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

I am a poet
am I
really
well I guess I
could be

I know how to
write in stanzas
and hit the ENTER key

My fingers
and the sides of my hands
are ink-stained
cut me open
and I bleed
blue black and red

I have learned
to tame the demons
in my head
with a well-placed
smattering of words

I can write worlds
into existence
and if I really tried
I could write down stars
into a jar
to hold on the coldest
of nights

So yes
I am a poet
an author
a keeper of words

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

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

thinking back
to the so many versions of me
my younger selves
would they be afraid of me now
would they wonder what had happened
what would they think of the scars
on my left arm and shoulder
deep enough that the slices didn’t bleed
right away but slowly filled up and spilled over
and the metal in my face
the dark purple hollows under my eyes
and the sneer on my lips
the bitten skin and the splits that
tear and sting whenever i speak
would they try to stop the shaking of my hands
wrap duct tape around my dull fingertips
so that i will at least be able to salvage some nail
and what would they think
when i told them about the time that
i bruised my knuckles against my
own skull
trying to get the voices to shut up
but all i got was a headache
and fingers that hurt when i unclenched them
would they try to massage a feeling that
wasn’t pain back into my jaw
or would they stay away
because i can be scary
i guess
and my anger and depression
has become a palpable thing
but i don’t mean it to be
i would peel away my walls
of barbed wire and broken promises and hearts
and i would bare it all for them
i really would
because i want to show them
that i am still here
i am still going
i still wake up every morning
and even on days when i have to force myself
to go through the motions
i still do it
for them
for my past selves
and my future selves
but without my past selves
the younger versions of me
with their clothes smelling of ****
and alcohol and so many days of dried blood
i would not have made it
and god i am so sorry i tried to destroy them
but i promise i will keep them safe now
lock them up in a box inside myself
nothing will hurt them anymore
i will be who they needed
way back when
and i will do my best
to keep on going
even though it hurts
more often than not
i will keep going
i promise i will
i will make you proud
you of the skinned knees
and untied shoes
the barefoot romps
through grassy fields
and the first time someone else made your nose bleed
i will be there
i will make you proud
i promise
and maybe when we meet again someday
you will come closer
and you will not be afraid of
what you have become

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

I do not remember the name of the hospital, only that there was no 13th room.
When I asked one of the nurses why, she told me it was because 13 is unlucky.
The two other psychiatric wards I’ve stayed in also skipped that number, so it must be true.

I don’t want to be here.

I don’t know where I want to go, but this ward is making my eye twitch.
There are locks on all the bathrooms, and no toilet seats.
The food isn’t terrible, but the calories next to each menu item make me feel fat.
How long have I been here?

Everything blends together, and my count of the days feels inaccurate.
My skin feels too tight.

I ask the handsome nurse, who hands me my little paper cup of pills, why he has braces.
He tells me he was in the Navy, and had to take them off for that.
He has a nice smile.
He asks to see if I swallowed my pills, and I stick out my tongue.

I don’t want to be here.

these days i am stuck
choosing between binding and breathing
because nobody knew to tell me
that wearing this less severe corset
for more than eight hours at a time
could turn my ribs into a steel trap
around my lungs and my skin
would be able to count the seconds
that ticked by as that fabric
rubbed tighter and tighter
against my body

but it was worth it
at least for the first few minutes
until my breath became trapped
inside my body somewhere
between my lungs and my
nose and my mouth
and climbing three flights of stairs
from one class to the next felt
like running a marathon
with my legs tied together

and standing naked from the
waist up in the women’s bathroom
hating every second of wrestling the
binder off of sweat-soaked skin
made me want to reach into
my body through sheer force of will
and years of hatred
and scoop out the fat that made
up my *******

and i am accustomed to this
the want to remove the parts
of me that make people
tie me to the words
of she
and girl
and her
and mother
and sister
and woman
and and and
those things that i am not
those things that i never was
those things that i never will be

wanting to cut off
the parts of me that continue to lock
me into the involuntary box of
the female gender
makes me feel like a freak
and a monster
and a bad person for not loving
the body that a god with a penchant
for sick jokes stuck me in

but some days the dysphoria
makes it tempting to choose
binding over breathing
because even though my tolerance
for doing so is only about an hour
at this point isn’t an hour of relief
better than nothing at all

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

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

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

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

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

as if i don’t look
exactly like you;

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

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

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

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

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

is my body a temple
a church
a cathedral
a shrine?

that may be the case
but i am the god
that it was built for

and more often than not
my fingers are knives
and when i spit
it comes out as acid

the walls are melting
the pews are burning
everything is splintered wood
and broken bone

because as a god
i am cruel
i am vindictive
i am capricious
my self-destruction is on a global scale

and there is nothing beautiful
about this mess that
this so called temple is

because i am trying to make
the scars on my arms into
railroad tracks that will take me
far away from this place
i do not want this anymore

and it is easier to
kneel when your kneecaps
have been shattered
but i do not believe in myself
enough to do that

and if my body truly is
a temple
a church
a cathedral
a shrine
it went up in flames years ago

1.0 i don’t remember what
i was wearing the day
i was sexually assaulted
and if small mercies exist,
sure that’s one of them?

i wish i didn’t remember
anything at all
like the smell of beer on
the two women’s breaths
or how it felt to
be forcefully trapped between
their bodies as they ground
down onto my 17 year old skin

not one other person
in that veritable sea of
drunk adults heard my
cries begging them to
stop, please stop
stop, i’m a minor
stop, you’re hurting me

and then to be called
a liar by the first person
i ever told
broke me even more
and i’ve got the scars
to prove it

like maybe if i
cut deep enough i
could scrape out what
left me feeling *****
and unclean and used up

2.
and the second person
i so foolishly told
sure that she of all people
would help me
called me a liar, too
though in a more drawn out way

“you’re being dramatic,
making this into something it’s not,
and you need to forgive them”

i sometimes wonder that
if i were still pretending to
be a girl
would people have believed me,
or would it have been worse?

would the ****** assault
have become less letters,
even though that “can’t
happen to men”?

3.
i don’t have answers
to those questions
but what i do know is how
murky the meaning of an
employer groping me while
neither of us is on the clock
truly is

to me, an action like that
like this grown man
old enough to be my father
groping my chest
falls into a gray area between
****** assault and ****** harassment

how dare he
violate me like that
with zero disregard for
my consent and ****** autonomy

and the irony of being called
a liar for being sexually assaulted
by the wife of the man
who sexually harassed me
years later is not lost on me
nor is it appreciated

adding yet more weight
to this trauma until me
knees buckle and my
fingers once again itch
for the blade

4.
i envy those of you that
have forgotten this trauma
of mine
and how easily you absolved
yourselves of any guilt for
looking into my flushed and
tear-stained face and
calling me a liar

i want to know how you
sleep at night
because i sure
as hell don’t

Can’t be a model
cuz of the roll of love around my middle
Can’t be an arm model
cuz of the **** scars
Can’t be a stripper
cuz I’m too insecure
(and lack the strength)
(and I look better in lots of layers)
My hands are too broken and crooked to ever be beautiful
nobody wants a hand model with chewed off nails and ragged cuticles
And that **** little scar on my left hand

But then I dug
through all the can’ts and found my guilt and my sorrow and the dull ache that she left behind

And I realized that
I may not be good at
a lot of things
but I can sure as hell write

So I coughed up
all the blood that she left clotted in my throat and spit it on to a blank page
used all that anger and guilt
to make something beautiful

Because my friend
we can’t
you can’t
I can’t
save everyone from this war that is life

But she is more than
just a causality
she is so much more
******

And my pretty words
laced with “I’m sorry’s”
and “I miss you’s”
really don’t do her justice

But I have learned
that writing is something I’m good at
even if my self loathing seeps through the cracks in the foundation sometimes

So I will write
fill pages with the veins from the gaping hole in my chest that her absence occupies and wonder if she’d be proud of me even now with how broken I am

I wish I had something else to offer
but I am only a poet
with notebooks to fill with
goodbyes that I never got to say

My god
I miss you

-

#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

there are many things that have not killed me,
and yeah, i guess they made me stronger.
but until those scars became strength,
i cut myself on all those sharp edges
of the shattered thing i had become.

and picking up those pieces was
a slow and painful thing that
painted my fingers,
my palms,
in bright cherry red.

i asked myself if it was worth it,
bleeding fingers stuck in my mouth.
just surviving was so exhausting.
how was i ever going to muster
the strength to put myself back
together with duct tape
and safety pins
and so many disappearing purple
glue sticks?

there was a comfort found in this state,
my body found homeostasis in the
barren battlefield of itself.
i told myself i could build a home
among the smoldering remains,
could learn to love the black smoke
that hung over everything i saw.

i told myself so many things
while on hands and knees in
hopes of finding who i once was
in the dirt and discarded memories.

i told myself i could stay there
if i wanted to,
let all those sharp edges slice
me into ribbons thinner than paper
that could be carried away on the
wind to a place that just didn’t hurt
so **** much.

i told myself that giving up
wouldn’t make me weak,
just so very human.
but a stubborn light inside of me
refused to burn out, like the porch light
left on night after night until
you make it back home.

and i clawed my way out of
that wreckage.
and i’ve got the scars to show
for it, the still sleepless nights
and sometimes even worse nightmares.

but so many of those sharp edges
have been rounded down into
shapes that fit together more
often than not, slotted into place
to make something stronger than
what and
who and
how i used to be.

i just had to survive the healing
process first, because the getting
better is what **** near
killed me.

there’s a certain poetry to
persistent heartache
don’t you agree, captain?

finding myself more afraid
of the dark than
flames creeping ever closer to
my skin from the torch
i still carry for you

maybe it makes me a fool
but i’d rather be had in
any capacity you can offer
than to abandon ship now

and i know the captain goes
down with the ship

but what is a captain
without his crew,
and what rank would i have
on my own?

still so many question
and no good answers
beyond mumbled apologies

finding myself pulled
between the ocean and the moon
but always ending up
back by your side

and what would
you call that, captain?
loyalty,
foolishness,
love?

maybe love is too tender
leaves no room for
empty bottles of *** and whiskey
lashing rain against blackened sails

there are bite marks in my
knuckles i know you won’t notice
and that’s okay, too
no need to complicate things

maybe we’ll just simplify it
down to saying that what
i crave is adventure
when what i really mean is
you

oh, captain of mine
what i really mean is
you

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

but even wood,
even bone,
can splinter and break

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have a problem with going to funerals.

But, with the way that I dress, the way that I act, you would think that I would be fine hanging out with a dead family member, right?

Yeah, no.

I hate funerals.

And, it’s not because I’m an insensitive *******.

You’ve all witness my breakdowns.

I eat the food afterwards.

Listen to people pray to a god that I don’t believe in.

Listen to people talk about a heaven that I don’t believe in, and wouldn’t get into, anyway, even if I did.

I drink the watery coffee.

I listen to my family talk about how proud they were with themselves because they didn’t cry, and feel weak and broken, ****** up, flawed, for sobbing so hard that my shoulders shook.

I look at the person in the coffin.

But I don’t see them.

I have a problem with funerals in general.

I tend to stand there, useless.

Though I have been known to give hugs to people when they are about to cry.

My problem, though, is not that I am afraid of death.

I am afraid of living, and being alone, more than anything.

My problem is that I have the strongest urge to run up to the coffin, and shake the person laying there, yell at them to wake up.

To just wake up.

To please just wake up.

Because they promised that they wouldn’t leave me.

But, everybody leaves.

Everybody leaves.

i smell like a family
there is drool on my shoulder
blending into the fabric
of my flannel
where i held my friend’s baby
and i kissed her head and
her little face
and told her i loved her
and she giggled
and burbled back at me
and soaked my shirt in drool

there is dirt and grit
clinging to my skin
and my hair
where i held my friend close
after so many months of
radio silence on both our parts
and told him i loved him
and i smell like him
a lingering scent of
earth and travel
because for a nomad
the road is their home
but now he is so domestic
and underneath his usual smells
he smells like soap and clean clothes
and while this is strange
i am happy for him

i press myself into my friends
an extended family
ever expanding
i try to take in as much
of their scents as i can
because i naively hope that
i can drown out the smell
of fear and sleepless nights
and cold sweats that cling to me
i do not want to smell like my nightmares

i let them permeate my skin
and they stay with me
even if they are miles
and years away
i keep little parts of them
and they keep me going
they keep me whole

because family doesn’t
end with blood
but it doesn’t start there
either

i have said goodbye
more times than i can count
to grandparents
aunts and uncles
a good friend that i thought i would never be older than

but saying goodbye to myself
my old self
my girl self
is something that i still grieve from time to time

and it is such a disconnect that comes with this
because there was no body
nothing to mourn

no coffin
though i prefer to be cremated
i would like to grow into a tree
or be crushed down into a record
that only plays one song
over and over again

but nobody sent flowers
or so many casseroles that i had to
ask them to stop because i was
seeing tuna in my dreams
and the dying flowers were making me even sadder
*******

but no
because there was no body
though there almost was
nothing happened
just my falling asleep
and waking up

as if the past nine years had never happened
from seven to sixteen
knowing that something was different in me
and how it almost very nearly killed me
hell i still have the scars
and my insides are probably at least
a bit ****** from those **** pills

but i still do not know
how to say goodbye to who i was
who i was labeled because
i was a baby born with a ******
and of course that automatically equals female
doesn’t it?

but there is still such a disconnect
between the old name and who i am now

because even though i can get rid of
my *******
my ******
and Testosterone will put hair on my face
and give me a happy trail
and my voice will deepen
and i will go through a second puberty
where i want to **** everything

there are people that still see me
as a girl
a she
a lesbian
butch
tomboy
****

but all they really see are my *******
and what they assume is in my pants
and that is not who i am
that is not who i ever was
and ****** why can’t they just see
that this saying farewell
to my old self
does not mean i stop being
who i am

because i am so much more
than my *******
and my ******
and my ability to nurture a human life
inside my own body

i am so much more than my body
and my old selves do not determine who i am
today because today i am alive
and i am so much more than my body

i am so much more
than how you see me
i am so much more

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

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

0.
my fears come in fours
or to be exact
there are four of them
a nice even number
but i cannot overcome these ones
and there are certainly more
where they have come from
but these are the ones
that i live by
or the ones that live by me
either way
they are the controlling factors
that make up my psyche

1.
i am afraid of the dark
and no
i am not kidding
people usually don’t believe me
when i tell them this
because i surround myself with
dark things and i guess
i seem like a dark person
and the argument
that when i close my eyes it
will be dark anyway
does nothing to comfort this
it just makes me feel more ridiculous
an eighteen year old with a nightlight

2.
storms
mother ******* storms
even a little bit of rain
can send me scurrying
to my room to hide under
a pile of blankets
as if this can protect me from
the elements
and driving in it is even worse
i white-knuckle my way through
the miles and the hours
feeling the wind
and pouring rain
hail snow sleet thunder
and lightning
it sends waves of fear to my bones
and i grit my teeth so hard
i fear my teeth will crack
and splinter
like the trees and fences and power lines

3.
it is not dying that scares me
i am not afraid of death
i embrace it
i will be the curator
of my own destruction
but it is dying alone
that scares me the most
and yes
i know that even if i were to die
with other people
i would still die by myself
because my light snuffing out
will not be like anyone else’s
i know this
and that does not scare me
what scares me is being alone
when i die
i don’t want to die
by bottle or pill or knife
with my only company being
my self-destruction
the dark passenger will not escort me
to the other side
but i wouldn’t mind dying
holding your hand

4.
i am afraid of my mother
but this is not something that i can
just come out and say forthright
it has to be treated casually
just slipped into conversation
taking the words from
what is your favorite kind of cake to
and i am afraid of my mother
but anyway
what is your favorite flavor of frosting
and the key is to say this quickly
let the sentence blur together
let the thickness of the tongue
slur the vowels into one long string
no spaces are needed with this
confession
because no matter how this is said
this little confession
an admittance of what is wrong
of what haunts my sleep
and my day time
and all my time
people will still look at me like
i am this little broken thing
but no
i am not broken
i will not let her break me
but this fear
it will not go away
and i am ashamed of it

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

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

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

nothing is going to
hold me back

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

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

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

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

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.

i became the only boy
that i wanted to take
my shirt off for
step out of my pants
without falling over
and pull my socks off
one by one

i don’t really know
how this whole thing works
but it seems like dinner
would happen first
maybe i’d bring flowers
say how handsome i look outloud
and mean it

if i still had to wear a bra
i would buy a nice one first
splurge on something more
substantial than a sports bra
maybe something with
an underwire and little ribbons
show that part of me some love

and i would be slow about it
run my hands over this body
that dysphoria has always kept
me from exploring
with my own flesh against flesh

take the time to learn
all the curves and edges
of this vessel that has never
really felt like home
always too tight around
certain parts and too loose
in others

but that wouldn’t matter
because i would be a gentleman
and do this with the lights on
pull my shirt off
in a way that wasn’t rushed
and begging to be put back on
right after it would hit the floor
at my feet

and my knees wouldn’t shake
mapping out the parts of myself
i always wanted to cut off
and my breath wouldn’t falter
but go out easier than it had
in years

because i am the only boy
i ever wanted to take
my shirt off for
and i deserve to feel beautiful
and handsome
and fragile in some parts
because i am still here

******
i am still here

I loved this boy

with long hair the

color of chestnuts

or, black coffee

my eyes are bad

so, I can’t really be sure

I loved this boy

I still do

maybe just a little bit

but, enough that it hurts

And, sometimes, I can’t sleep

because of all the horrible

things that I have said to him

how many times we made

each other cry

I wrote the boys

name in the snow

before stomping on it

because, in all honesty

that was an easier thing to do

than profess my love to him

Now, this was not in love

nor was this puppy love

it was more than a friendship

more than a sibling

This boy, he stole my heart

and ground it in to

a fine, red powder

under his worn out sneakers

If someone were to

look closely,

not that anyone would want to see

me shirtless, there is a little invisible scar

where his name used to be

resting over my heart

This boy, I remember that,

one time, he let me run my fingers

through his hair,

and I almost cried because his

eye lashes were so soft where they fluttered against my fingers

This boy, now a young man

I sometimes watched him

instead of eating my lunch

I often noted the way that his

spine and every little marble that made it up

along with the flesh and bone

could be seen through his shirt

I longed to run my fingers

up and down that thin line

and tell him how beautiful I thought he was

how much I loved him

I want to demand he take back

all the horrible things

that we said to each other

and force me to say sorry

Because, my god, do I miss him

and the horrible nick names I gave him

since, sometimes, saying his name

was too painful

The horrible cards and pictures I made him

out of the few that I found in the trash

he told me that he kept even more

I blushed like an idiot

Since, when I knew this boy

it was before I had taught myself

not to cry in front of people

because, to show any emotion

is a clear sign of weakness

Which is what I am

I am weak

as are my knees

with love for this boy

Who can’t even say my name

let alone look at me

with disgust in his beautiful eyes

though I can’t remember the color

and a curl in his mouth

that was usually only reserved for himself

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

up before the sun,
walking under the softening
glow of a dotted moon,
already light down on the
street, yet still dark where the
light pollution can’t reach

and i want to be there,
almost desperately,
let’s go back to that spot
near the powerlines and
gravel roads, feel that
buzz in your molars

there’s a crackle in the air,
and we’re not far enough away
from the rest of it to find those
wild horses just yet,
but the bird call and chatter is
a **** good substitute

and i want to take a snapshot of you,
silhouetted by splash of sunrise
across the sky, something to keep
in the pocket of my jeans like a
polaroid, creased from running my
thumb across the surface

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i’d like to see you
each and every morning
sitting across from me at
our little table in
an even smaller breakfast nook

nevermind the holes in the knees
of my well-worn pajama pants
or the sleep still on your breath
i’d kiss you just the same

and i want you to be
what i see after
downing half my coffee in one go
and my glasses un-fog after
setting the mug back down
on the tablecloth we picked together

it’s small and simple
maybe even silly
domestic happenings like this
that i want with you

like sharing a bed for
the first time
and letting my foot wander
hoping to find you across
the ocean of mattress
and mountain of blankets

like how your hand
fits so well in mine
and i am not afraid
to hold you this close
this publically

you make me brave
letting this anger out of necessity
become less potent
and easier to leave behind me

you make me feel so many things
and all these things feel so new
with nothing behind them
save for your love and affection
and i want to give you
these things, too
hoping you know just how much
my heart swells
when only thinking about you

i want this
i want us
i want you
you you you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“i’ve had hallucinations like that”
no really
and i don’t even need drugs to do it
my brain used to give me all
that nightmare **** for free

but when it happens all the time
everyday is like a bad trip
and it just keeps getting worse
and it left dark circles under my eyes
and shaking hands
and so many cuts on my arm

because there is nothing poetic
about watching great black and bony
wings rip themselves out of someone's back
and you swear that it is snowing inside
since the cold flakes feel so real
and the wall inhales and exhales
against your back as you slide down it
to the floor

and it’s really ******* hard
to find a boy or a girl
that will save you from yourself
when you don’t even know if the
chair that you’re sitting in is real

and it’s really ******* hard
to be saved by someone when that
isn’t realistic in the slightest
and hollywood knows that as well
because mental illness is not a thing
that can be cured by sappy poems
and chocolate and being told
that you are beautiful

because i was not beautiful
i was chewing holes into
the insides of my cheeks
and worrying ****** grooves into
my lips and dried blood
stuck to all the sleeves of my shirts
and so many sleepless nights
because even with my eyes closed
i still saw every horrible thing

and there was no one to save me
because when i told my mother
between sobbing and shaking so much
that my teeth chattered she looked right at me
and told me that i just had an overactive imagination

and that was when the question of
if i knew that the things i saw weren’t real
became so many other moot points
because crazy is as crazy does
and the things i saw
the things i saw
put so many scars on my arms
because blood is real
and if it bleeds it has to be real
it just has to be

I am going to a funeral
not sure who for
but it could be any one of us
when his men come to our door


We’ve spent our lives in closets
content with safety over view
but even that gets old
and **** we just wanted a fresh breath or two


So out we came
again and again
a never ending stream
but it felt so good to finally come clean


And now here we sit
under the jurisdiction of our new “president”
a man who hates our kind
and a vp who supports conversion therapy


So don’t you dare tell us
that we should not be scared
because we have PULSE to back us up
and so many years of the same old *******


We are tired
and scared
and wary of all
because who knows who could be the reason why we fall


So please
I beg of you
come and stand with us
hold our hands but do not speak over us


Because we need you
the majorities and all
to stand up to this menace
we do not want to fall


I do not want to go to funerals
that could have been prevented
so please friends hear my words
and take them to heart


Fore there are already too many hashtags
dedicated to my brothers and sisters
and we must end this campaign of hate
because we the minorities are all tired of going to funerals

putting into words
why swimming in the summer
is a thing that does not exist
be it pool, lake, or river
is almost as difficult and painful
as seeing bare flesh in the mirror
with all the wrong parts
in all the wrong places
and the only thing that goes through
an already moving-too-fast brain
is *wrong wrong wrong

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)

you willingly subscribe
to the belief of a god that
encourages you in
and then rewards you for
condemning those that
are seen as other
or different than yourself

but that is not what
the true meaning of this
so called good book
is calling upon you to do

but still you do
picketing funerals of gay people
wishing death upon those
that are of different abilities and minds
and willfully supporting conversion therapy
as if there is enough electricity in this world
to make me stop loving men and women

and this god
this vision of a man
with white skin and long brown hair
but not enough length to make him seem feminine
with his flat stomach and the
fabricated willingness to absolve
us of all our sins
by, ironically enough, being murdered
he still does not scare me

no, what scares me
is what you do in the name of your god
what you believe him to be saying
that because i am a trans man
because i am queer
because i tried to **** myself
i am going to hell

but doing this
using your god
a man proven time and again
to be of middle eastern descent
with an ***** ****** mother
and two fathers
as an excuse to incite violence
upon others
how does that not make you
ask yourself if this is what
he really would have wanted?

but when you can
take this person and raise them upon
a pedestal that forgives you of your hate
what does it matter
what they really said
what they really believed
and that they loved all equally?

this probably has something to do
with why i like to see jesus as a woman
sometimes a trans woman
but mostly because women are
of a gentler human variety
a nurturing sort
inhabiting the universal image
of a mother

and i know that this
god, maybe the one that
i pray to when i don’t know
what else to do
i know that she loves me
despite everything i have done
to others and to myself
she loves me
she loves me
she loves me

remake me as a fish,
this time,
let the knife calluses on
your fingers catch on the edges
of my iridescent scales as you
tenderly place them,
one by one

peel back my eyelids
to gently place shiny
river stones, polished smooth,
into empty eye sockets

and i do not fear the
knife with the curved end,
this time, as you open the
tender skin along my neck
on either side into fluttering gills

dunk your arms into the water
until it kisses the ends of your
worn shirtsleeves, and let me
loose to swim among the lily
pads, burrow into silty lake bed

and i’ll wait for you there,
letting the gentle lapping of the
lake against the rocky shore
lull me into sweeter dreams

maybe you’ll shed that second skin,
one of these days,
remake yourself in your own image,
just this once

and though the hook tugs,
buried in the meat of my inner cheek,
i know this is also a gift

and i won’t come out of the
water in a hail of droplets and
red, red, blood, thrashing and
choking on the fresh air

nay, this wild thing that lurks
behind my breastbone has been
worn away to make room for
how the sun looks arcing out across
the waters, how the knife calluses
on your fingers feel on my scales,
and how gentle you are with every part
of me, even those that still catch sometimes,
as you remove the hook from the
meat of my inner cheek and watch as
i slip back beneath the waves

John Green and Jay Asher
they are at war
between each other
in an epic battle of epic proportions
to see who can glorify and romanticize
the most terrible and potentially life-ending things

ACT 1:
Jay Asher started first
with 13 Reasons Why in 2007
because why can’t suicide and depression
and blaming that on other people
be romantic, huh?!

Well from first hand experience
there is nothing romantic about being so depressed
that you want to die

I was 12 years old
two years after Jay Asher’s book came out
and I was in my room
not knowing about the book
cutting myself for the first time
and jesus christ I bled like a stuck pig

Fast forward to seventh grade
three years after the book was out on shelves
and I had my own copy
that I read through in one day
and came away from it with a vaguely
sick feeling in my stomach

Because I saw myself
in that girl
who wanted to die so badly
that she actually went through with it
but what I couldn’t understand was why
she felt the need to set up this sick game
where she gave 13 whole reasons why
to her fellow students
some of which she had never talked to
they were each why she had killed herself
like what the hell

And even more so
I couldn’t understand why
Jay Asher thought he had the right
to write this book
to make suicide and depression
into this tragic and romantic
and horribly glorified thing
because being suicidal is just so much fun

But what wasn’t fun was
jumping ahead a few more years
to when I was 16
and doing online school because of the massive
mental breakdown I’d had over Christmas break
in my freshman year of high school
and I tried to **** myself

And there was nothing romantic
about waking up in the middle of the night
and then in the morning
and having to tell my mother
that I had taken forty of my sleeping pills
there was nothing romantic about that at all

ACT 2:
then in 2012
just five years after Jay Asher’s book
it was John Green’s turn to fire back
and since depression and suicide and blaming that
on other people was already taken
why John just shrugged his shoulders and
made it his mission to
romanticize and glorify the big C of diseases
CANCER

Because what isn’t romantic
about these two dying kids
and so many others and chemo
that makes you puke and strips your body
of its immune system so that a cold
might **** you
and what isn’t there to glorify about radiation to ****
the thing that is attacking your body
from the inside out and even if the radiation
does **** your white blood cells
and leaves you wide open for all other kinds of infection
at least the cancer is temporarily under control right

Because even if you lose your hair
and your brain has a potential of being damaged
as well as your thyroid
blood system
heart
gastrointestinal tract
reproductive tract
and bone marrow
just think
an author may choose to make a romance story
around this disease that is slowly killing you
and doesn’t that make you feel better

And even though
if Augustus Waters was real
almost every girl and guy within a five
mile radius would probably sneer
at the cigarette that was never lit
because it’s all about the metaphor sweetheart
he was just the perfect guy in the book and then
in the movie where the audience was
actually able to kind of not really see the
prosthetic leg that that character had
because hey why just go after cancer
when you can go after amputees as well
go big or go home ya know

And even though
the book wasn’t so much about cancer
as it was about this girl
that even though she literally has to
wear a cannula all the time
and drag around an oxygen tank so that she
can even breathe
at least she can still somehow have *** right
and there’s no bruises in the morning
because that wouldn’t be realistic to
someone suffering from cancer right

This is where you nod along
and try not to think of the
people you know that have had cancer
two of which have died
and just get through the book
because who are you to let the
cute little pastel blue packet of tissues
that come with the book
go to waste huh

ACT 3:
Well god
big kahuna in the sky that you are
you see mam sir holy mother and father
I have never harmed a book before
except in that I dog-ear the pages
I wanted to burn these two books so bad
that it almost physically hurt
like going to the funeral of a good friend
and I saw red I was so angry
and it hurt so much

Well god you see
I have a proposition for you
okay and it’s a good one

Well god you see
I’ll go out and buy these two books
The Fault In Our Stars
and 13 Reasons Why
and I’ll build a great big funeral pyre
and burn them into the ground
okay and then you take those ashes
they’re all for you
take them
and give me back my friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

going to church didn’t stop the
constant chattering of my teeth
and my psych nurse says it’s just
a side effect
but i’m certain that it is all the
words that i have never said
the ones that i am too afraid to say
they are tearing my mouth apart
and it feels like my tongue is going to
be bitten in two
maybe my teeth will jump out of my
mouth and do a little dance
a ****** little dance
i have done those before
so many ****** little dances
over and over again

my mother said that it would
be disrespectful of my to keep
the rosary from my great grama’s
jewelry box
even though it was just a little old
pink colored and plastic thing
because i don’t believe in god
but ******
i just wanted to be closer to her
when wearing her earrings aren’t
enough because her sweet old voice
whispering in my ear
is drowned out by the screaming
screaming scream constantly screaming
voices and i just want to be close to her
i want to lay next to her
feel her warmth next to me
but she has been gone for years

my friend i know that you
are sad so very sad
but it does not last forever
and yeah i can’t lie and say that
i have never considered taking my
own life
i have nightmares about my suicide
and those times i actually succeed
but that is not the easy way out
think of how much that would
mess up your family and your friends
my dear friend take your fists away
from the side of your head
put your safety on
even making a finger gun isn’t
allowed in my house
i even feel guilty for having the toy
little two plastic cowboy guns that i keep
in a box under my desk
like they will protect me from what is inside
of my head

please put the blades down and
yes it does matter where you got
them from
whether they made it out of the store
in your pocket
the cardboard rubbing against your thigh
salvaged from pencil sharpeners
because you do not need a scalpel
the only surgery you are performing
is on your self
and your self hatred
and that is not what growing up is about

i remember wanting to grow up
when i was just a little boy
but there were no marching bands in the
city there were only pride parades
and i was too young to join in
but now i would give anything
to be a little kid again
this is what keeps me up at night
to the sound of my family breathing
all throughout the house
and i am the only one awake
but growing up does have it’s perks
you get stronger
you get to stay out later
you get to move out
you can date whoever you want
i mean **** yeah
you can be who you really are
because you are a grown lady or man
you are all grown up
and that is when your life truly begins

so put down the pills the
blades and turn the safety on with your
finger gun
take your fists away from your head
throw away the notes you wrote
because nobody should ever have to read them
no i am not going to make you promise not to
do these things when the world comes crashing down
but i do want you to know that they are just a crutch
they may help you walk now
but later on they will only drag you down
and growing up means moving forward
though sometimes it is two steps forward
and one step back
but you will get better
there is a light at the end of the tunnel
and no it is not hellfire
it is the bright light of a new day
where the sun is shining
and the smile on your face is genuine
because growing up also means growing out
out of your old habits and into the process of
loving your body
and who you have grown up to become
because hating yourself
but then loving and accepting yourself
is what growing up is all about
and you are going to make it
****** i believe in you
and i will be there for you
every step of the way

1.....
there is a rotten smell
permeating this particular instance
of public transit
and i wonder if it is me

is this the aftermath of
what i never coughed up for you
in the midst of my unrequited love?

it wouldn’t be flowers for you, though
i think clovers would have been more fitting
like the one that you gave me
hand-crafted pendant on a leather cord

and i really have to be more careful
with my heart, don’t i?
all these pretty things i can write about love
can’t hold a candle to the real, reciprocated thing

and i realize now it was unfair of me
to ask of you something you could not give
but i love you just the same
albeit it with less heartache and tears

2.
that rot must be coming from me
and the roses
pink like the sunset and downy soft
i planted between my ribs for you

did you see that garden?
how i tried to give you everything i had
the way i allowed you to take and take
and asked for little in return?

but what is a garden
when it is trapped behind towering walls
with no one to see the way all those flowers shine,
and what a lonely thing that is

i choked myself on roses for you
and that wasn’t enough
was i not enough?
hard not to feel like it, if you must know

but i have better things to do
than make my throat bleed
with all these words and love
with nowhere to go

i think it’s time that i plant
some flowers for myself
no more roses or clovers
but maybe dandelions this time

When she told me

that she loved me

that she was in love with me

I hate myself so ******* much

that I almost asked why?

instead of saying

“you too”

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

eat your heart out
and all that,
i suppose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

your name leaves a
bad taste in my mouth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

who’s to say it won’t?

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

how could i?

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

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