i
have felt more honest touches
from straight boys
honestly telling me
i am honestly worth nothing
they treat me like a ***** magazine
they get so much pleasure
from tearing open my spine
i am a centre-fold
of ****** lips & bruised eyes
there's only so much
my staples can take
how can i feel safe,
when bricks don't build homes
but instead fly towards me
with labels like "******"
from the mouths of boys
who don't have the *****
to put on a ball gown
and throw their stilettos
at homophobic policemen
on hot summer nights
you wanna talk about fights?
i know what it's like
to french kiss
your "oh-so-british" fist
so don't talk to me
about equality
until i don't have to walk the streets at night
with my keys between my fingers
expecting the worst,
always.

as is the sea marvelous
from god’s
hands which sent her forth
to sleep upon the world

and the earth withers
the moon crumbles
one by one
stars flutter into dust

but the sea
does not change
and she goes forth out of hands and
she returns into hands

and is with sleep….

love,
    the breaking

of your
        soul
        upon
my lips

my greatest fear
is mother and father
reading my journals

see through lines
deliberately unreadable

because i write the unthinkable
     'i might not marry someday'

and the perverse
     'i wonder what's it like to **** this girl'

and the abominable
     Amber is a woman trapped in the wrong body
          and
                        she
                  ­               is
                                     suffocating.

i choke on the silence
because it is woman's role
in Saturday sermons

because i cannot borrow my brother's slippers
     i am not needed outdoors

because when i spoke for the trans waiter with the pained smile
     they blamed my sociology
     and not my compassion

mother and father, bless your souls
i'd rather not have you read this

and believe in the 'i love you's

                               because love is the greatest commandment
                                               *but we spit on the ****

it's not often my thoughts stop
     whispering like hummingbird wings
     flitting in and around and out to you

only for a moment and I am once again reminded
             why you continue to impress me
              
         (it's the way you know so much
         and use that to learn more)

Today I wanted to buy the copyright to the process of hallelujah
******* in joy the same way whales eat krill
You just bottle it up inside your lungs until you have enough

Inside my fridge I have vacuum sealed jars of hallelujah
There’s nothing religious about that
Jars labeled things like
Loss of virginity
Rob lived this time
The homework is complete

Hallelujah

It’s the same way prayer works
Backwards
Pulling bits of god like an inhale

I want to hyperventilate on your hallelujah
Like a gospel choir on speed

It collects
Over time
For instance
It was maybe a month in to sleeping at Delia’s and Toffer’s house
Before I realized
I didn’t have to sleep in my car anymore
You go into the bathroom to **** and realize
Hallelujah
A jar labeled
Found a Home for now

I know science can do this
For the sake of all that is a monument to a single life
So that on your death bed, or at your funeral
Everyone there can hold a jar

Cold and warm at the same time
Vibrating in their palms
In violent joy
Like mozzletoff cocktails
They are thrown
And when they shatter there is a song
That has been collecting for years

The same word in different tonal joys

Your life

Every good moment

Hallelujah

Declare pragmatism a vulgarity,
a taste fowl to the tongue.
Embrace the long way home as
an integral part of healing
and swear by the virtue of art.

Decide that you will not be swayed
by flashing lights, airbrushed make-up,
or impressive displays of feathers.
Seek only the flower unseen
in a globe armored to the teeth.

Flea the baroque temptation,
extravagance will not suit you.
Confess to the heavens
your deepest desires
and find them in your own backyard.

Accept helplessness as a gift.
Stop wringing your hands,
for they will not wind the clock
in either direction you mistakenly feel
would be to your benefit.

Savor the precious little
any one thing can give you.
Scrape from each moment
all that is beautiful and velvet
and forget there is anything else.

I watch you in stop motion.

Love-
ly
dress,
I
must
con-
fess,
I probably
won’t
remember it
at all.

They’ve been trying for a while now
to anchor you down
tie you to the anvils of atoms and silk

I’ve been telling them for a while now
you’re extra-planetary
you won’t fit into their egg cartons

your first appearance
was marked by a fire
engulfing any earthly
binding or chains

You’ve been burning for a while now
with unlikely alchemy
with flames that repeat my exhaling

We’ve been missing for a while now
lost in each other
away from the world of atoms and silk