my heart just so
happens to be a
muscle the size
of my fist

but my heart is
so much softer
than all this cartilage
and bone that i can
break against
so many different things

and i want to be soft
to be full of love and
light and the reason
that you smile

is that selfish of me?
i am still trying to answer
that question
but none of my answers
are agreeing with me

at least there is no
more guilt
curdling in my guts
along with the wanting
to kiss you

and i want you to
taste your name
on my tongue
make me bleed

with the force of
your mouth against mine
and i will thank you
with our blood
mingling on my chin

with my heart
fluttering against the
cage of my ribs
beating a soft rhythm
to the sound of your name

The most accurate tag on a blog post that I have ever used has been #transgenderRAGE.
2. The first hospital psych ward that I went to, they put a little sign on my room door that had PRIESTLY typed out on it with little puppies on the sign.
3. The orderlies there used male pronouns and referred to me as Priestly. Which made me feel better.
4. But, when I confronted the main doctor there, name rhymed with “cranberry,” he accused me of using identifying as a trans male as a diversion tactic.
5. I hated him, but bull shat my way through the sessions and got discharged after a week.
6. Months later, cue the next hospital visit. This time, it was just a diversion tactic so I didn’t off myself. Had my therapist drive me down there, I was surprised that she didn’t put on the child locks. Though, I never have thought of throwing myself from a moving vehicle.
7. In that ward, they just couldn’t accept the fact that, even though it wasn’t on my birth certificate, that my name was Priestly.
8. They used parenthesis, quotation marks, and had Sarla as my first name on my door.
9. My name is not a parenthesis.
10. My name is not a quotation mark.
11. My name is NOT Sarla. Though that is a beautiful name. San skrit for precious and all.
12. I am not a thing to be swept under the rug. I am not a girl. I am a boy. My name is Priestly. Do not down play me. I am not a “diversion tactic.” I am a living, breathing, feeling, beautiful boy.
13. My name is Priestly.

“Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”
Witty comebacks always come slow when gender is involved, especially with new questions. Surely not new to anyone else, but new to him, at least. Though, it wouldn’t take much to trigger a response, no matter how aggressive or shocked and sad that response might be. But this one, though. This was new. Having never been asked this before, he had no weapons to combat this, to shoot down the asker with a well-placed glare and a retort that would shut them up right away.
He did try, he really did. You have to give him credit for that.
But then his throat choked up, and he fled. The only thing he managed to choke out was that he was going to go now. That was it. Shut down so quickly. From fearless and untouchable to an anxiety attack shaking its way up his spine and into his hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting up off the ground, scrubbing tear tracks from his cheeks and off his glasses, he presses the back of his throbbing head against the tiled wall, whispering to everybody and nobody, “SHUT UP.”

That's right
*******
my body
my skin
this flesh prison
is mine alone
and just because I
swam down the length
of your birth canal
does not make me
your property

I don't think of dying as leaving
more like stepping out for a cigarette
and forgetting to step back in
because I'm still out here
just beyond your blurry eyes
look at me sideways and I shine like a star
but look at me head on and I whither
under your disapproving gaze
please stop looking right through me
I'm afraid of what you may see
when you look beneath the surface
because I'm all jagged edges and ripped pants
scars with the same story
over and over again
ver the course of four years
don't look at me head on
please stop it
I'm just stepping out for a smoke
even though I don't plan on dying of cancer
and this cancer stick will stay unlit
please don't worry about me
I'll be okay
just not today
but maybe in a few years
you're looking through me
and I'm afraid of what you'll see
when I lay my weapons down
collapse into your arms
and cry out all the tears that have been
building up over all these years
I'm afraid of what's inside my head
I don't make my parents proud anymore
I killed their little girl and gave them a stubborn boy
in her place
I hate the girl I used to be
I don't know how to love myself anymore
but maybe if I bare my scars to you
you could try to help me put myself back together again
I know it's too much to ask
so I'll just step outside
you won't see me anymore
unless you look at me sideways
then I will burn like the brightest star for you
I love you

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

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

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

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

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

i forget the rest

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

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

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

you are more threatened by
my existence than you give yourself
credit for

and honestly that just baffles me
because i have a hard time killing spiders
and loud noises make me jump

but you don’t care about that
you just care about what you think
is in my pants
and the fact that the gender that is on
my birth certificate is different than
what i was assigned at birth
and my name is different too

but you don’t even care why
and even if you do
it is likely just a farce to give you
more reasons that in your mind
qualify me as a freak and a monster
and a horrible person that is willingly
mutilating the body that god gave me

well god has never had ears for me
and i do pray
i promise that i do
and never mind that it’s usually swearing
but if there really was a god
i like to think that he wouldn’t have stuck me
in a body that i have spent more time
wanting to destroy than actually living in

and i still don’t know
what about that
threatens you in any way
but you sure do feel threatened enough
to **** my brothers and sisters
with guns and knives and
your cruel words
over and over again

and not all of us are old
though 20 in the life of a trans person
could be considered old
since the chances of being murdered
jump a whopping 1%
to transgender individuals having a
1 in 12 chance of being murdered
and a 1 in 8 chance if they are a trans
person of color

and a good number of those people
are children and younger than
your sister or brother
who may be 14 or 12
there are so many deaths
every year
and the only reason that is given
is they were transgender
they were everything but white
and cisgender and heterosexual

so again i will ask
what about my existence makes you feel
so threatened that you think it is okay
to **** me for no other reason than
my daring to live as a male
instead of dying as a woman

thoughts of sixth grade
brings back
memories of self harm
with that first cut
i thought i was going to die
it bled so ******* much

now i look at
my scarred arm and shoulder
think of how far i have come
and how far i still have to go
but i am getting there
slowly but surely

thoughts of freshman year
brings back
memories of hoarding butter knives in my pockets
a good friend scratching himself until he bled
holed up in the bathroom stall
they were gonna pry them from my cold dead fingers

now i look at
him and how far he has come
the scars on his arms are fading
he looks happy
she makes him happy
and i am happy for him

thoughts of eighth grade
brings back the taste of bile
in the back of my throat
after having not eating all day
and how when he met me the first thing he told me
was that i needed to lose weight

now i look at
that roll around my middle
the aftermath of a cocktail of pills
they help
but is it really worth it
somedays i hate my body
but i am getting better

thoughts of my death
when i took away mama’s little girl
still haunt my mind
i hear the girl’s voice whispering against my spine
running atrophied fingers up and down my back
i wish she would go away and leave me be

now i look at
that boy in the mirror
staring back at me
with the crooked smile and the shaggy hair
and the wide open heart worn upon his sleeve
he is as fragile as me

thoughts of years gone
by and years yet to come
these are the things that keep me up at night
but we have all come so far
never to look back
only look forward
because the future is so bright
and we made it
******
we made it

i know what it’s like
trust me on this one
to be betrayed by your own mind
a handful of pills
morning and then after breakfast
and then after dinner
the dreaded 500 calories needed to
make the magic work
like how am i gonna get skinny
if i eat like this

i’ve been betrayed by
my own hand
when the right took the razor
store bought a dollar a dozen
or filched away in my pocket
but that was only one time
to the left arm
and i cried that first time
but only because of how much it bled
and boy did it bleed

i betrayed myself once
for four years
with every cut and scrape
and lapse and relapse
it never ends
it never ends
until it does
and you don’t know what to do
with yourself
but it does not make you weak

and then i gave
myself up to the wolves
with a handful of pills
choked down with a bubbly water
because i  couldn’t take them with water
to save my life
and i went to sleep that night
fully prepared
not to wake up in the morning
like that old man in the nursery rhyme

i became a master
of faking a smile
but sometimes i over share
and accidentally give people
a glimpse of the shattered pieces
beneath my calm facade
and they either look at me with pity
or back away slowly
i don’t wanna be pitied
but some of them stay

and i understand what
you are going through
because i have been there
in that same hell
since i was twelve
since that first cut
since that first overdose
since that first therapist
since that first hospital visit
but we just need to keep going

we’re alright we’re alright
not because we really are
but because people need us to be
and i am right there beside you
i will hold your hand through the
constant struggle against our own minds
because you will not lose this battle
i understand
i get it
i am here for you

the kids can’t be
alright until people listen to us
take us seriously ******
because this is not a game
nobody willingly picks up the board
they try to throw down the pieces
but they are stuck to our hands
and they won’t come off
this is something you can’t shake off
but we’re alright

My father once said to me,
“good luck, kid”

there was malice
in his voice,
there were tears
in my eyes

and I didn’t understand
why we were fighting,
but this was a dance
I knew the steps to
like I knew my father’s anger
was a poison that had been
seeped into my very bones

even then,
his anger was the most
consistent thing he ever
gave to me,
and a broken part of me
craved it, because at least
then he was paying attention
to me

and my father,
he never knew how to
be a father,
moving an hours long train
ride away and wondering
why I was afraid to stay
with him, this man
that I hardly knew
and only ever saw
when I looked in the
mirror

and I can’t remember
when my father stopped
being my hero,
when I stopped wanting
to be like him,
when protector became tormenter,
but it’s been long enough
to make me fearful
and resentful of this man,
whose face and mannerisms
I so happen to share

and and and
my father once said to me,
“good luck, kid,”
and I almost said back to him,
“I don’t need good luck,
I just need a father”

but I don’t think that’s
true anymore, and if
there’s one thing my father
taught me,
I should never tell a lie

i first started hating my body
when i was seven years old
it was christmas eve
and by then i was too old to believe
in santa
but we still put out cookies and milk
for my little sister
and i asked my mom if i could
eat the cookies and have the
milk that year
she just looked at me
like i was an idiot
and asked me if i wanted to
get even fatter and be
just like santa

that was the year that i
also decided i hated christmas
i mean sure
i still loved giving and receiving gifts
and the family and friends
but the two week break and the
endless snow days were the hardest
because that meant that i had to
spend all day with my mother

because by then
she was done with being christmas mommy
all smiley and cheerful
and loving
only saying nice things
and had gone back to her
bottle and blunt

my fingers and toes were cold
as the years wore on
and in our white house
the toilet water in mom’s bathroom
froze solid
because we didn’t have enough money to
heat the whole house
but we sure as hell had enough money
to buy liquor

but liquor doesn’t make
a rumbling tummy quiet
and the warmth from brandy
only lasts for so long
before the sickness sets in
so i turned to vanilla extract
just a quick swig now and then
and i was warm
but not as warm as my little sister looked
with mom’s arms wrapped snug around her

and the canned food drives that went
on at school
i brought in what i could
giving up my lunch or dinner to
those that needed it more
but we were always on the list for
the food baskets
and the gifts from the school sants
and the cardboard boxes of
food from the church pantry
wielded nothing but
slits in my skin that burnt even more
with the cold
and dusty oatmeal for breakfast

it’s gotten better though
it really has
there is food in the cupboards and
in my belly
though i would rather not eat
but mom still comes home smelling of liquor
and christmas mommy still loves me
more than year-round mommy
ever could
ever will

the bard wonders if there is
an ending to this story
that could classify it
in the genre of love

wants to ask the captain
but knows deep down that
he needs nothing more than
a ship upon the sea
good *** in a sturdy flask
and a body to hold on
the coldest of nights

and the bard can appreciate
the simplicity of those needs
but, he wants to ask the captain,
what about wants?

because, you see, the bard
he is full of wants
practically overflowing
with all this wanting

arguably more of a yearning
but that’s really just a matter
of semantics he’s choosing to ignore

and this is already a love story,
isn’t it?

even if the two characters don’t
kiss and live happily ever after

besides, the bard thinks,
there is not much material
in the monotony of being
constantly content

because, there are wants
and there are needs
like a poet and a bard needing a muse
and a captain wanting to be held
by something other than the sea

and that’s enough of an ending
at least as far as the bard
is concerned

one. love
love?
i used to know what that meant
or at least i thought i did
i assumed it was what i felt
when i looked down at my little sister
sleeping next to me
so peaceful
none of the fearful yelling
that i needed to come and pick our
mother up off the floor
when all i wanted to do
was leave her lying there

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

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

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

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

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

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

eight. loss
*******
you act like i took your
daughter away
but no
she was never there to begin with
a gender forced upon me
that i didn’t even know the meaning of
and all because of my
******* genitals
all because i have a womb
instead of being able to *** standing up
and that is all anybody sees
my outside
my *******
my ******
but i am more than my body
i am so much more
i have to be more
i have to be
right?

i don’t know how to
make the pain of
my father’s abandonment
stop hurting

this is a wound
covered by a flimsy scab
prone to cracking
and seeping through the dressings

i have so many questions
and no answers
all this speculation
years of blaming myself for
his not knowing how to
not wanting to
be a father
be MY father

and i was just a kid
telling my classmates that
i didn’t even have a father
because he lived states away
while that void grew
bigger and darker inside me

and it has been nearly
three years since the last time
i saw my father
even though we live in the
same ******* town

but this is not the first time
that contact have been lost
it just never started again
since i stopped reaching out
and finally put myself first
where my father is involved

just because you’re someone’s
father doesn’t mean you’re a dad
and i can’t remember when i stopped
seeing his face when i thought
of having a dad
but it’s been too **** long

and it feels strange
to even call him my father
but that’s about as informal as
i can get without calling him
by his first name
ya know?

and maybe i’m just
searching for closure
an apology that will never come
that reassurance that i wasn’t a bad kid
the promise that it’s not my fault

and maybe if those things are
said with enough conviction
by the right person
at the right time
i’ll believe them

i just want this
to stop
hunched over at my desk
crying until my lungs hurt
wondering what i did wrong
i was just a kid

i was just a kid
and i needed a father
i needed a dad

but i won’t force him
to be my father
to be in my life
because he clearly doesn’t want to
doesn’t know how to

and all i want right now
is to find a way for
the wound that this prolonged
cycle of abandonment left
to stop bleeding through my shirts

i want to stop seeing his face
whenever i look in the mirror
i want to stop asking myself why
i want to stop blaming myself
because i was just a kid

i was just a kid

am i a young boy
or a young man?
the only answer that
i have is i am alone
and i am afraid

night is closing in
i want my mother
i want my father
but does my father want me?

another answer i don’t have
cold seeping into my bones
feeling both too small and
too big for my skin

my wrists and hands look like his
the lights are on
but the house burnt
down long ago

and i sit at a table
made from charred and twisted wood
waiting for my father
to eat with me
to even look at me

but he never shows
because of course he doesn’t
and i sit at that table
until i am a young boy again
waiting for my father to
carry me to bed and tuck me in

and still he is not there
just me and empty plates
full of rotting food
and all these broken promises

the broken heart of a young boy
still beats within my chest
wondering what i did wrong
when it never was me at all
just a selfish man
that never should have been a parent

and i stop waiting then
packing that particular wound
with cotton and whispered apologies
promising to never let it happen again

and my knees creak
when i stand
fitting my skin like i should
an old heart in a young body

and the lights are on
but the house burnt
down long ago

and and and
i tell the remains of this house
that never was my home
that i’m just stepping out
for a smoke

with no intention
of ever going back

i smell earthy
like wood
and the logs that i brought in
ignoring the shaking in my arms
from all the weight
and i didn’t complain
because the wood chips
and splinters
stuck in my sweatshirt
hide the stench
of unwashed hair and skin
and the ever encompassing
fear

and i wonder why
my fingers and palm are not
big or strong enough
to grasp a log with one hand
and heft it up on top of
the others already held
in my trembling arm
but my hand is big enough
to dwarf a child’s

and warm their small hands
between my own
the way their small fingers
clasp onto mine
make me want to cry
because to be needed
and wanted so desperately
and wholly by someone
is a feeling
that i am not
used to

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

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

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

how could i resent
you for that,
my love?

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

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

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

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

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

i have never been sexually assaulted

but i have been abused

since i was just a little boy

i was seven years old

and i felt so alone

and wrong

and hated

and everybody just

told me to smile

like that could

make the bruises on my wrists

from my mother dragging me around

fade

like it would make the hatred i felt for myself

go away

and i have stayed up all night

talking to my friends

so they wouldn't hurt themselves

or worse

and they did the same to me

and the circles under my eyes

and coffee on my breath

were taken so lightly

but how could i go to sleep

mother

knowing that my friends

had the power and

reasons

to end their own lives

to tear open their skin

to swallow handfuls of pills

how could i

how could i

and you yelled at me to go to bed

but ******

i couldn't

because they had done the same for me

even on school nights

but you don't understand

because this hasn't happened to you

but to me

it is very real

it is happening now

it is all i know

the yelling

the crying

the blame

the abuse

and so much hatred

for you

but mostly for myself

and you do not understand

because it has not happened

to you

i pour your name
into my paper cuts
not self inflicted
but i still pick the scabs
because it’s a blood flow
that i can control

and my ****** writing
i have known this for a while
doesn’t make this any better
but maybe the tissues i send you
smeared with blood and tears and snot
will change your mind about it and me

i am a selfish
person down to my very core
i cover it up with empathy
and the occasional backhanded compliment
never to you always to myself
but ****** i want everybody to stay

when i say i
love you i really mean it
my love runs deeper than the selfish
need to never be alone
because love is all you need
besides the other necessities

you’re ahead of me in line
ordering food
a drink with too much sugar
maybe tickets to a movie
that you’re seeing alone

and i want to offer
to eat with you
sit next to you
you can rest your head
on my shoulder

and i’ll hold your hand
on top of the table
because our love
is nothing to be
ashamed of

i don’t know your name
but the way you put
flowers behind your ear
makes me want to
come home to you
year after year

and you’re sitting in
front of me on the max
you don’t notice me
almost falling asleep
against the headache inducing
rattle of the glass window
but the way you so carefully
spread tomato sauce onto
a lunchables pizza
makes my mouth water
makes me wish someone would
touch me like that

and i don’t know your name
but that doesn’t matter
because i’ll learn it when the
time is right and
buy you warm socks for winter
make you pancakes on your birthday
maybe even learn how to
make coffee that isn’t
an insult to the bean itself

and i don’t know your name
but i know you’re the type
of person
that i could fall
in love with

(if i only had the courage
to say hello)

Second -hand smoke

it doesn’t bother me

anymore.

After all both of my parents

smoke

smoked

smoke

******.

I could name

so many people that I know

walking around with packs

of cancer sticks

in their back pockets.

All the people that

I have

walked with

behind

careful not the breathe too deeply.

All the people that

I have

talked with

kept quiet

inhaling and exhaling

in perfectly murderous synchronization

I want to *** a smoke

cancer stick

like you used to smoke

swallow their lighters

little booklets of matches

burn apart from the inside out

drowning in my own blood