be described.
But, underneath all this seeming contentment and utopia, a darker secret lies.

In the introduction to this darkness, the author writes, “In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room.”
In this room, a child lives in fear and squalor. All the people of Omelas, children and elderly alike, know that this child is there. The child has no name, no discernible gender.

The children of Omelas, usually between the ages of eight and twelve, are told about this child. Sometimes young people come to see the child, and again as adults.
Most times, no matter how this matter has been explained to them, the young people witnessing this child, this pitiful thing, are shocked and sickened.
Again, more often than not, since the young ones are not inherently evil, they would like to do something for the child. But, they cannot.
For, if the poor child were brought up out of that basement...cellar...that horrible dark place, “all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. to exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.”

“The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.”

But, there is one thing that may make this realization less terrible and shocking for some: sometimes one of the young boys or girls who has gone to see the child doesn’t go back home. This also happens for older men and women. They just leave. They walk away from Omelas, alone, west or north, towards the mountains. They do not come back. They keep walking.

Being transgender, I feel for this child a lot. But, I also feel, and relate with, the people, young and old, who walk away from Omelas.
When I was seven years old, and still living as a female, I realized that I was different than the other young girls my age. It wasn’t just that I hated having my hair long, wearing anything but sneakers, ripped up jeans, and baggy sweatshirts, and was never a fan of dolls. I just felt, wrong. Not right. But, I didn’t know what it was. I just knew that when my mother called me her little girl, it made my stomach hurt. I thought I was sick. A freak. Why couldn’t I just be my mother’s little girl?

This is where the child at the root of Omelas’s happiness and purity comes in for me. I was living inside of myself. I was the parasite under my own skin. But, I did it to keep my family, and my friends, happy. I stayed quiet. Because, I have always put others before myself. I shut my true self away to keep my own little town in the sun. To keep my own little world spinning on its axis. For, if it were to fall out of orbit, I did not know what would happen, but I did know that it would be bad.

I stayed in the metaphorical “closet” until I was sixteen. Nine long years. Trust me, time moves the slowest for a child. A day can last a thousand years.

But, then, I had had enough. I had my new name, my big-boy-boxers on, and short hair. I was ready. I exploded out of myself in a burst of bright colors. I walked away from the gender norms that society had forced upon me from such a young age, I didn’t even know what they meant. But, on that day, when the angry sixteen year old boy walked away from the childbearing and rearing, the dresses and daughter, mother, sister, I knew that I was never going back.

I knew who I was. Who I had always been. And, my rage was beautiful, and absolute.
http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf
1.1k · Aug 2018
about a boy
Boaz Priestly Aug 2018
i hug you
on tiptoes
with arms around your neck
like “girls do”
but i haven’t been a girl
since i was 7 years old
and i know that how you see me
doesn’t match up with
who i used to be

and the first time i
hugged you like that
i told you
i loved you
smelling like 11.5 hours
marinating in other people’s food
and you said you knew
when i said the day was horrible

and i want you to know
i didn’t mean for this to happen
heart eyes you don’t notice
talking about you like
you’re a new favorite book
pages i never want to stop
running my hands over
papercuts be ******

but i love you
for your long hair
black as ink
and other metaphors
and i wonder if you’d let me
run my fingers through it
like some cheesy romance novel

i love you
for your smile
and how you smile at me
still laughing at my lame jokes
about how queer i am

i love you
for how you said you
just have to
sing along to
in the danger zone and
the wall between us
hid a grin so wide
my cheeks hurt

and i love you
even though i know
this will never go anywhere
because i’m never going to
tell you

just how much i love you
just how much i want to kiss you
just how much i miss you
when you’re gone

and just how much i hope
you might love me back
enough to let me
be yours
983 · Nov 2015
what rhymes with home
Boaz Priestly Nov 2015
one. love
love?
i used to know what that meant
or at least i thought i did
i assumed it was what i felt
when i looked down at my little sister
sleeping next to me
so peaceful
none of the fearful yelling
that i needed to come and pick our
mother up off the floor
when all i wanted to do
was leave her lying there

two. safety
no
that is a filthy lie
one that i told myself many times
because i needed to be there for
my sister
protect her
look out for her
shhh
keep quiet
don’t let her know how much
mother scares me
how much i want to die
i feigned safety for the
sake of my sister

three. whole
foreign
concept to me
too young to understand that
the empty pit in my stomach
wasn’t from hunger
though i felt plenty of that
but it was from where the love
of a mother should have been
so no
i have never felt whole
i am hollow
the wind whistles through me
and that is the only sound i make

four. empty
familiar
i was comfortable with this one
no longer surprised by
the lack of food in our cupboards
and fridge
though the presence of all those
**** liquor bottles were an
ever-constant presence
at least mother dear was consistent

five. acceptance
please
don’t make me laugh
i only know what this word
means because google told me
heard it whispered on the
stinking ***** breath of
family that were not my own
but oh how i wanted to stay with them
i needed a place where i felt
that i belonged
that i was wanted
even if i was a jagged edge
to their smooth togetherness

six. abuse
nightmares
are not the only aftershock
of this
the taking of a childhood too soon
i have the scars
albeit self-inflicted
and the bruises
that are left deep in my psyche
and even now
being a young man
and bigger than her
i am still too afraid to fight back

seven. broken
jagged
glass embedded in my feet
and the palms of my hands
throwing away every sugar-coated lie
that she ever told me
that she loved me
she would always love me
no matter what
and then i grew up
well
at least my body did
my hands and fingers got bigger
shoulders wider
legs longer
but my heart
my poor heart
just shrivelled up
inside of me

eight. loss
*******
you act like i took your
daughter away
but no
she was never there to begin with
a gender forced upon me
that i didn’t even know the meaning of
and all because of my
******* genitals
all because i have a womb
instead of being able to *** standing up
and that is all anybody sees
my outside
my *******
my ******
but i am more than my body
i am so much more
i have to be more
i have to be
right?
973 · May 2018
bully
Boaz Priestly May 2018
my gender dysphoria
plays the part of schoolyard bully
punching me in the face
with all the things i am doing
that make me less of a man

i spit something back
no room for being witty here
cotton candy pink and blue
stains my teeth
drips down my chin

girlhood feels like a rot
deep within this body
that i am slowly sculpting
into a shape
that doesn’t make me want to
hack it to pieces

but you call me “she”
and dysphoria gets in
another fist
and i can no longer tell
if i am crying
from the pain of you so
callously misgendering me again
and again and again
or the betrayal
because i thought we were friends

but you call me “she”
and so many things break inside me
seven year old me
feeling too big for a body that
is already like dragging
around a coffin
shrinks under the fear
of not knowing what i am

but you call me “she”
and dysphoria drives a foot
into my ribs
grows into this thing
that is too big for me to
keep inside and it comes
out as confrontation that all
too quickly gives way
to tears

because i did not
languish inside of myself
for nine years
stumbling through trying to be
a lesbian and nearly dying
as a girl
for you to call me “she”

i did not spend $175
on changing my name and gender marker
to reflect who i have always been
*******
for you to call me “she”

i did not make the decision
to have a needle the length
of my pinkie and
roughly the size of a pencil led
stuck in my lower back for
the rest of my life
for you to call me “she”


i did not risk
shortening my life span
to 40 years
instead of the 75 or 80 it should be
because people destroy what
is different
for you to call me “she”

i did not survive through
who i used to be
to become the man i am today
for you to throw this
gender i never asked for
back into my face
no matter how many times
i plead with you to
just give enough of a ****
to get it right

i do not get back up
every time that my gender dysphoria
is made stronger by someone
like you who
so you can look
me in the face
see the tears in my eyes
the tremor in my hands
and still call me “she”

the proverbial blood
that runs through my veins
taking on the colors of a sunset
drips onto your hands
because you can’t see past
the things i can’t control
the things i am able to change

you can’t see the man
that i already am
that i always have been
and you still can’t give me
a good reason as to

why why why
you can look at me
with my visible ****** hair
the button clearly stating
my pronouns as he and him
how i light up when someone
calls me sir or mister
and still stoop so low
as to add fuel to the fire
that is my gender dysphoria
by calling me “she”

(what the **** is your problem?)
943 · May 2015
The Dickless Wonder
Boaz Priestly May 2015
my first binder came by air mail
from China or Japan
and i thought that it would fit
after having accidentally told my mother i was transgender
and needed something to hide my *******
the look on her face broke my heart
so i backpedaled and said it was for cosplay
my heart too broke that day
because i was afraid that she wouldn’t
love her son as much as she loved her daughter

and it went sour for a while
we yelled instead of talked
i over dosed and self harmed
instead of asking for help
and then i tried to **** myself
in a rather selfish manner
my little sister was right next door
and i didn’t care
because right then
i was packed and ready to go

but who ever resides up there
wouldn’t let me enter the pearly whites
or the burned and blackened coffin doors of hell
which ever would get the biggest laugh
because i assumed that my life was the **** of a joke
that i wouldn’t be told the punch line to
rob told me it was sara’s dad
the same person that kicked him out too
and i believe in that with all of my being
because it’s better than believing in nothing at all

back to my being transgender
which is all my poetry is about
that and cutting and over dosing and the promise of ***
still to be fulfilled
and how much i hate myself
i am a broken record
but i read somewhere to write what you know
and my sadness is all that i know
i accidentally became my depression
and lost myself along the way

i am transgender
which means i was given the gender that my reproductive organs expressed
i identified as a girl for the first sixteen years of my life
then tumblr and family told me what transgender means
and i found that it applied to me
at first i was scared
i didn’t tell my family first
though i did tell my uncle first when i came out as a lesbian
i told some friends first because facing the screen was easier
than facing my family

but it does get better
and you should stick around to see that it really does
because the sun always comes out tomorrow
whether you sleep with your curtains closed or not
the sun always comes out tomorrow
annie agrees with me
and we are going to lose more
and more brother and sisters
but we can stop this
just listen to us
love us
accept us
and for the love of god
don’t ask me what is in my pants
Boaz Priestly Nov 2015
all of the inspirational posters
say that you should not
be afraid to be yourself
be unique
be beautiful
be different

but ****** anyhow
that is easy for them to say
with the little kittens
and the multicolored #2 pencils
when they have not walked in
another’s shoes

it is not okay
none of it is okay
you should be very afraid
to be yourself

in a house built out of
your mother’s angry words
and the blatant fact that she
doesn’t accept you
and the disappointment in her eyes
whenever she looks at you
makes you want to have no eyes
886 · Apr 2017
The Funny Thing Is
Boaz Priestly Apr 2017
the funny thing is
when my mom was together with my dad
--like as a thing and he would
run to the pay phone across the street from where
he lived whenever his pager went off that
she was calling him--
his dad asked her is she was going to
give him a grandson
and my mom
being the person that she is
told me that she laughed and said maybe

the funny thing is
when i was born and the midwife
announced that i was a girl
my nan who had mistook my umbilical cord
for a ***** leaned over and asked
the midwife if they were sure

the funny thing is
my grandfather’s mother
she always thought that i was a boy
and yes i know that she had alzheimers
and was not all there
but now i feel like she was able to
see through my dresses and long hair
to the boy that i would one day be

the funny thing is
i was often mistaken for a boy as a child
and when that happened there was always
a little burst of warmth because yes
i was a boy
i looked like a boy
i felt like a boy
but no no no
silly girl they all would say

the funny thing is
when i first met my father’s father
my grandfather if you will
i was a lesbian
and in texas that isn’t a widely accepted thing
and i was told a lot during my two week visit
that i just hadn’t found the right man yet
and so now that i am a man
i wonder what they would tell me now

the funny thing is
i don’t have bottom dysphoria
have a ****** does not bother me
i like being able to comfortably ride a bike
and read ****** novels in public
without it being obvious that that is
what i am doing

the funny thing is
my grandfather’s mother
who we all called papa lucy
died before i realized that i wasn’t a girl
i had that terrifying revelation at seven
and though my memory is foggy
through much of my childhood
she passed a year or two prior to that
and no i do not mean it is funny that
she died because that is terrible and i loved
her with all my heart
but it is funny that she saw who it would take
me nine years to be
and i didn’t get to reintroduce myself to her
and tell her she was right

the funny thing is
now that i am a boy
i am near-constantly misgendered
and it seems that no amount of slouching
or wearing a binder under it feels like my
ribs are cracking with every breath
and wearing pronoun buttons on my sweatshirt
and bright rainbow beanie
is enough to make people see otherwise

but ****** i am a boy
and my nan thought i was a boy
and my papa lucy knew i was a boy
and i used to get mistaken for a boy
before i grew hips and ****
and despite all those things i am still
a boy and i always have been and i always
will be and the really not funny thing about that is that
people seem so eager to tell me i am wrong
and try to force me back into the box of
daughter and woman and mother and sister
and no i will not be those things
and it is not my fault that i live in this world
where they do not know what
a body other than theirs means and how terrifying it is
to realize you are not the girl you were raised as at such a
young age you do not have words to describe how you feel
and they do not know
and they will not know
until they shut their mouths and open their minds

so please do
before any more of my transgender brothers and sisters
have to die for your ignorance and hate and fear
because there is nothing funny about that
883 · Oct 2015
asphalt god(?)
Boaz Priestly Oct 2015
he carries the forest
in the rolled up cuffs
of his black slacks

the finely creased lines
right down the middle of each leg
have now turned to wrinkles

the rocks and the twigs
deep puddles of rain
soak and scratch his ankles

what once were proud and powerful
wings now drag behind him
burned black from his shame of falling

there are holes in his shoes
but he harbors the promise of the sun
shining again between his bare toes
858 · Mar 2016
I AM
Boaz Priestly Mar 2016
I've got some of these, too!

Here are my two favorites: It's okay if you change your mind.
It's okay if SHE wants to come back.

I am going to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you guys again. Hi. My name is Boaz Priestly Stout. But I mainly go by Priestly. I am a transgender male. My pronouns are he/him. And, I have felt this way since I was 7, so I can assure you I will not "change my mind."

Because, even saying that implies that being transgender is a choice. Well, news flash: IT'S NOT! I mean, do any of you honestly believe that I would choose this for myself? The constant dysphoria, not being able to pass as male, the misgendering and dead-naming, and general transphobia are hell. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. This is not a choice. It is who I am. And, I have fully embraced it, because, it is better than the alternative of living life with this big secret that eventually destroys me. I am not going to be a statistic. I will not be one. I will not.

I am a boy. My name is Priestly. I am a boy. I AM.
http://www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-launches-trans-microaggressions-photo-project-transwk
827 · Dec 2016
diversion tactic
Boaz Priestly Dec 2016
dear doctor crombie
rhymes with cranberry remember
that’s what you told me so that i
would remember your name
and you chuckled like that was
the most clever thing in the world
but all i cared about was getting the hell
out of the **** psychiatric ward because being
in that place made me want to try
and **** myself all over again
which is totally the opposite of
what i was hoping for when i agreed to be
admitted but i digress

because what stuck
with me more than the dismal room
i was put in that was either
as hot as hell-fire or freezing cold
to the point where i decided that i’d rather
be able to see my breath than be soaked in sweat
and your ******-*** joke
was the fact that on our first meeting
you told me that you thought my
coming out as transgender was
nothing more
than a diversion tactic

now dr. crombie
i want you to put yourself in my place
i was 16 years old
stimming and shaking as you stared me down
and then labeled me as nothing more than
a diversion tactic
and that crushed me
it had only been a few days since
i swallowed 40 trazodone and accepted
the fact that i would not be waking up again
and that was all you had to say to me
a diversion tactic
you pulled down the very core
of what i was in two words
and my god i hated you so much
in that moment

because dr. crombie
i had known i was not a girl
since i was 7 years old
and i held that inside me for 9 long years
that almost killed me
because *******
i knew that i wasn’t a girl for longer
than i had lived as a girl
and you just didn’t care
you took what i had given to you
laying myself out before you
because i was a scared
mentally ill teenager
that had just survived a
******* suicide attempt
and all you had to say
that my being transgender
was a diversion tactic

and even now
three years later
that still haunts me
the fact that you
a heterosexual cisgender male
born with a ***** and a flat chest
decided to chalk up my
9 years of hell to nothing more than
a diversion tactic

so dr. crombie
tell me what do you think
i was diverting from exactly
when i had willingly been admitted
to a sterile-smelling hellscape
where i was forced to relive
how i tried to forcibly end my life
every day in the ******* little therapy groups
that made me feel so much older and hollowed out

tell me doctor
what exactly was i diverting from
what was i trying to hide from and behind
by putting myself through the hell
of being near constantly dead-named
and misgendered and having to pay
up into the double digits just to change
my legal my deadname
and gender marker from an F to an M
and being told that i was technically still a girl
and being asked why i couldn’t just be a tomboy
a lesbian
a ****
a butch
why couldn’t i just be a girl huh
why did i have to be a boy

so tell me
dr. crombie
rhymes with cranberry
just what exactly was i
******* diverting from
807 · Nov 2018
Pleas(e)
Boaz Priestly Nov 2018
Aren’t you all getting sick and tired
of hearing/seeing news to the tune of
a pathetic white man with a gun?

Aren’t you all sick and tired
of seeing children murdered
in cold blood?

Aren’t you all sick and tired
of seeing college students
and adults
murdered in cold blood?

Aren’t you all sick and tired
of minorities being gunned down
because they are minorities?

Aren’t you all sick and tired
of pathetic white men being called lone wolves
and mentally ill because of the color of his skin,
and making the stigma that actual mentally ill people
are violent even worse than it already is?

Aren’t you all sick and tired
of being afraid for your life,
your child’s lives,
your friends and family
that are minorities?

Because, as a mentally ill minority,
I sure as hell am.
As a transgender person,
a WHITE transgender person,
my life expectancy is already only 40.
And that’s not because I’ll **** myself.

America is going to drown
in the spilled blood and grief from children,
adults, and minorities being murdered,
because people place their right
to carry assault weapons
OVER OUR LIVES.

Children should not have to go through active shooter drills.
Parents should not be involuntarily outliving their children.
Minorities should not have to fear for their lives.

There is SUCH AN EASY SOLUTION TO THIS.
It’s not rocket science.
It’s gun control laws.
No one wants to take away your guns.

We just want to live.
Please.
We just want to live.
784 · Aug 2017
always been
Boaz Priestly Aug 2017
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
764 · Apr 2015
Knowing
Boaz Priestly Apr 2015
I first knew I was transgender when I

was 12 and I looked down at my chest one day

and saw something other than a flat expanse

of skin staring back at me

and I wondered why

since I still really didn’t understand the difference

between boy and girl

why my ***** hadn’t come in yet



But that’s a lie

it wasn’t that sudden or dramatic

it happened earlier than that

but back then I didn’t even know

what transgender meant

all I knew that

when my friend and I were in the bath

and he pointed at his ***** and then asked

to see mine

I didn’t have anything to show

and I ran out of the bathroom

crying hot tears of jealousy



I didn’t know what transgender meant

until last year

and I was so happy because I had found a word

that described the tomboy haircut and the

scabby knees and the ripped jeans and the

worn out Chuck Taylor’s

besides it’s just a phase

you stupid silly girl



When I look down at my body

never naked

always fully clothed

because I look better in layers

and see the soft flesh sitting on my chest

the useless lumps that will never nourish a child

because I’m too afraid to bring a defenseless child into

this ****** up world

all I feel is hatred

and sadness

and a deep sense of longing to have nothing

but a flat chest

flatter than a binder can give me



Now I embrace this word

label myself because I have to

speak out and loudly correct people when they

use the wrong name and say she instead of he

because I am not a girl

I never have been

I was just born without the right genitalia

and I know that somebody would be able to

find my woman’s body beautiful

with the stretch marks

the scars

the fat and cellulite

but I do not find this cage beautiful

and all I want to do is break free

and maybe drink a fifth of *****



I do not look like a boy

but that is who I am inside

and one day I will pass as a boy

scarred cosmetic instead of statistic

a smile instead of a handful of pills

shirtless instead of new scars

flat chested without a binder

and maybe double digits



I will stand up straighter

no longer hunched over from the weight

of my shortcomings and insecurities

I will smile

and not just because I’m imagining my funeral

but not because I will be dead

but when the time comes

and I am laid to rest

two feet wide and six feet deep

I will not be misgendered

the wrong name will not be placed on my tombstone



And I still have bad days

when I want to relapse

and go back to the pills

but I just remind myself that I will

pass one day and I will no longer have

to tell my teachers

friends

counselors

therapists

strangers

my name and pronouns

they will look at me and assume boy

because I will be what my insides say

my light will finally shine through

and I am going to be around to see this

ugly butterfly break out of his cocoon

and greet the world with a smile

that will not be forced
753 · Jan 2016
dear drinking buddy
Boaz Priestly Jan 2016
dear you
before you take my mother out after work
keep her for three and a half more hours
than she would usually be
please remind her
that she isn’t like you
and has a family at home
waiting for her
with hungry bellies
and open arms

please remind her
that she has a son
that has literally not seen her
for three days
he needs her
and he wants to know
why she can’t even look at him
he needs to know
where his mother went
the one that used to
let him wear his favorite purple
footie pajamas and rainboots
as they walked down to the store
for ice cream bars
and held him
when the nightmares got too bad

dear you
before you take my mother out after work
and send her home
in your bright orange jacket
reeking of you and liquor
please remind her
that she has a husband
who has loved her
for seven years
even though she continually drove him away
she has a husband
whose eyes light up when he sees her
she has a husband
who broke down his barriers
so he could hug her
and hold her close
without that ever-present fear of
her slipping away
again

please remind her
how happy he makes her
how happy she makes him
and the house that he lived in alone
for so long
is finally more than just a shelter
against the elements
it is a home
but it can’t be that without her
  
dear you
before you take my mother out after work
please remind her to at least
call her son or her husband
to tell them that she won’t be home
to make dinner
and that her son will get to eat
a store bought dinner
for the second night in a row
and then it just sits there
and stares at him
screaming that she isn’t at home

please remind her
that she has people to
come home to
a husband
a daughter
and a son

please remind her
that she has a family ******
and we need her

please remind her
that even though
she can’t look her son in the eye
anymore
he will always need his mother

please remind her
that even though the liquor is
warm in her she has a son at home
that is so
sick and tired
of raising himself
There we go! An edited, more realistic poem. Because, I haven't voluntarily hugged my mother in years. And, I've never been one for that whole touchy feely thing. I hold grudges. I hold my broken edges tight.
712 · Aug 2015
flashlight eyes
Boaz Priestly Aug 2015
you say you see my light
is it behind my eyes
or hidden in between my crooked teeth
does it seep out through the scars
littering my arms
the constant paper cuts on my finger tips
does it crawl out through the paper fine
skin i tear off my lips
or do i bite off my light when i
chew my nails down to the quick
does the light hide behind my cuticles
and i the only reason why i can’t see them
is because they are hidden by the blood
of the skin being stretched back too far
does my light hide in my little toes
or is it hidden behind my smile
the one place i wouldn’t think to look

you say you see my light
and i have scoured my body
fully clothed and naked as a jaybird
with my failing eyes
with and without my glasses
sometimes being blurry is better than the
harsh light of a new days reality
and i want to run away
but my flaws
they leave a bright
burning black and blue and indigo
trail behind me
and it pains my heart and soul to see
that the brightest part of me
is all of my
insecurities

you say you see my light
and i wonder why that is
are your eyes bad as well
are they as bad as mine
do they see other things too
like the knuckle shaped bruises
the scratches from last night’s nightmares
the shaking hands
and the scars
so many **** scars
but your eyes see only beauty
and i think you see it in me too
though i don’t know why
this is a notion i cannot conceive
maybe you’re just saying that to make me
feel better
but i know you’re too kind to tell such a lie

you say you see my light
and i can’t help but to wonder if
i manage to shine even half
as bright as she did
but that’s selfish of me
it is a terrible character flaw of mine
i just want someone to see past my
proverbial rain cloud
and the darkness i shroud myself in
though my clothes may be bright
my soul and heart are dark
and i just want to be a bright light
like a star
but instead i am like
an abyss
i **** all the light in
and give nothing back
i am a greedy boy
a greedy black hole
please fill me up
with your light

you say you can see my light
and i cried when i saw that comment
don’t think that was your intended reaction
but i have always been rather emotional
a ***** boy
a girly boy
a crybaby
but you say you see my light
and i am trying to believe you
i really am
but it is so hard
all these loud negative thoughts
they invade my mind
dance and scream and *****
me with pins behind my eyes

you say you can see my light
and if i were an angel
all my grace would have run out
i pour my light into other people
and keep none for myself
i am a burnt out husk
but you still make me feel beautiful
please i beg of you
take your weathered old hands and pry open
my eyelids
make me see the light
help me to look in a mirror
and not hate what i see
help me to see my light
i want to see it

you say you can see my light
and i am trying my hardest to
believe you
Boaz Priestly Jun 2015
my father broke my heart
but my cousin took it with him
when he left for college
leaving us all behind
in this podunk town

i scraped the stubby remains
of my big toenails against the soft
downy bottom of my shoes
and bit my nails down to the quick
so i wouldn’t cry when they didn’t say your name

i looked for your name
in the R
the D
and the S
but you weren’t there

my eyes kept on straying
back to where your name
wasn’t written
not even once
and the voices called your name in anguish

my scars showed up for
the occasion
and i wanted to make them deeper and more there
but that wouldn’t have made you proud
i’m glad you never saw how broken i really am

i want to go back
to fourth grade before i knew that suicide
is and was a permanent thing
that words hurt more than the blades
and not being able to say goodbye hurts even worse

as we were paraded out
of the theater
after all of the graduates
i said goodbye to three people
i didn’t look for you
679 · Oct 2017
a list of maybe's
Boaz Priestly Oct 2017
“did you wish you
would have successfully
committed suicide?”

you can’t ask me that
because it is one
hell of a loaded question
and i’ll spend all this time
agonizing over what answer
will make you worry the least
because and ****** anyhow
i just don’t know

it’s just one thing in
a long laundry list of
maybe’s that i took
from therapist to therapist
and psych ward to psych ward
trying to find a definitive answer
on why i was depressed
why i was afraid to sleep at night
why i couldn’t just be happy
why i wanted to die
just why why why

and i don’t know
because my whole life
felt like preparations in order
to die younger than i should have
but that stubborn cursor just
kept on blinking away
saying that my story wasn’t over

but the thing is
that depression has no face
because there were good days
where i wasn’t miserable
but then the nights were hell
and i could never cut deep enough
to find the infection
that made me this way

because even now
almost 20 and terrified
over a life that still
sometimes feels like it should
have ended four years ago
i am still depressed

under the genuine smiling
and laughing where i don’t care
if my crooked teeth show
my mental illness is still there

and i am riddled
with anxiety
and guilt
and regret
though i still cannot
say for certain if that guilt
extends to the fact that i
failed to take my own life
because i just do not know

it’s a long list of maybes
more than the scars littering
my left arm
or the days that i spent
bruising my wrist on
any sharp corner i could
because i can’t say “yes”
and i can’t say “no”
without it feeling like a lie

“did you wish you
would have successfully
committed suicide?”
i don’t know
yes
no
maybe
maybe
maybe
Boaz Priestly Jun 2020
..1. .
the fool remakes himself
into a bard

and no one laughs when
he says this out loud
because a crying fool
brings only melancholy and misery

and as for the bard?
well, the bard feels foolish
about so many things

the question still stands
begging for an answer
if loving you
was one of those foolish things

still, the bard would like to think
he understands what falling in love is like
if only from an artistic standpoint
like the poet to the muse

after all, hearts can’t be reasoned with
and this bard has made quite
a career out of being maudlin

welcomes fits of melancholy with open arms
knowing that a good ballad
a misguided declaration of love
is impossible to write without
have a good cry while doing it

2.
and sometimes there is
so much hurt in those tears
that if feels like anger
but the bard does not know
who it is directed at

and does that really matter?
for, while the anger of a poet
runs deeper than blood and bone
the love of a poet is
an infinite thing

maybe not a thing to say aloud
though, what is a bard without
the sweetness of his voice?
fingers tenderly plucking
at his own heartstrings
pulled taut again and again

nothing as poetic as that will
eventually break
even if the bard tries his
damndest to shatter knuckles
against his growing loneliness

because, sometimes, the truth
is saying that you’ve made him
cry and meaning it
when he confesses to missing
being no more than a fool

what does a fool know of love?
of heartbreak
of empty bottles
and emptier promises

the fool knows nothing at all
and the bard would like that back,
so tired of collecting the coins
made from making a broken heart
sound like such a beautiful thing
650 · Dec 2015
Firework
Boaz Priestly Dec 2015
I've had kind of a love/hate relationship with Katy Perry since middle school. Ya know, back when there were Heely's, and all of the students listened to Hot and Cold over and over again.

Back then, though, I was just discovering Marilyn Manson, and that was pretty much all I listened to. I was angry. And just lonely.

But, then, I heard Firework. It was just the audio at first. Probably on the radio. I was intrigued by the song. It resonated within me in a way that not many things had in a very long time. So, after hearing the song on Z100 a couple more times, I YouTubed the song.

Of course, that was before I got my own laptop. So, I sat out in the living room, on my mom's laptop, and just sobbed pretty uncontrollably while watching the music video over and over again.

The song, and video, really helped me to feel better about myself.

Around this time, I was also pretty heavily into my "emo" phase. Like, the Black Veil Brides tee, ripped skinny jeans, a horribly dyed fringe, and that ever-present black nail polish. I kept telling my mom that I wanted to change my name to Raven.

This was also before I came out as transgender. But, Raven is a pretty androgynous name. And, I really connected with the character from Teen Titans with the name Raven. I idolized her. I connected with her very heavily. I wanted to be her. Because, even though she was different and reserved, she had friends that loved her and accepted her for who she was.

I didn't have that. With my friends, I did to an extent. But, at home, it was just bad all around.

Cue Katy Perry and Firework.

I listened to the song so much. It was my go to when things were really bad at home. The song kept me going. In a way, the message behind it, kept me alive.

So, really, this song gave me the courage to be myself.

I listened to it a lot before I did finally come out as transgender.

But, then, I stopped listening to it. Because, I wasn't allowed to be myself in my house. I mean, my own mother didn't take me seriously until I tried to **** myself. Actually, more than a year and half, and two more hospitalizations later, she's still pretty bad about it.

Then, last night, I listened to this song for the first time since coming out. And, I sobbed. Like, full on head to the desk, fingers gripped in hair, sobbing.

I didn't realize how much I had missed this song. But, I did realize how far I have come from that scared sixteen year old girl that told her mother she was a boy. I have come so far. I really have. And, even though things seem bad right now, they will get better. I will get better. I will keep on growing as a person. I will stay alive. I am going to do this for myself. I owe this to that sixteen year old girl standing in her kitchen, fists clenched, and tears rolling down her cheeks.
Boaz Priestly Oct 2015
Bottom line, depression is a cruel mistress. I know this for a fact. In the worst part of my depression, I didn’t just suffer internally, but externally, too. As in, my personal hygiene went downhill. I hid certain parts of it pretty well. Greasy hair can be hidden with a hat, unbrushed teeth with minty gum, three days of the same Tee shirt with a sweatshirt. What couldn’t be hidden, though, was the state of my room. I could have easily cleaned up the various messes. But, I didn’t. Probably in a wain attempt to get my mother to realize that I wasn’t okay. She didn’t, though, and I was just left with the mess.
yeah yeah. i know this isnt a poem. but it really means a lot to me. and i wanted to put this out on the interwebs to let you know that you are not alone. everybody hurts. and your parents pain is not your fault. it is not you fault. it is a parents job to protect their children. not to hurt them.
640 · Oct 2018
coming out
Boaz Priestly Oct 2018
there is an empty stretch
of highway
somewhere deep in my bones
cracked tarmac and faded center line

dandelions blooming up out
of the divots of
my sleepless nights
and it is beautiful

and sometimes lonely
like being 7 years old
and knowing i like girls
but also that i am not a girl
and not having the words
to bring that part of me to life

and the first time i kissed a girl
flowers exploded out of
every chip in my armor
making me feel like i could
build a home in my own body
for the first time in 5 years

but everything burns eventually
and flower stems become matches
way too easily
and a hollowness beyond dissociation
something i couldn’t dig out
no matter how hard i tried

and the first boy i liked
i couldn’t tell if i wanted
to kiss him or be him
but both sounded pretty nice

and after the right man to
make me stop being a lesbian
turned out to be myself
the first boy i kissed was on accident
but i wanted to kiss him again
and that stretch of highway seemed less lonely
and more like it would accommodate two
people holding hands
walking side by side
615 · Feb 2016
26: Artist fingers
Boaz Priestly Feb 2016
Let me take you
into my arms
paint your body into
immortality
I will let you
burn your fingertips
into my heart
and you'll never be forgotten
605 · Jul 2015
purple boy
Boaz Priestly Jul 2015
the tears they stick to my face
burning like salt in a fresh cut
though mine were never very deep
they were always fresh and there
and there was blood all over my clothes
mainly my long sleeves and sweatshirts
i remember the first time i bled through a shirt
at school and the butter knives that i hoarded
like i was gonna fight off my demons with little
ridged pieces of plastic
but ****** they kept me company
when mother dearest was either too drunk or ******
to realize my first cut
i mean come on lady it bled like a stuck pig
i cut really close to the vein that time
sometimes i wish i had had the guts to
go deep enough that first time
and i never would have had to deal with
four years of self-destruction
maybe if my mom had pressed me for the truth
but it’s more my fault than hers
though for once
that is not the reason why i am crying

i am not enough of a boy
but i’m too much of a boy to be a girl
and i’m too much of a girl to be a boy
but ****** who are you to label me
you haven’t asked me how this feels
you only cared right after i tried to **** myself
and only then i’m convinced you only asked because
my little sister was in the next room
and the doctor
his name rhymed with cranberry
and i hated him right away
he told my my being transgender
was just a diversion tactic
like buddy dood sir mister ******* listen to me
i am so ******* open about my mental illness
it’s all i talk about
i am literally a broken ******* record
i am loud and out and proud about everything that
is going on with me
both inside and outside
and if i wanted to create a “diversion”
i would have just slit my throat
because then i would have made my mother happy
by not being able to correct her when she continued
to call me her sweet little precious little
baby girl

you say i can’t be a boy
because of the clothes i wear
and the little tics i have
how i do jazz hands when i’m excited or happy
and this is a rare emotion
you should be proud that i am an emotional guy
instead of just a rock
a pillar of broken pieces
and yelling and grabbing and scars
because you and daddy dearest
you taught me that i should keep everything
inside of me
because you do not understand what is happening
to your little girl
and neither do i
but i do understand enough to know that
since i was seven
i was just a kid
i have known i was different
and it was okay for other people to be a lesbian
to be gay or bisexual or god forbid transgender
but i couldn’t do anything more exciting than wear
mismatched socks and combat boots to school
you didn’t bother to educate me on those things
and that’s why when i found out what transgender meant
through tumblr might i add
i finally knew that i wasn’t some broken toy
i’m not a freak
i am not a freak
but you make me feel like a freak

but i can’t be a girl either
because every time someone misgenders me
or calls me she or her or you introduce me
as your ******* daughter
it makes me want to rip out my insides
to show you that they have the word
boy painted on them
in blue and dripping paint
my insides are male
but i can’t be a boy
no i can’t
because i didn’t show any signs of it
growing up
i came out too late for mommy dearest to
believe or accept me
i can’t be a boy because i have a ******* ******
well you accept famous transgender people
and i am sorry that i don’t have the money to transition
i would if i could
but i’m pretty sure i’ll be dead before then anyway

i scared the dog with my sobbing and yelling
he’s still hiding in the bedroom upstairs
and i should be doing my summer school
but you have never been supportive of my schooling
so i really don’t see the ******* point
and sometimes the voices sound like you
they tell me what a disappointment i am
how i am so wrong
how you don’t love me
how you can’t love me
how i am going to hell
i am afraid to go to sleep at night
because all i do is dream about being dead
they tell me in your voice
that you would rather have me dead and a girl
than alive and a boy
and i am afraid that that is how you
really feel about me
like sorry i was ever born

i am not a girl
but you say i can’t be a boy
then i say i am not real
you are grieving a ghost
you say you want your little girl back
maybe you should have loved her more
both of you
this is for both of you
*******
you ruined the best thing either of you
has ever and will ever have
but this idea
this radical idea
that i may actually know better than either
of you what i was born to be
this is what keeps me going
late at night when i want to start
stock-piling my trazodone
maybe this time will be the charm
and then you can put her name on
my headstone and make me wear
the prettiest dress that i never would
ever wear while alive
but a corpse can’t talk
so what does it matter
i can be your little girl again
even if she is just a body

but **** that
i am going to keep on living
and yes
lopping off my ******* will solve
a lot of my problems
i am going to start t *******
even if you disown me
i have created my own little family
we are the lost boys and girls
the demon left in the presence
of your non acceptance
and i will be who i was always meant to be
a boy
my name is priestly
i am a boy
and even if you don’t accept or believe me
and that really ******* hurts
but i am good at hiding things
i believe and accept myself enough
for the both of us
and i have friends that
believe and accept me too
i am going to keep on living
because as her i was just surviving
but now finally after so many
long and hard and trying years
i am glad to be alive
i am living
as who i was meant to be
and i literally cannot believe that you
had the guts
to use the ******* gender binary on me
you ******* *** hag
and stereotype me into your little box
of blue for boys
and pink for girls

well maybe i like purple better
poems i will never show my mother
598 · Feb 2016
8: Glow in the dark stars
Boaz Priestly Feb 2016
Stickers pressed hard
on to the ceiling
held tight against the paint
with an unwavering
child's belief
that the stars and planets
would watch over him
while he slept
and the moon was his
first friend
591 · Oct 2015
to charlie, love dean
Boaz Priestly Oct 2015
charlie bradbury
did you know that the
only time i said i love you
to someone
since mom died
was in a flashback
to the memory of my mother
but that’s because she needed to
hear it
that dad still loved her
and so did i
i loved her so **** much
i wanted to make her proud
i wanted
i don’t know
i guess i wanted to watch her
and dad grow old together
but us hunters don’t get
to make wishes like that
unless we are willing to sell
our souls
and i probably would have
just to have her back
to see dad smile again
so sammy would know what it
was like to have a real family
instead of an alcoholic ******* of a father
and an emotionally stunted
self-destructive mess of a brother

but even
if they all knew my intentions
behind the deal
raising the dead has never been
a good idea
i know that for a fact
and ten years would never be
enough to make up for
decades of not knowing the
soothing touch of a mother’s hand

then you
waltzed into our lives
saved our *****
and as a thank you
we broke your arm
and not for the first time
but you just kept on forgiving me
i wanted to ask why
because i had done you more
harm than good
but then
when you just kept on saying it
through the blood and broken bones and pain
i knew that you weren’t just forgiving me
for hurting you
you were forgiving me for blaming everything
on myself
for not being strong enough to carry
the whole world
for not being able to save
every person

but charlie
i never wanted a little sister
i didn’t need another family member
another person
that i loved with all of my heart
that i would die for
i just couldn’t let you down
that would have killed me

but you
just kept on picking me
up and dusting me off
telling me to keep going
you helped me to believe in myself
and i believed in you too
i loved you
to the point where it broke my heart
because i knew that i couldn’t keep you safe
but you’re not a little kid anymore
you can protect yourself
and i know that
but it’s always nice to have
a helping hand now and then
and that’s what you were for me
that’s what you always will be

“i love you”
“i know”
587 · Apr 2015
cecelia
Boaz Priestly Apr 2015
watching the ****** suicides
it makes my wrists hurt
i see myself in cecelia’s eyes
the hurt and the pain
though i was always more of a pill popper
than a wrist slitter

watching the ****** suicides
my hands shake
mostly my right one
fingers trembling in tune to the beating
of my heart
bound to rip out of my chest

watching the ****** suicides
i feel the luke warm bathtub water
sloshing over my thighs
as i sat there
with the blade in my shaking hands
imaging the red water that remained clear

watching the ****** suicides
my head hurts
my chest tightens
i feel like crying
maybe dying
just resting for a little while

watching the ****** suicides
i thank god that i told someone
before it got any worse
the months spent cutting and overdosing
in silence
now i just regret them

watching the ****** suicides
i think of all my friends
that have hurt themselves or attempted
think of about how i am one of them
and a text message or a blog post
is a pretty ****** way to say goodbye

watching the ****** suicides
feeling like i am one of them
knowing what the signs look like
like the back of my hand
i am so glad
i have yet to become a statistic
585 · May 2016
hope for the future
Boaz Priestly May 2016
the earth warmed up under my feet
steam rising from the ground
swirling upwards in the sun light
like one big exhale
and i noticed that my breath
only came out in a whoosh
no cloud this time
and i wondered briefly if
i hadn’t died
and just forgot about it
but a raindrop fell from a
water-logged plant and landed
on the top of my head
buzzed hair not being much protection
from water of any kind
and i smiled
because i was alive ******
i was alive
and music was playing loud in my ears
i could feel the chill of the wind through my layers
and even though my breath made no cloud
when it left my mouth
i was still breathing
my lungs still expanding
like a flower that had gone too long
without sunlight
and i looked up at the gray sky
the clouds drifting way up above
letting the smells of wet bark dust
and sidewalk and plants and trees
fill my heart and my head with a little
bubble of hope
562 · Aug 2015
birthday
Boaz Priestly Aug 2015
i saw that post on facebook
with the picture of you
always smiling
was what the caption said
and i guess yesterday was your birthday
i think you would have been eighteen
right
i’m not really sure
i’ve never been good with numbers
but eighteen seems like a good age to be
you probably would have been driving by now
maybe i could have coerced you to drive us
to the movies
if i promised to buy the tickets
and if you were still with us
yesterday
and the yesterdays before that
all the way back to that fateful day
i would have made sure that you knew
how loved you were
by everyone you knew
and by everyone that knew you

it rained today
the day after your birthday
and yeah okay part of me
is glad that it was all nice and sunny
for you and i hope that you got
outside and danced around in a really
flowy and poofy purple dress
maybe you wore your red glasses
i have a pair like them
they live in my grandparents kitchen
up on a little shelf inside of a glass jar
sometimes when i am there
i try them on
and pretend that i am in fourth grade again
and we are sitting next to each other
and you are teaching me how to draw monkeys

i prayed for you
yesterday and today and i will
do the same tomorrow
though my version of praying is just
angry and yelling and swearing
sometimes i beg for you back
because i wanna go back in time
and make better friends with you
but i was just so shy
and you were this radiant ball of light
i could see you in all your focused glory
even without my glasses
you shone like your own galaxy
the moon
and the stars
and the sun
everything orbiting around you
growing better and brighter
in your presence
you were an angel even before you
had to go back home

it didn’t feel right to
wish you a happy birthday out loud
i didn’t want to cause your family any
more pain than my inane way of trying to
help probably already has
but all i know is words
they flow through my veins
in place of the blood that i am trying
really hard not to constantly spill
and you made me think twice about
wanting to die so young
knowing and hoping and wishing
that you were watching over us all
is what has gotten me through this
rocky and turmoil filled years
some say i am too young to be this sad
too young to want to die this bad
but heck i just wanna sit next to you again
feel your warmth
seeping into my frozen skin
you thawed my heart from it’s icy casing
but then you had to go back home
and my heart froze up again

it still doesn’t feel right
to put the word happy before birthday
when i am thinking
speaking
writing
or talking of and about you
but i sang happy birthday yesterday
lit imaginary candles
and baked you a cake that looked and
tasted like the sunrise and sunset
and i know that for a fact because
i ate three pieces and made myself sick
the party inside my head was so lonely
though the voices and i did hang streamers
and we all wore party hats
but your invitation must not have gone through
maybe your wings were too tired
to fly down to my little corner of the universe
and that’s okay
i’m not angry
i just wanted you to know that i still think of you
and i did wish you a happy birthday
even though it was quiet
and the party just wasn’t the same
without you
559 · Jun 2017
Three Words
Boaz Priestly Jun 2017
there are three words
on the tip of your tongue
waiting to be grouped into
whatever you want them to be
and they can mean anything
they can heal
they can maim
they can ****
because words scar just like knives

“i love you”
and god did you ever
his eyes that shone with kindness and light
her lips that were always so soft
the first time you kissed a boy
and you held her hand in the mall
not caring who saw you
you have so much love to give
and that makes the past tense
hurt even more

“i’m right here”
and you were
and so were they
when the nightmares got really bad
so bad that they bled over into the day
and seeing great black wings bursting out of
someone's back
sends you reaching out for a hand to hold
something to ground you
because it’s not real
and you’re not crazy

“i need you”
and you always have been selfish
not wanting to be in a world where they
aren’t a text message, a call, or a letter away
because they’ve always been there
even when you hardly were yourself
and you need them
you do
and you probably always will
and that is not a bad thing

“i’m so sorry”
and those three words
are said with tears in your eyes
snot dripping from your nose
and it does not matter why
you are saying sorry
be it because of self-infliction
or otherwise
because you’ve hurt them
but you just don’t want them to go

“please don’t go”
and these words are said
in so many contexts and settings
like reaching out from the bed
and grabbing onto them
because sleeping alone is too quiet
or you run after them
leaving food and drinks to cool
because what good is food
and sleep and drink
if you’ve gotta go it alone

“i love you”
and aren’t those the most
important words that you will ever say
to her and him and them
because they will linger
in the best and worst ways
through years and cities and states
they never go away
because baring your heart and soul
to another person
another being
like that is both the greatest sacrifice
and greatest thing you will ever do

“you’ll be okay”
and a parting gift for you
dear reader and viewer of this work
because even though those three
words do sound cliche
they are the most true things
that have ever been spoken
because you will heal
wounds will scar over
sleepless nights will stop adding up
and you will be so happy to be alive
you’ll be okay
i know it
545 · Apr 2016
date night
Boaz Priestly Apr 2016
if you pick me up
from my house
and find me standing in the driveway
fidgeting with my hands and tapping
my foot
it is not your fault

it is the feeling that i do not
deserve to be treated kindly
carved into my bones
and i am trying to scratch it out
because seeing your smile
makes tears sting my eyes
but the second i slide into
the seat next to you
and you put your hand on my knee
i already feel safer

if i spend more time
looking at the menu than at you
it is not your fault

i am not counting the calories
because they are not listed
and it is usually only hospitals that do that
but i am afraid to look you in the eyes
because all i will see is love
and a sparkle that i am afraid
i will ***** out

if i only eat a little bit of my food
and  ask the waiter to bring a to-go
box to the table along with our plates
it is not your fault

it is the flashbacks of my family
making fun of the way that i ate
one thing at a time
because even as a boy
i was already being wrapped tighter
and tighter in the grasp
of trauma-induced OCD

if i **** away when your foot
touches mine under the table
it is not your fault

nor is it really mine
and isn’t that strange
that my mother only doling out
cruel touches can still cling to me
even as a young man

if i only take one bite of the dessert
that you ordered just for me
it is not your fault
and i am sorry if i hurt your feelings

but even though the anorexia is
now just a faint whisper in the back of
my mind
it is still there
and at just a whiff of the sweet
i am barraged by the cruelty
in her eyes
when she told me how fat i was
and then praised and loved me
when i was nothing more than
skin and bones

if i go rigid when you hug me
and then bury my head in your shoulder
it is not your fault

i am not good at receiving affection
or kind words
because i grew up with a severe lack of both
and i had none of either left to give myself
because i did not know how to
but i want you to know
that standing there
in the circle of your arms
breathing in your distinct smell
i feel safe
and loved
like i’ve come home
536 · Oct 2015
are you an angel, mister
Boaz Priestly Oct 2015
******
the first time that i saw you
something woke up deep inside me
a thing that i had not felt in so long
it hit me like a lightening bolt
like the first time john got drunk
and took a swing at me for mouthing off
but instead of a bruise
that nobody asked about
because being a hunter causes these kinds
of things all the time
just a casualty of the job
dad said to explain it all away
this thing
it shot through my whole body
starting from my toes
sizzling up my bowed legs
sammy said that they were for the
better to carry the weight of the world
on my shoulders with
and it exploded behind my ribs
but not like a broken rib
this felt good
but in a terrifying way
i was so scared
that i acted the way that i was taught
growing up
in this friggin life
and i stabbed you
god baby i stabbed you
and if i could take it all back
i would fall to my knees in front
of you
and beg you to take me back
to make me whole again
to make me a better man
a better son
a better brother
a man that mary would have been proud of

and
i kept on seeing you
for so many years
you healed my wounds
my cuts and my bruises
my broken bones
you placed your hands on me
my face
my shoulder
you made me believe
in angels
even though god is absent
you made me believe
in sammy too
even more than i already do
and you told me
time and time again
that i deserved to be saved
you showed me
with a determined set to your shoulders
fists and teeth clenched in
naked and vulnerable honesty
that even sinners can be redeemed
but since
“****** dean you are not a sinner”
that i didn’t need to be redeemed
“i saved the world
i saved you
i saved sammy
i saved you and you and you
it was always you
when all i wanted to do
was lay down and die”

you
just kept on giving and giving
emptying yourself
for me and my kind
this world full of godless heathens
you rebuilt me
from the ground up
made me into a good man again
but it began to take it’s toll on you
your grace dulled
and your eyes didn’t shine as bright
though they still lit up when
you saw me
and sammy
but your shoulders
they sagged beneath your
ridiculous trench coat
that yeah i kept in my trunk
for that hellish time without you
and i cried into the dusty fabric
when i found the picture of sammy and i
in the pocket
and your hardships
and selflessness
they showed through
your tough demeanor
and i’m an angel you ***
mantra but i know what it is like
to hurt
to want to die
but you always made your mistakes
with the best intentions at heart

and
all of your scars
and wounds
because being human hurts
and the drugs
because you wanted to see
the colors again
only made me love you more
i wanted to keep you safe
and even in the midst
of your insanity
you said
“you know me
always happy to bleed for
the winchester”

but
****** cas
i wish you had let me
bleed for you
maybe just once
i would have gladly
carried you
when you were too tired to walk
and et wouldn’t go home
because he loved his human charges too much
and we love you too
cas
we love you too
Boaz Priestly Apr 2015
They took me to church
My mom dropped us off
The smaller one looked beautiful
I looked like I always do
Grimy and broken
I can’t say that
I worshipped like a dog
But I did consider praying
Even though all my prayers
Are merely selfish whims
Like peace on earth
And good will towards all men
I’m probably going to
Hell for calling Jesus a ******
First thing
But humor is how I deal
And my sense of humor is terrible
She looked so beautiful
In that moment
Standing under the lights
Shining out through the big glass windows of the church
That I wanted to freeze that image and shrink it down and put it in my pocket
And keep it safe and sound forever
But time rolls on
People and things wither
Crumble and die
In that moment I
Swear that the fact that I am
An atheist in church meant more to
Me than it did to the people around me
But that didn’t matter
Because she is a shining star that
Fills up my dark skies
And her beauty fills me with light
And I feel content in this moment
Watching her shine
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