i became very
quiet, and almost sad. i wrote a lot
in my mind, but never on paper, and thought a lot
about not much at all, now that i think about it.

to think is to understand. or a stepping stone to it.

i remembered recently that i need to write.
i needs words like i need air, i need to
understand what it is i'm feeling because if i don't,
i don't think i'm feeling anything at all.

to feel is to understand. or a stepping stone to it.

i've written four poems about how i don't understand.
three sonnets about feelings i'm trying to understand.
two haikus of wondering what i understand.
one sentence of understanding that i'll never understand.

i'm older now. i've grown. i've thought and felt,
but i haven't written.

to write is to understand- the stepping stone to it.

i bought slippers for my father
they were twelve-dollars
an hour's worth of work
but they weren't moccassins
and that's what he wanted so
i kept them for me, because
i don't care if it's a slipper
or a moccassin.

i am wearing what would have been
my father's size-ten slippers
and i am only a size eight.
they are big shoes,
and i clomp around in them
like a kind of clown, like a fool
who doesn't know the difference
between a slipper and a moccassin.

there are children who love to adorn
their father's clothing, like shoes,
but to me they are no more than
a reminder i am an idiot,
clomping around in the too-big
slippers that i have because i am
too-stupid a child to notice
that my father wears moccassins.

i have work for the next three days and
i'm failing two classes and
i cry every hour for no reason and
i haven't had a hug in one year and
i haven't hugged my parents in three and
my siblings are acquaintances and
my name isn't my name and
my gender isn't an option and
my body isn't mine and
my face doesn't belong to me and
my hands are sometimes mine sometimes not and
my mental illnesses remain untreated and
my trauma remains buried and
on top of all of that...

The streets scream with unbridled joy.
They are a bird in a cage that has just broken the lock.
They are a stallion in a pen who has spent their
life staring at the mountains,
whose legs have finally found the momentum to
                      Run.
They are a man in the desert,
                      Thirsty and Starving,
who has found himself a banquet in a rainstorm.
They reach their hands into the sky,
praising the sun and the moon and the stars
and God, whoever that may be.
They collapse onto their knees,'
head in their hands,
overwhelmed by a newfound
                    Hope
they haven't felt in four years.

They live again.

The streets are humans united with the knowledge that maybe,
just maybe,
they will be okay.
There is a long way to go still,
but streets are made to get from one place
to another.

We have broken out of that cage.
We are running toward the mountain.
We will soon eat our fill of the banquet laid out
for the hungry, the thirsty, the poor, the sick,
the dying, the naked.

There is a long way to go.
But for now, we sit in traffic on the street and
honk our horns and
raise our hands and
celebrate.

The streets scream with unbridled joy.

it’s been two years and i still
feel your tongue down my throat.  

were you not as drunk as you let on?
you seemed coherent when you told me it wasn’t cheating to kiss you.

i didn’t kiss you.
you held me to the bed.

i was wine drunk and tired (and helpless)
and in a relationship (which you knew about).

you kissed me and kissed me
and put your tongue in my mouth.

i don’t remember for how long.
maybe minutes. maybe hours.

i tried to say something. to push you off.
but you were a friend.

you were a friend and i was staying at your place.
so it wasn’t assault, right? it was accidental?

it wasn’t accidental when you kissed me
after i told you to stop.

most days i’m okay.
most days except june the second.

most days except when someone kisses me.
it only ever reminds me of you.

you don’t know how much you need to
until
you
can’t.

it's hard to live in a matrix of your own making
but when everyone you love becomes pixellated
and you're a prisoner in a body that isn't yours
and your eyes and ears are covered in glass
it feels a little more like home than you'd like to admit.