Everyone is a musician
I found god. This is god
Good Friday made better by sprawling empty city
And pure deafening sound
Being thrown to the ground
And treaded on
And picked back up again
By tender and caring hands.
Bruises remain and muscles ache for days
Ears ring.
The flash of light and pure raw sensation plagues my dreams
I fell in love so many times that night
In love with all the nameless faceless bodies
The bass so tangible it withdrew something from me
My breath?
And cold winter air breathed back into me
Crowds of tender lovers
Carry me to safety.
What is the opposite of sleep?
I found god
And the peace within chaos
Virginity restored by sin
It is a sin to feel so much at once
To feel full
It is a sin that I will never repent
It is a temptation that would bend the iron will of god
I did not doubt in that moment.
I did not doubt anything
Not even the rain.

There is something so wrong
About a crush. An invasion of privacy,
They never asked to be trapped inside
My skull,
Their name rolling silently on my tongue.

Leelah, I don’t usually write poems for people I never knew
I don’t usually write poems on the big issues, the things I haven’t studied, and the things I’m new to learning about
I can’t claim to know anything about you
In the seventeen years you were on this Earth, I had never heard your name
And even if I ever met you, there’s a good chance I still wouldn’t know your real name
That I would be introduced to you as Joshua and I wouldn’t have thought twice
Leelah, I haven’t seen much of you and I’ll never get the chance to
To me, you are one selfie in a cream colored dress captioned with a suicide note that I wish no one had ever had to read
The only words of yours I’ll ever know are the last ones you chose to give to the world
And any other information I could find will only tell me where the world stands on the events that lead to your death
I know that your parents bound you too tightly in blue baby blankets that you wanted to bleach white and toss in with the red laundry until it matched the assignment you wish you had from the beginning
I know that isolation and abuse took its toll on your health until your self-prescribed remedies left you standing on Interstate 71 at 2:20 on a Sunday morning
I know that more journalists misgender you than get it right but people are finding the best links they can to tell the world who you are
And they’re sharing your words on all forms of social media
Leelah, you’ve sparked a movement
You said that you wanted your death to mean something, and darling, it has
Progress shouldn’t have to come exclusively from tragedy
But it often does and you deserve to know that your tragedy is leading an advancement
The words that never should have had to have been written in the first place, at least are being read across the world
”The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights”
Leelah, in a google search bar your name is the first result after just three letters
And even when someone types in Joshua Alcorn the whole first page of results is titles that name and gender you properly
Leelah, they’re getting better
They’re finding the breaking points in their ignorance and instead of supergluing the cracks they’re chipping them apart to find the roots of the weakened foundation
Things aren’t what they should be, but skipping stones are becoming stepping stones and hopefully the waters will hold enough of them to support the feet that are trying for the first time to cross over
And hopefully next time there won’t be blood in the water because
Leelah, you deserved so much better than the life you were given
But you’ve given life to new voices and they’re remembering your name and they’re saying
Leelah, we stand by the same things you believed in and now we’re taking your words to the streets
And you are loved and you are missed, but right now it’s important that you are known
And you are known as
Leelah
And you will not be forgotten

I'm not the first, or the last, to admit this
but those days
those wonderful days when you can run out of a pizza place past midnight and drive
standing up, top down in a convertible jeep around the back roads of a small town
with music so loud that no one can hear you cry
with wind blowing your tears back behind you
so you don't have to worry about getting them on your clothes
holding your arms out
like they do in Titanic
Perk of Being a Wallflower
Superman
but you don't feel the joy that they do
you don't feel what everyone else does
you cry and feel broken
because your mind is a cruel place
and your worst memories and fears come up when you should be having the most fun
so you stand up
constantly watching
to make sure that these empty streets really are empty
constantly hoping that the credits dont roll yet, because you have so much more to do
and you keep your hands to yourself
because you can't let your sorrow spread to the others
once again the tears in your eyes are from the empty hours of another sleepless night
for another night you keep your hands to yourself
afraid to reach out
four heartbeats and a loud engine
all drowned out by a summer night being lived in a horrible way
standing up, top down in a convertible jeep around the back roads of a small town
and doing your best not to jump out and cry

His wrists are my favorite part of his body,
Bones pressing delicately through pale, unscarred skin in a way mine haven't since the 6th grade.
The only bones showing on my body are my elbows and knees, just barely
And the worried bones of my insecurities.
I wish I could see my shoulder blades and hipbones.
I'd never hoped to be a skeleton but
I'd hoped to be proud of my appearance.
Even though my best friend tells me that I'm pretty just the way I am,
I know I'm not as pretty as my sister;
We're twins but no one ever believes us
She has gorgeous blonde hair and pale skin and sky blue eyes,
Hourglass shape.
I think she got the looks, but I always hope I got the brains.
Today I don't know which is the better end of the deal.
I know I am fat. I don't need any doctors or parents or bullies to tell me that
My curves are not big-*****,
Obesity doesn't run in my family,
No one runs in my family,
And by no one I mean me.
My every outfit is prefaced by compression shorts and slimming colors and self-conscious shame.
My stomach has ugly purple stretch marks like tongues of hungry fire
Burning away my self-esteem
Summer evenings aren't fun anymore
When my father tells me I'm too big to swing on the swing set
And my mother asks if I'm pregnant.
I'm not.
I'm a size 14. My mother thinks I'm a size 10.
When I try on the too-small clothes she brings home  
I cry in the privacy of my bedroom mirror,
Oceans of salted pain worry over my face,
Try to rinse away the guilt.
At least I'm not an ugly crier.

The yellow, early evening sun feels heavy and warm on my legs.
Like a cat curled up to enjoy a small nap,
It rests on my pink and rainbow blanket.
My mother snores in the old blue chair next to me,
******* in worry and exhaustion and the scent of basil,
Oblivious to the small-town sounds of birds and cars and children playing,
Unaware that her daughter is something she claims to not understand.

"Pansexuality, honestly, just sounds
Horrible,"
She had told me.
"I don't understand pansexuality and gender-fluid and stuff,"
She said,
The car sliding smoothly over the highway under grey skies.
I tried to explain, but I was swamped in
Confusion.
"Well...there are more than two genders, like being gender-fluid and agendered and bi-gendered and third-gendered......
And pansexual people like all of those genders."
"That's what I can't understand. I mean, I kinda get the concept, but..." Her voice trails away like blue cigarette smoke, still deadly even after it has dissipated into the clouds.
I feel like I'm choking on it, raw pink lungs tightening and swelling, forcing yellow stars before my eyes,
Not able to explain the way
I don't care what you identify as,
I only care about love.
My mother's grandmother didn't know that non-straight people existed.
My mother's mother didn't know that bisexual people existed.
My mother doesn't believe that more than two genders exist,
Or know that I find all of them attractive.
But she had already dropped the subject,
Instead filling the awkward lull with discussions of
Colleges and books she's reading and and what my younger sister is doing in school.
I could feel my soul bubbling up behind my lips,
Pink and yellow and blue,
I wanted to tell her to stop and listen.
I wanted to tell her to be quiet,
And to be accepting,
And to try to understand.
I wanted to tell her
'I'm pansexual.
There.
Now you know.
Would you have said that it was horrible and that you can't understand?
That, in essence, I am horrible and you can't understand me?'
But I didn't.
I sat, the warm sticky grey leather under my thighs
The same as the warm, sticky grey clouds,
The yellow sun just peeking out into blue skies beyond the pale pink dogwoods.

She wakes up, warm sticky breath catching in her chest
As she opens her eyes.
She mumbles quietly about oversleeping
Before she rushes out the door,
Leaving behind a daughter
She thinks she knows,
As she claims to not understand
My label
That I have hidden inside my closet door,
Next to my pink, yellow, blue scarves.
Maybe tomorrow I'll put it on,
Pin my heart to my sleeve,
Wear my colors proudly.
But not today.  
Never today.

My room is quiet
Blue curtains block out the world that lurks just outside
Waiting to hurt me.
8 pm.
I know that purple dusk is gathering outside my walls
The same way the bruises in my heart threaten to eclipse the sun.
I'm scared.
I don't look at the veins showing under my skin because they
Remind me too much of the indigo, under-oxygenated blood
That spills too often from my arms,
Reminds me of my father's face purple with rage
When I told him I didn't think I was supposed to be
In this body, wear these clothes, be this gender.
9pm. Navy skies peppered with stars I will not see again
Purple pen writing apologies to my parents
Heart pumping indigo, under-oxygenated blood too fast,
Knows it doesn't have much time,
Can't breathe, face purple, face blue,
Can't breathe, dark vision, indigo stars,
Can't breathe.

I love the way the sky turns lavender along the
Eastern edge of the world before the sun rises
I love the way your long hair and pale curves
Against the blue sheets
I love not hiding who we are.
We should get Purple Hearts for all the times
The missiles of "queer" and "butch" have landed in
The midst of our embrace,
Launched by an unknown enemy before we were able
To twine our hands and hearts on the small-town sidewalks of an August afternoon,
Before I could have you over for dinner, movies, bonfires, and not feel the blue, icy glare of my neighbor
Laying under the lilac bushes,
Watching the day slip into purple dusk with firefly stars.
I love not hiding who we are.