"Can I introduce you
As someone I'm dating?"

Simply, yes.
More complex:
Shout it from the rooftops
With the power of a hurricane
Gale winds echoing
And carrying my heart's refrain

Let it loose like lightning,
Flowing freely from your lips
Electric currents riveting
And pulsing through our fingertips

Tell the world with thunder
A heavy crash they can't ignore
Sonic forces rippling
And tearing forwards wanting more

Rain it down like hailstones
Bludgeon them until they break
Bruise the words into their skin
Let them make no mistake

You
Are a force of nature

And I could never say no.

I've writ of the sea
Adrift from the shore
But I've never felt safety
So helpless before

Consumed quick by high tide
So swift from the low
I'll weather, abide
Each wuthering blow.

Crushed by the waves
Drowned in the roil
When the tide folds I'll see
What truths will uncoil

See I'm not afraid
Of the waves, of their breadth
But when seizing tides fade
I'll be out of my depth.

There's no time to think
When you're gasping for air
With nothing to drink
But the saltwater fair

It's simpler to breathe
When it's all I can do
If I haven't a voice
When there's no choice but you.

I'll be stuck in the sand
When this sea returns home
My heart will cede deeper
And sink in the loam.

The soft silt will turn rigid
As salt becomes rime
The low tide will grow frigid
Sift sands, over time.

Unearthing the truth
Plain spoken in prose
Of the salt surf and sea
My tender heart knows.

I feel like a cherry with the pit of a peach,
there's something within me that isn't quite me
my skin's far too polished, my bite far too ****
and this fuzz and this sweetness are tearing apart
who I am

I struggle to just exist in this space
and sometimes I wish that I could erase
this part of me

The boundaries that stem from neurodivergence
we are taught that our true selves are toxic deterrents
we are punished for existing in the ways that we must
so we seal off these parts, behind layers of dust
buried beneath evermore branches of olive
until we can no longer see through this wall of

"I'm not"
"I'm sorry"
"I'll leave you alone"
"I didn't,"
"I don't,"
"I'll put down the phone."
"My hands just get restless."
"It's nothing, don't mind."
"Look anywhere else."
You know what you'll find
beneath

We know that we're stonefruit
we know that's a sin
but once seeds have rooted, they must draw light in
we don't get a say in living like this
we didn't choose, but we do exist

so maybe, a peach, with the pit of a cherry
I'm smaller and bitter and some find that scary.
But peel back my skin, I'm still flesh underneath
Softer and tender and gentle and sweet

I might be either. Maybe I'm both.
Either way neither's deserving self loathe.

I finish this poem six months after start
I'm a fruit, I'm a queer, I'm a pie, I'm a ****.
The label's a what. I know who I am.
So bite me, pulp me, turn me to jam.

I'll still taste as sweet, still bite as sour
My flesh will still be yours to devour
Consume me, observe me, but do not define
Fruits  cannot grow from branches confined.