“love makes fools of us all,
my captain,” the bard says,
and there is no bitterness in
his voice, nor any shake

“but,” he continues,
smoothing down the collar
of the captain’s long-coat,
“there are worse things than
being a fool for you”

and the bard remembers something
from long ago
about how touching someone’s collar
will keep them safe at sea

so he does just that
one more time, for good measure
not just because he can
but because the captain will allow it

for there is more between them now
than a ship tossed about by the
waves on the oceans great expanse

but still, nothing more than
a pretty little dagger
tucked into the bard’s boot
and a daisy behind the captain’s ear

such simple little things
objects exchanged in a way
that is arguably a love language
though, who is to say, really?

what matters here is what
the dagger and the daisy hold

something like the promise of
immortalization through song,
the spoken and written word

and something like a goodbye
that is more a promise of return
and that is arguably a beautiful thing
wouldn’t you say
oh, captain of mine?

for one, maybe two, years
after, i play words with friends
against one of the women that
sexually assaulted me

i was seventeen, and i
******* begged for them to stop,
please stop,
you’re hurting me

no one else at the wedding
after party heard me, music too
loud and champagne flowing too
freely

and the first person i told,
before she dropped me off
in front of the wrong house,
said, ‘i’m not calling you
a liar….but’

(her ******* husband
groped me, four years later,
and let me tell you, that’s some
irony i could have done without)

and the second person i told,
looked me in the eye and said
i was making the assault into
something it wasn’t, and i
needed to forgive those two women

i stopped telling people,
after that, choosing instead to
bleed out how wrong being touched
in that way made me feel

i don’t remember what i
was wearing, and i suppose
there’s a certain kindness in that,
my brain closing off that particular
memory so securely

i don’t remember what i
was wearing the first time,
either, but why would i, after
more than twenty years?

i lose count after the third time,
telling her to stop touching me
that way, looking around at other
patrons in the restaurant, that know
both of us, begging them to
say something, to help me,
but no one does

no one does
no one does
no one does

and this is a bandage, wrapped so
tight, that i do not pick at,
nor do i lift up the edge to
see what gangrenous ruin
lies beneath

and still, some nights i find myself
standing on the knife's-edge of
that dark abyss, haunted by the
ghost of something forced upon me

but i do not rage,
i do not drink until i am unable to stand,
unable to remember how all of
those hands felt on my skin,
i do not bleed over those ghosts

i do not bleed over those ghosts,
but sometimes the noose of that
trauma is so unforgiving i can’t breathe,
and i am seventeen again,
and i am twelve,
and i am five, maybe six

and these wounds, they are
open and screaming and bleeding
and so ******* hungry and i am
just so tired of being haunted

i am just so tired of being haunted

you were my first kiss
and you made my
bottom lip bleed

and i remember thinking
standing inside the tornado
that was my bedroom
you must be a vampire
and my god
i want to marry you

do you remember when
we stopped talking for the
first time and i told you
to come find me when we
were both done being stupid kids
and i would get you a ring?

my heart isn’t sure
if that offer still stands
too busy working on
fixing all the chunks
you ripped out

but i could never stay
mad at you
and i think you know that
i just love you too much

but you won’t ever love me
the way that i love you
with the “IN” before the “L”

so i keep writing you
****** poems that i may not
ever let you read
and the words act as
band-aids for all those little
tiny wounds that i keep
on coming back for

because someday
my heart and i will be able
to let go of you
but today is not that day

alone in my apartment,
midday sun slanting through the
half-drawn blinds,
jolly roger fluttering gently in
one window, trans pride flag in
the other, i find myself feelin’
some kinda way

kneeling, though never in prayer,
i pull out packer, pouch, and
two different jockstraps

moving to stand out of view
from down on the street, i nestle
the packer into the pink jockstrap
and put my shorts back on

spend some time adjusting the
packer, wishing i had a full length
mirror, but sufficing with the little
vanity that lives by my coffee maker

in the open doorway between bedroom
and kitchen, i palm the length of
the packer through the front of my shorts,
wondering if the novelty of having
a ***** ever wears off for cis men

still feelin’ some kinda way,
i take out a black knee-length skirt
patterned in rainbows that so rarely
leaves the dresser drawer, and
slip it on

and i feel an all caps
kind of GOOD

and the grade A 100%,
genuine article,
bonafide,
GENDER EUPHORIA
i feel could power a small city

(and i slump down in my
ratty desk chair, knees loose and open,
palm myself through the front of the skirt,
imagine some faceless lover
running their hand up the inside
of my thigh and pulling aside the
jockstrap to get at the packer

picture them unraveling me like
divoting a thumbnail into the supple
skin of an orange, peeled in one long strip,
and taking me in like each segment,
juices running down their chin)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you ever just get distracted
by how nice you look shirtless?
because this is a new thing to me
admiring what a skilled surgeon
was able to craft out of
so much extra
wasted
useless
skin

and i spent 9 years
clawing at the inside
and outside
of my body
trying to cut out
what made me feel so trapped
and wrong

i was not nice
to my body
this vessel that houses
the very essence of who
of what
i am

i did not know how
to love the peaks
and valleys of flesh that
i only wanted gone
soft in what felt like
all the wrong places

and i am still learning
to love this body
sculpted into a form
i know how to live with
to live in

pt.2
and i am apologizing
to all the parts of me
that bore the brunt of
this journey to
the man i was always
meant to be

this is a love letter
to my body
to the scars where my
******* used to be
that a dear friend
and then my mother
carefully bandaged for weeks
when i couldn’t bear to
look at them

this is for my
soft tummy
my thighs that jiggle
when i walk
for every part of me
that i once hated

this is for being able
to look at myself
in the mirror
and speak softly about
the softest parts of me

this is a love letter
to the little girl i never was
to the little boy i yearned to be
to the man i have become
and the body that carried me

this body that
sustained me
and this body that
refused to die

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

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

too thin
too much
always too much

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i remember the day
after you died
how the voice over the
intercom was choked with tears
and my heart caught in my throat

you were only a year
older than i was
and your soul was already
too big for your body

i immortalized you in ink
on my right shoulder
it almost made your parents cry
++++++
i remember the day
i was told that you had died
taken your own life
and the sun had yet to rise

it felt fitting
no bright light to
disturb the tears that fell from
my eyes and into my hands

and i think about you sometimes
like the smile you always shared
how easily you laughed
how that could have been me
that could have been me
++++++
i remember the day
that i read about how you had died
taken your own life
older than me but still too young

i never met you
but you found a place in my heart
and that spot still aches
sitting on my carpet
and sobbing until i gagged

it’s been a year
or maybe two
can’t say for sure but
i still think i see you
almost gotten off the bus before
and isn’t that something?
++++++
we were all just kids
if only for a moment
all growing in our own ways
and then you all just
stopped

i cried for you first
and then both of you
and i cried for myself

that could have been me
that could have been me
that could have been me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i take myself out to dinner
to a place i know i like
because i made sure to
write the name down

i’ll be 5 minutes early
maybe bring flowers if
the right kind is in bloom
just to see myself smile

and i’ll wear my nicest boots
a button-up with the
least amount of paint
and blood on it

clean-shaven, i’ll pull
out my own chair
order my favorite ******
light beer and even
splurge on dessert

i’ll make sure i know
that i am wanted
that i am worthy

that i am loved
loved
loved

i love you
and that’s what matters
even if you will never love me back
in that way
i just want you to know that
among other things
i am exceptionally good
at unrequited

but that hardly matters now
because there is a lump in
my throat and almost all
of my daydreams look like you

like being held in your arms
wrapping mine around your neck
and saying
i love you
for the first time
so quick that neither of us
were sure it was real

and i think of the holes
in your socks a lot
wondering if you have anyone
to **** them for you
and i promise not to
make them too ugly
if you let me fix them

and i want you to believe me
when i say you’re my friend
the only person i’m comfortable
with texting when i’m ****** up
on ***** and the devil’s lettuce
and if  you think that’s romantic
or a little creepy
then that’s okay

because you are so deserving
of so many good things
and i want to give them to you
with my whole heart
and i hope that just maybe
you won’t leave me standing there
holding that faithful
***** in my hands
while it cries out for you

but if you do
then that’s okay
too

i want to kiss you
do you know that, lover?
and not just when i’m drunk
though i’d be more likely
to ask then

and the pocket-sized
bottle of tequila i drank
isn’t the only thing
making my guts warm

but the way you look at me
laying down fully on your couch
because i think i’m funny
makes me realize that i
wouldn’t mind waking up to you
coming home to you

makes me realize that
maybe i’m in too deep
but i passed the shallows
months ago

floating on my back
and holding out my hand
maybe hoping that
our hands will touch
is that really too much to ask?
lover?

stranger with my face,
where have you been?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i tell myself
i don’t care that
it’s been two years
since the last time
i saw my father

i tell myself
i don’t care that
he wasn’t even really
in my life until i was 7
and before that i just told
people i didn’t have
a father

i tell myself
i don’t care that
my father hates me

but i’m crying like
my dog just died
so it’s not very convincing

and i can pinpoint when
he stopped loving me
later on in my life
than i've thought for years

but can you really blame me
when he’s not around to ask?

and it’s this book he gave me
a memoir
the summer before i started
my freshman year of high school
where he called me his darling
and signed it “love, pops”

i read that book
last week
cried my way through
almost the whole thing
holding the bent pages and
cracked spine like i wanted
him to hold my hand again

but i did something
when i was growing up
to make him stop loving me
and for years i thought that
if i just went deep enough
i could dig it out
but that thing goes
deeper than my bone marrow

and he’s not around to ask
and i’m crying like an idiot
over this man that
probably won’t even know what
i look like
in 5 years or 10

and i have so many things
to ask him
to say to him
like why he didn’t want to be my father
why he wasn’t proud of me
why he doesn’t love my anymore

how i feel like it’s all my fault
and he probably agrees with me
and that might have made me
resent him
maybe even hate him
a year or two ago
but tonight
it just makes me cry
harder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

my first introduction to piracy
as a young lad
was that my father drank grog

one shot of old crow
a couple more splashes
of lukewarm tap water

always on the rocks
swirled around once
and downed in a single swallow

i wonder if he drank
when i wasn’t around
but didn’t know how to ask

and really, how do you
ask your father if you’re the
reason he drinks?

and i haven’t seen
or heard from my father
since i was 18

but i know he stopped drinking
when i was 7
and i wonder who it was for

selfishly, of course
i’d like to think it was for me
but i know better now

and it may not be his fault he didn’t
know how to be a proper father
but it hurts just the same

kneeling in order to rest
my cheek on the windowsill
and gaze up at the moon through
the full and green tree branches,
i briefly allow myself to indulge in
that hopeful romanticism that we’re
both looking at the same celestial body

and i know you’d laugh if i
put it the way,
tell me i’m guilty of cliches,
and something about all
those ****** bards

but i can live with that,
because i know that when i
leave after breakfast, you’ll
wave back and watch as i go

i’ll even have the courtesy to wait
until i’m standing on loose gravel,
waiting for the first bus,
to press the sleeve of my jacket to my
nose and breathe that last little
bit of you in

and i thought of you, after that
first time i had kissed another man,
walking back home in the dark and
worrying the clover pendant you’d
given me between shaking fingers

and i’m still chasing that high of
when you swept me off my feet,
suspended briefly in that in between time
of too late and too early at night,
not having been held like that since
i was a boy

and is it any surprise that i’m
still sweet on you,
after all these years?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

there is a darkness
harbored by my ribs
an ivory cage

and i am eating matches
like over-salted french fries
trying to burn
it off

but this isn’t
a movie
and this is not a bid to
die with my lover

my mattress is only
big enough for one
and there just aren’t enough
blankets to simulate the
warmth of another body
laying next to mine

scuffed boots leave streaks
of dirt on striped sheets
like i have somewhere to be
someone to go to
when i can’t sleep

but the sun rises
shines into bleary eyes
and if i squint
the shaft of light
arcing across my carpet
looks like it could be you

that darkness could also
arguably be in the shape of
you and i am still trying to
figure out if that place
is something i should be
ridding myself of
or holding close
with both hands

and these matches are
nowhere near as sweet
as your lips were
on that dark night

but i am shining
bright now
maybe enough for you
to see

and if you don’t
well
then that’s okay
too

i am looking for god
in places i saw him
fleeting and peripheral

hidden in the gaps of his teeth
when he smiles
and how her fingers slotted perfectly
in between my own

the knife in my shaking hand
has a white flag tied around the handle
indents of jagged teeth in my bottom lip
not knowing if the blood on my tongue
belongs to me

and that first time we held hands
my heart sprouted wings
tried to escape the cage
of my chest
searching for the light
that you exuded

i am looking for god
and he sat next to me
leaning up against a bedroom wall
long forgotten by now
with her head in my lap
fingers carding through long hair
i counted her freckles
and god said they were like
constellations trapped under the skin
and i think he may be right

i have briefly found god
not in houses of worship
but on the lips of others
kisses in bedrooms
school hallways
standing in the middle of
empty and darkened streets

the feeling they brought out in me
it felt so close to holy
i could have wept

and my grasp on the knife
is becoming less severe
ready to bury it in the ground
watch a forest grow out of it
that fear of a god that
felt more like another absentee father
than someone i could pray to

but i found him
when i looked into your eyes
and was met with an openness
i would have gladly drowned in

i found him
in your laugh
your warm embrace
your calloused hands
your lips against mine

i found god in
you you you

i wrote this for you
did you know that?

i had been writing
for you since the first time
we met at ten years old
and i fell in love
with every part of you
and i wrote for you
until i fell out of love
like air rushing back into
my lungs after holding my breath
for years and years

i wrote this for you
not quite a poem
but little snippets here and there
keeping you up because
time zones and insomnia
calling you “my love”
and meaning it with all my being
in the way only a child can
and i am still asking myself why
it ended the way it did
when did you stop loving me?
why did you stop loving me?

i wrote this for you
probably the first time
i ever tried to rhyme in a poem
and it was terrible
but i meant every word
every time i said i love you
every letter you sent me
that i tacked to my wall
we are going to meet in person
and i am going to snot and cry
all over you ******

i wrote this for you
when you still loved me
still wanted me
what felt like more than you did
when i thought i was your daughter
and we would meet for lunch
and when you hugged me
you smelled like i did
when i was a child
and hadn’t seen you in months
that quickly became years
i felt safe in your arms
but i think i’m afraid of you now

i wrote this for you
and it was too romantic
for who you are
for who we are
as people and as a friends
and i told you i loved you
with my arms around your neck
because i thought i wouldn’t see
you again and i still wonder if
you heard me
but i’m not going to ask

i wrote this for you
with your hair bright as flames
eyes sparkling in the sun
you always smell like home
and i want to carry that with me
all the time because it makes
me feel safe
and loved

you make me feel
safe and loved

and i wrote this for you
with ink smeared on my
fingertips and my wrists
like the colors used to be when
i was a young boy
and some of it hurt
but more of it made me smile

heart black as midnight
I fear I am alive
night will fill the forest
so give my death
an echo

a friend asks me
as i lean against the bar
gnawing on what is left
of my thumbnail
what my plans are for
father’s day

i laugh in the way
that is more than
a little painful
a short bark of mirth
and tell her that
i will be
saving money

i say this too quickly
ignoring the lump
that has formed in my throat
over years of missed birthdays
and happy memories ending
around the time i realized
that my father was
no longer my hero

it’s almost too easy
to joke about these things
i haven’t seen my father
in almost three years
i got both the ****** tattoos
he did when i was angsty
and suicidal and 17
covered with prettier pictures

i can laugh about it
saying i know my father hates me
because he doesn’t deserve
anymore of my tears
than i have already shed
over his lack of love

but it hurts
ya know?
it hurts like a scraped knee
when you’re too old for
a wound to be kissed better

and other metaphors
i use to cover the
fact that there is an ache
in my chest
a hole i am trying to fill

but i have nothing
to fill this hole with
because all i know of
having a father is what
i watched on tv
and read in books

and i am still trying to
figure out how i am
supposed to feel about this man
who i see whenever i look in the mirror
that didn’t want me as a daughter

and sure as hell
doesn’t want me
as a son
either

my body was never a sacred thing
less of a small church out in
the middle of the desert
and more of a building
burned out from the inside
and ravaged by the
unforgiving sands of time

my body was this shell
that i was forced into
nobody asking if the label
that was slapped onto it
was the one that fit

and i broke my nails
on the walls
trying to claw my way out
never able to cut deep enough
to find what it was that
made me hate myself

spending years grasping
for breath
is hard to explain
but my skin bears
the scars of
trying to find the real me

my body was never
meant to be a temple
and i certainly didn’t
ever treat it like one
spending all my time
trying to get out
of what didn’t fit

i was not born into
a body that
felt like what
a home should
be

and it took me years
of building this body
from the ground up
rounding off the sharp edges
with careful touches
and so many apologies

this body of mine
was never meant to
be a church
or a burned out husk
waiting to be forgotten

my body is a worn
pair of boots
socks with holes in the heel
that i can’t bear to part with
a smile after the tears
crooked teeth and all

i built my body back up
into something that i
could live in
without wanting to
needing to
tear it apart

this has taken me years
and i am so tired
but more than that
i am finally
finally
finally
home

could you be a lighthouse,
my captain?
a welcome and a warning
all in one

or is that too poetic
of a metaphor for you?
more of a flask
passed back and forth

choosing to mistake the warmth
in my cheeks for
naught but the effects of ***

there is a brightness to you,
though and just the same

my blood sings for you
backed by the sighing
of a heavy heart

but there is beauty in that, too
wouldn’t you agree,
oh, captain of mine?

more than anything, though
captain,
there is beauty in you

being tattooed for the sixth time
by the same artist
and as a grouping of seven
to nine needles drives ink
into my skin again and again
my tattoo artist and i
talk about how
pain forces you to become
aware that you are present
in your body

i am not just a meat puppet
piloted from afar
i am the gray matter inside my skull
the blood in my veins
the scars on my arms
my body fits together so well

my fingers slot together
like they were meant to be
crooked on one side from
a heavy old car door
where you cried more than i did
because hurting other people
is such a terrible feeling

i still think our fingers
fit together better
mine clammy from fear
and yours warm because of
the fear you were shedding
with every step we took together

and all my parts
attached as they should be
like my hand on your face
yours in my hair
back to back on a mattress
better fit to one
but i never felt as warm as
i did with your body
pressed against mine

and my heart skipped beats
like your lips pulled me back
into my body
from where ever i had been

my breath and yours
mixing like they were always
meant to ya know

if i could somehow
climb inside the shield
that our love creates around us
everything interlocked
like it’s meant to be
then i would be
even more okay

and i am trying to
find a way to tell you
all this without my voice shaking
though that may take some time

which is all we have left
between us now

unrequited love is all well
and good in songs
written out as a poem
a sonnet
a ballad
but the reality hurts

the only heart i’ve ever
broken is my own
which, i guess that’s not
such a bad track-record

and what kind of poet
a wanna-be bard
would i be if i didn’t
think or speak with my mind
but with my heart
my love?

but i have grown tired
of licking my wounds
always hoping for hands
that are more steady than my own
to take this hurt from me

and i am so full of love
yours for the taking, always
i’d give you my heart if i could
better with a knife than with blood
but that’s a risk i’m willing to take

i ache, i ache, and i ache
not entirely knowing what for
maybe out of longing
something akin to wanting?
an answer only i can give

but i still don’t know
what the question could be
and so words die on my tongue
afraid of smothering you under
the weight of whatever
this is

you tell me to
follow my heart
and i almost say
“i love you”

sitting next to you
at a table which holds more
sentimental value than i could
ever possibly understand
i want to reach out
and touch your hand

but i bite my tongue
alcohol thrumming in my veins
almost enough courage to
tell you how i feel

and instead i say
forcing a laugh
“my heart has a ****
sense of direction”

because how do i tell you
that this map i hold
in my shaking hands
always leads back to you

i have already made myself
so very vulnerable where
you and i are concerned
and i don’t want to
scare you away

following my heart
is bad advice
meant to be caring
and that makes this hurt even more
all this pent-up affection
threatening to overflow

but i am holding it back
with clenched fists and
an aching tongue from
all the times i almost
told you how i really feel

and i don’t know how to
make this pining sound poetic
when i am so good at unrequited
love love love
and wanting to hold
you close

empty, cry and
kiss, thus feel
no shroud
of melancholy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

tell me true,
oh, love of mine,
what happens
after the fade to black?

from wide and life-sized
on the silver screen down
to a pinprick,
watch as those colors
slowly bleed out

and tell me what comes
next, after the cowboy
strolls off into that sunset,
painted in shades of red and orange

and what happens after
the pirate captain sails away
into that horizon, technicolor in
shades of empty *** bottles and
salt crusted into jagged long coat hems

does the old dog learn
new tricks, in this one?
do we take the rocks out
of our pockets?
do we ever love ourselves
back?

i don’t have the answers
this time, my hand is not
the one holding the pen

and i’ve slept through the
ending of this movie before,
or hid my face in your shoulder,
always grateful you’ll still let me

and i have no interest in
the man behind the curtain,
won’t look past that fade to black,
content in not knowing what
happens after the credits roll
for a little while longer

i make breakfast for two,
fried eggs with unbroken yolks this time,
coffee, toast with butter and apricot jam,
a mango that i cut perfectly in half
and quarter like my mother used to
when i was a child

i’ll take the candles, keys, cat treats
off the top of my rickety dining table
and drag it into the middle of my kitchen,
pull two chairs out from between
the fridge and overflowing coat rack

maybe sheepishly admit that i tend
to eat my meals at the desk in
my bedroom, makes me feel less
alone with music in the background

and you’re really there this time,
sitting across from me, knees almost
brushing under the table,
because you picked up the phone,
made the drive,
hopped more than one bus

let me love you in this way,
through nourishment and a
home cooked meal

let me gift you my smile,
a deep belly laugh,
and leftovers for later that night
when some of that familiar darkness
starts to creep back in

let me love you in this way,
and maybe you’ll stay longer
next time, and feel a little
lighter when you go

my hands do not shake this time,
firm grip on the shovel and
graveyard dirt on my boots,
sweat stained leather jacket collar

but i forget the thick gloves,
like i forget the bandana,
and that dirt clogs my lungs
as blood drip drip drips from
the torn skin of my palms

and i’m still not sure if
all this digging,
and digging,
and digging,
is to unearth or to bury

haunted by the ghost of the
girl i used to know,
the girl i used to be

breath comes out harsh,
a dancing ghost amongst the pines,
and i am rot waiting to happen,
washed in gold by the sunrise

i am the choke-chain,
and the tender hand,
the dog that bites the hand
that both beat me and loved me,
and i am rot waiting to happen

and i lived through who i was
to become who i am,
but sometimes even that looks like
asking myself what harm just one
more time could do, and remembering
those six years, where i started as a boy,
and stopped as a man

and i am a sinner,
with this shovel in my bleeding hands,
not quite stigmata, though the stained glass
in the skin of my knees begs to differ

and i am a sinner,
because i lived,
because i am both the haunted,
and the haunter,
the girl that grew into a man

and if we’re going to sin,
then let us sin wholly,
then let us sin holy

the ocean calls to me
in a voice that sounds like yours
playful waves soaking the cuffs of
my tattered jeans

cold sea breezes kiss the
skin of my knee
through the patch you sewed
over the jagged hole
but even those stitches are
unraveling now

and i think i see you
out past the breakers
waving at me like we’re some
long-lost lovers in black and white
and i’m running after your train

but my well-loved boots
become too big
and the hard concrete rushes to
meet the tender skin of
the palms of my hands
of my exposed knees

impact takes my breath away
like when i saw you the first time
on dry land and sitting next to me
and i wanted to hold your hand
so much it made me ache

i want you
because i am a selfish human
i yearn for you
with the tenderness of a poet
and i will follow where
you lead me

out past the breakers
boot tracks left on the sandy shore
your siren song calls to me
and i answer every time

the time we spent
together was kind,
until it wasn’t

but it’s been a while,
so maybe i’m getting
some wires crossed here

and i never did learn
how not to need,
not to want

would you have told
me if that wanting was
too much, if it was too
big for you to hold?

i know nostalgia is
a liar, just as you were,
just as you are

so i’ll take my leave,
pack my bags and
exit through the backdoor
while you’re pretending to
be asleep

i wonder if you’ll listen
for the clinking of the
spurs on my worn boots,
the soft whinny of a
dappled mare and the
harsh closing of a barn door

will you mourn the heat
of my sleeping body when
that side of the bed grows colder
and colder?

i wish the blood in my mouth was yours,
but mercy ain’t what pays the bills,
is it, cowboy?

my friend tells me that
i look younger
and clarifies that it’s
like i’m more at ease
not so tense anymore

i almost say
“i love you”
because in that moment
my heart is so full of
love it could burst

but instead i make a
joke about my age
to hide that i am
so close to weeping
right then because of
how right they are

and i did weep
on that day
sitting on a friends bed
with my chest wrapped
in bandages and my
head in my hands

i wept since it
was finally over
so many years of
breaking my knuckles against
the cage of the gender
some doctor assigned
me at birth

and my friend was right
with what they said
i do feel younger
less like 21 going on 40
and more like
coming home

after being away
for just too long

you leave the clothes that
i loaned you, folded neatly on
the bed, and i buy you
a toothbrush

for the first time in
almost two years, i have
someone to text that
i’m on my way home from
work, and ****, i missed that

and the door is unlocked,
this time, but that’s okay
because that means you’ll
be there to grin up at me
from the blanket nest on
the kitchen floor, and ask
me how work was

i thought about you,
while peeling potatoes,
like taking you out to
dinner and a movie,
walking you to the door after

and i’m not writing a love
story here, just trying to
convey that you are known,
and seen, and loved

and my hands are a little shaky now,
but i’m still pretty handy with a needle,
so won’t you let me sew your most jagged edges down?

what kind of love
do i think i deserve?
a thing that yields poems
sweet platitudes and flowery words
but no romance
a loveless and lonely
kind of something?

and sure, love can be elating
wouldn’t be such a popular topic
of poems and songs and ballads
if it weren’t

but an unforgiving love
can be such a hollow feeling
like having my chest opened
and emptied
and sewn up again

and i know what that’s really like, too
but this kind of love is more numbing
than cut nerve endings
and the scars that that leaves

glad to have never been in love
since there are only so many ways
to say that you’ve made me cry
and make it sound appealing
but a bard with a broken heart
is something no one wants to see
a broken heart yields no coin

but my heart is weak
my heart is wanting
and i am helpless
in the face of how i feel
how i ache
how i yearn
for you

singing your praises
like any good bard would do
even though you’ve never liked poetry
and isn’t that just my luck,
my love?

tell me, cowboy,
just what would happen if
you were to turn and face that
wild animal which chases you
across the desert, and into
your dreams?

when the only sound that
echoes out across those
great sandy dunes is the
jingle jangle of your spurs,
do you ever think of me?

does that wild thing have
something to say to you,
or will it simply knock you
down and press yellowed fangs
against the soft skin of your throat,
and which one scares you more?

tell me, cowboy,
can you tell the difference between
a tender caress and a choke-chain,
or do they both feel the same
to that wild thing in your chest?

because i can, cowboy,
and i’ve got the bloodied knuckles and
split lip to show for it,
having wrestled that wild thing into
a shape which i can hold dear

and i think of you, cowboy,
when i’m laying under that
same desert sky, with nothing to my
name but the whiskey warming my guts,
a threadbare jacket under my head,
and your name, sweet on my lips

1...
you beat everyone to
the punch
and branded yourself a
freak before you knew what
that word even really meant

but that didn’t matter
because, five days a week
you waited for the bus with
a bouquet of scotch broom
held in one small hand

picked sweetly and tenderly
for the pretty, pretty girl
with her long brown hair
and shine in her eyes
that always saved a seat
just for you

and she always took
those flowers, too
might even let you
hold her hand

and you didn’t know
what it meant
at seven years old
but there were sparks
and butterflies and
you never wanted to
let go

2.
but, kids can be cruel
and you remember the terror
crushing and suffocating
that came on the heels of
realizing you liked this girl

probably more than any
two girls should
have liked each other
you told yourself

trying to hold that part in
that knowledge of liking
someone of the same ***
but not feeling like that
was the right gender
for you, either

and what is a child
supposed to do with that?
how can someone so young
expect themselves to have
the proper vocabulary to
express something so
big and so new?

3.
and you think of that girl
for the first time in 15 years
crying into the knuckles
held firmly in your chipped teeth

like there are enough tears
to wash out the
pain that still lingers from
feeling so wrong and *****
for so many years

and you called yourself
a freak first
but, only to lessen the sting
that came with being called
worse things

like what was different
about you was so much
worse than wanting to
hold hands with a pretty, pretty girl
that saved you a seat
on the bus and would sometimes
let you hold her hand

4.
and you want to ask
what is so wrong with that,
who were you hurting,
being young and in
something akin to love?

and you want to ask
so many things
like how you were supposed to
know you could be gay
when no one ever said so

how were you to know
that a girl could love a girl
and a boy could love a boy
and there is beauty in that?

because, of course there is
there was beauty in your love
for that girl with the
long brown hair and soft smile

there was beauty in your
knowing that if that girl had
asked and smiled at you just so
you would have stolen the
moon from the sky
just for her

5.
and you know so
many things now
and only some of them
hurt enough to bring tears
to your tired eyes

and that’s okay, too
no one can blame you
for mourning over what
could have been
and could have been sooner

if only you had known
that your affection was
not only okay
but a thing to behold
to be proud of

6.
and you have loved
since that girl
sometimes wondering if she
remembers your name

and you have cried, too
out of fear and happiness
and heartbreak
like any good poet
must do

and you have grown
into yourself
into your being as a man

and you’ve got the scars
to prove it
thank you very much

and sometimes, when you
look at him
or her
or them

you are nothing more than
that child again
picking flowers for a pretty girl
because you know they will
make her smile

and that smile will
make your heart
grow wings
every time

i wanted you to touch me
was eager to teach you
the curves and plains of my body

baring all those scars
on wrist and chest and knowing
you’d only look upon me
with adoration and something
akin to love

and maybe that was selfish of me
putting so much trust in you
but you were selfish, too

you wanted more than i
was willing
was able
to give

and maybe you didn’t know
what you were asking of me
trying to put a time limit
on the years upon years of
****** trauma i had
yet to work through

and if my own hand was
sometimes too much
how would i react to
both of yours?

i was trying to save you
the burden of
my choking on sobs when you
touched me
over the shirt and below the belt

knowing how quickly pleasure
can turn to fear

and would you have been able to
talk me down from the brink of
being a scared little boy
and back into the body of
a young man?

and it’s not that i didn’t trust you
not that i didn’t murmur your name
not that i didn’t want to know what your
mouth would feel like ******* hickeys
into my collarbones and shoulder blades
i just needed you to wait

that’s all i ever asked of you
giving so much more than i ever
expected in return
and it still wasn’t enough

maybe i wasn’t enough?
maybe you were unfair
trying to pressure me into an
intimate act that was a precursor to more
to something i couldn’t handle

i wanted you to touch me
but now i’m drinking away
how your hands felt
held in my own
in my hair
on my body

the memory
the ghost
of your touch is just one more thing
i am trying to forget

i split myself open
and it wasn’t poetic
and it wasn’t for you

was it a gurney i spent
two hours laying on
intubated and unconscious?

remember sinking under
feeling naked without
any metal in my face and ears

i put my trust in the
hands of a surgeon
freeing me up with a scalpel

didn’t ask what my ribs
looked like
even though i was curious

could he see my heart?
did he see a body that could be
made into a home again?

the poet that i am
would like to think so
that he pressed a key into my hands

this key carved from flesh
and bone and bruised ribs
finally a welcome kind of pain

this pain of something new
thick scars like a promise
like coming home
after so long

coyly, oh captain of mine,
you glance at me over the
soft curve of your shoulder,
and my mouth fills with saliva

i am a pirate, down to his
last dregs of ***

and i am a cowboy, dying of
a thirst in the desert that only
you can slake

and i am a bard, whose lute strings
have all been snapped by his own hand

to put it real bluntly here,
i am ******* starving

and there are so many ways,
to starve and be starved in turn

it is your touch that i yearn for,
tenderly on my cheek,
and ****** in the collar of my jacket

let’s curl around each other,
just this once,
share some body heat and a
six pack of cheap beers

and if i asked really nicely,
batted my eyelashes up at you
just so, would you let me
carry a piece of you with me?

let me sink my chipped and crooked
teeth in to that junction of shoulder
and throat, right above your collar bones

and we can pretend that your red,
red blood
on my teeth is a construction paper
valentine that i hand to you and
then shyly glance away

sometimes
love just isn’t enough
and that really ******* *****

such an emotion gets too
much credit for what
it is and isn’t able to do

love won’t stop a bullet
can’t hold back a knife
from opening up skin
like a second mouth
won’t stop you from leaving

and that’s the thing isn’t it?
love won’t always be enough
and god knows
i wish it were
with all of my being

i think we deserve a
happy ending, lover
don’t you?

i want an ending
that doesn’t leave me
with an ache

with a rawness that i
have yet to discover how to
keep from festering

and i loved her
and i loved him
and i love you
so much it left a mark
but that just wasn’t enough

and there is only so
much of me
of my love
i can give before i’ve
finally been hollowed out

i don’t think my love
will be enough
even then, lover

and that’s something
i’ll just have to
learn to
live with

but right now
it really ******* hurts

does the melancholy come
before the sorrow
or is it the other way around?

does being a fool make
me a poet
or am i a poet because
i was first a fool?

if my hands were steady
enough to hold an instrument
i could be your darling bardling
and sing you into immortality

but my voice is as shaky
as the rest of me
even when you’re not around

and there’s nothing poetic about
a bard that can’t hold a note
without going all to shambles

is there, my love?

i know how this goes
well-versed in the concepts of
unrequited
un-reciprocated
and unavailable

this is a dance
i know all the steps to
leaning towards you
across a well-loved table
like ocean waves
against the shore

two fires rage
in all the blood in my body
rushing to my face
and the alcohol in my
otherwise empty belly
wrapping myself in a cloak
of courage

and i know how this goes
you know of my attraction
you are flattered by this
you cannot reciprocate this

and this stopped being fun
a little bit ago
spending my nights with tears
in my eyes
wondering why i am always the
one to fall

i guess we are all
shackled to things
in one way or another
ya know?

i am shackled
to my own heart
and firmly tied to hope

so close that it
has me in a choke-hold
that i am no longer fighting against

and i know what you are
shackled to, my dear
this deep and aching sadness
that is only made for you
to carry

and i will carry this
torch for you
for now

at least
until my heart decides
to listen to my head again
and i fall back on all
those “un’s”
like i always seem
to do

i still don’t know
if i have been able to properly
express the sheer terror

of being seven years old
and realizing i liked girls
but that i
myself
was not a girl

words like homosexual
and transgender
did not exist to me
and were adamantly not
taught about in schools

this lack of knowledge
not knowing that i could
be anything beyond that
six letter word on
my birth certificate

the only conclusion
i was able to come to
as a scared child
was that i must
have been a
freak

there was something wrong
with me and within me
feeling my guts twist
every time i was called
a girl and not knowing why
it hurt so bad

and now
as a young man
i am able to find words that
downplay this nine years
of confusion and turmoil
shaping that pain into
something that is palatable

i do not have to do this
nor should i be expected to

but it is easier than saying
i was hellbent on destroying
the body i had because it
was not what it was supposed to be

it is easier than saying
i was willing to die
as a girl

if that meant the pain would stop

i breathe life
into the distant ocean
and the green, green trees

these entities take on
shapes that only i can see
like lovers that are always
too far to touch

and how i long for you
standing on a sandy shore
rolled jean cuffs soaked through
with briny water
stuck to my skin with dried salt
and i want you to lick it off

i ache for you
want to feel rough bark
under my hands
the romance of tucking
a single dandelion behind your ear
and biting your bottom lip
in place of a goodbye

i long for you
like a tree sapling climbing
ever closer to the sun
like an old-timey boat
captain missing the swells
and breakers of the ocean

i long for you
and it kind of scares me
how big this want is
as i write you into
the leaves like they were the
first time i put on my glasses

like watching the ocean
recede into the distance
with salty sand under my nails
and in my socks
taking parts of you with me
like the comfort in knowing
i can always go back

if there is something
more to love than heartache
well, he has yet to find it

maybe, he thinks
when he looks at you
there could be more
but the breaking of a heart
just seems to sell better
doesn’t it?

if this is a curse
then it’s little more than self-inflicted
and it must be
when there are no flowers winding
vines around ribs, forcing out ****** petals
in place of calling your name

food does not turn to ash in his mouth
and water quenches
while alcohol burns just the same
and he distantly wonders if there
isn’t something burning in him, too

does longing burn?
reaching out for a sea captain
that is tethered to the ocean
just as the bard is tethered
to the metaphor of love

and how the sun looks
when it breaks through
gaps in the leaves
and caresses your sleeping face
like he longs to do

but there is no place here
for touches so vulnerable and kind
the shadows long lashes make
on your stubbled cheeks
is not for him to witness

but, oh, he wishes it was
wants to tuck flowers
free of blood and bone
into your long hair
and maybe even hold your hand

for you see,
the bard is a simple man
easily pleased and open
in the love he gives

practically overflowing
an ocean contained within
the body of a man

and won’t you let him fill
your cup with something other
than *** and the persistent ache
of telling yourself
that you’re better off alone?