At twenty seven I drove much more
recklessly than my eighteen year old
self would ever have done
my husband says I stopped singing
around twenty three
the words that would careen out of my mouth
like his little songbird
made beautiful from years of practise and
patience
slowly dimmed and then eventually altogether
faded as the notes I sang were
replaced by cigarettes in my mouth
and headaches from the shift of high school choir
to my career as a technician

At twenty seven, all my dreams
of activism had fled
when I was eighteen I swore to change
the world, but at twenty seven I
could only stare at my sister's family
and wish I had taken one up of my own.

At twenty seven, the smiles and laughter
had fled from my face, despite
being fully visible in every picture of me
at age eighteen.

At twenty seven, I had grown up.
At eighteen, I was still young.

And I’m afraid I can’t get out.

You see, it’s better being here
in my computer
because online I’m whoever I want to be.

In the real world there’s commitment
Here I can make a new account
You see I feel safer in here
trapped in my computer.

Help, I’m trapped in my computer,
and I’m afraid I can’t get out.

You see, the people here seem
so much more real than the ones
on my tv screen

It shows me so much fear
and hate, and lies, and a bit more
You see I feel safe in here
trapped in my computer.

Help, I’m trapped in my computer,
and I’m afraid I can’t get out.

It turns out this was not where I
should have been; they finally
found me out.

I am not who I pretended to be,
and they know it for truth.
You see, I am not safe in here,
stuck in my computer.

I never really was.

And I get that pretty often
Kids call me ‘boy’ ‘mister’ ‘sir’ and it makes me happy
but no no they gotta be corrected
“no honey that’s a girl”
‘girl’ ‘missus’ ‘ma’am’ and no
no I’m a boy
I wanna yell that but I won’t
I can yell that but I don’t
because that’s social suicide
and the gay word freaks people out
****, ****, ***, butch
that freaks people out
never mind the trans* word
c’mon say it so I can hear!
******, queer, she-male
you name it I’ve heard it
I’ve heard it towards me
I’m a boy
B-O-Y BOY
put that away
put your trans*phobia away
I CAN SEE IT
I CAN HEAR YOU YELLING IT
are you gonna say it to my face
or are you gonna pretend I don’t hear you
I’M A BOY
B
O
Y
and if you don’t like it
well I don’t want ya here
So next time
before you correct your kids
ask me
“are you a girl or a boy?”

I'm five years old.
It's my first day of school.
Nobody likes me.  They pretend I don't exist,
but that's okay, because
Mommy knows best.

Now I'm seven years old.
New school, new people.
Nobody likes me.  They pretend I don't exist,
but that's okay, because
Mommy knows best.

Now I'm eleven years old.
My voice is killed by Mrs. Dysphoria.
Nobody likes me.  They pretend I don't exist,
but that's okay, because
Mommy knows best.

Now I'm fourteen years old.
I'm drunk, cutting, and hearing things.
Nobody likes me.  They pretend I don't exist,
but that's okay, because
Mommy knows best.

Now I'm eighteen years old.
They're burying me.
Everyone loves me.  They're my best friend,
but it's funny, because
Mommy knew best.

if I thought I could sing well
I would sing
but I don’t like my voice
it’s ugly
well
not ugly really
people like it
my choir director likes it
i could easily become very famous
but it’s a girl’s voice
the high notes are girl notes
the low notes are girl notes
everything about my voice screams girl
that, or 13-year-old guy
so i guess i won’t sing
besides
nobody wants to hear
mistakes

I am a traveling salesman
and in my travels I have
sold many a thing
in middle class America,
I sold debt, love, lies,
wasted youth, and forgotten dreams
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

My travels brought me to
the south of the Rio Grande.
Disease and poverty were
on the first of my list of things
to sell.  Soon, heartbreak, hate,
tyranny, and fleeing for a future
followed,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

I traveled to the east, the
exact opposite of where humanity
once tread.  I sold many things there
to people none the wiser.
Racism, genocide, and intolerance
I removed from my bag, and they
received tyranny and fanaticism
for free,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

I fled to the north to sell my goods.
The land of former kings provided
a great market for distrust, poverty,
and eventual declines from the great
history the land once knew.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

So I went to the last place of my sales
the not-quite-Far East.  And there I found
the best market for civil wars, censorship,
arms sales, rebellions, and most of all,
potential.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

And so I fled this world to sell to another
and in my travels, I sold the world
to things leading to destruction.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

Take the pill
I don't need it
I'm fine without it
Take the pill

Take the pill
it chokes emotions
renders me sexless
take the pill

why function without it
why try to continue on knowing
that your normal scares everyone else
you know your siblings are scared of you

Take the pill
it's only going to break you a little
after all why not bother feeling anything at all
when all you do is just get angry you are always angry
take the pill

It's a cocktail now
one in the morning, three at night
they check under your tongue now
you don't need sanity

They'd rather you be emotionally dead and fast food smiles
take the pill

I suppose it’s best to
speak of her now;
her name only summons
ghosts and thoughts
of a woman long past.

Her name is like hands that
trace the globe of my mind
from the my brain—a small city,
public university, museums, a relic
of a war dividing country—

to her heart—a large city, the
rainiest in the country, or so they say
where we mutually met in the middle;
it was love, or at fifteen springs, I thought.

This map to her now only summons
ghosts and thoughts
of a woman long past.

I follow them through
the thruways of memories
of all she touched with her
human condition and hope that
the map leads me back to her.

It leads me to our
phone calls, where I’d sit on
the deck in just pants and drink
and she’d stand outside on her balcony
and we’d burn the mental incense of a dream
forever never coming to pass.

I suppose it’s best to
speak of her now;
her name only summons
ghosts and thoughts
of a woman long past.

The ghosts of long-lost
proclamations of love
haunt my mind.  It’s
easier for me to believe
that she never did mean it,
but at three in the morning,
I’m fond of sitting on the deck and drinking

And I burn the mental incense of a dream
never coming to pass.
And I confess none of this
as she is a ghost with only a map
but my fair Rachael, she haunts me.

It’s no longer safe
to speak her name;
it’s summoned ghosts
and thoughts
of a woman long past.

Icy dread conspires against my voice.
She’s graceful, bold, deep (living), but she’s not my crush.
She creates the fountain, symbolizing the winter of my dreams.
Her web gleams, softly crushing me in sleep.
Ethereal souls have their grandeur wither in death.

I am experiencing the human condition
Or I would be, if I knew what such a thing was.

They say poetry is an art form designed to show emotion
emotion of course representing such a thing as a human condition
but my poem is broken

I must insert 25 ccs of suffering more,
50 ccs of subtlety more,
and 100 ccs of emotion more,
not to mention the 600 mg of lithium,
the 25 µg of Wellbutrin,
and the 100 mg of synthroid I put in myself.

But my poem is broken.
And if poetry is a form of the human condition
and I cannot form my poem
then I cannot form the human condition.

This is an inevitable factor in the world of man
most people tend to forget it, but it is so
the more I cut myself off from the world around me
the more I become what the world needs from me.

Then comes righteous silence.

Silence is golden but only in small amounts
Silence is only golden when the faux silver of duct tape must
simply not do.
Emotion is a human condition, but I must take the pills.

After all, if these pills are not effective,
they’ll simply electroshock my brain
in order to find my human condition

Who am I?
Why am I here?
Forget these questions--
hey, hand me another beer.

But surely--or Shirley--the animal crackers in my soup
are just as sick and tired as I of being a pawn--
afraid of the magic space wizard destroying us all--
they are just as afraid of the inevitable,
that indeed, everything all along has been true
and tis all forbidden
Afraid that perhaps the friendly raccoon’s intentions
are not so honest as they appear when we first move
to our new woodland home

Perhaps my animal crackers in my soup
are more afraid I will lose myself
as I stumble down the rabbit hole
looking for the man who burned down my home
only to discover he truly was the innocent
(In this crime, at least)

Or perhaps as I stare these pills down,
muting my human condition has come easier;
no longer am I attacked by strange men
for a golden woman carrying a blue staff

No long must I boldly proclaim
that I’ll go out through my kitchen
when indeed, for someone with my body
(human condition aside)
belongs there, if only to make a sandwich.

If only there was a dictionary definition in the back
of every high school textbook
and we are made to ‘put it in our own words.’
Defining what should be such a simple thing
should be rather easy then.

But nobody said it was easy.
We were all told that we were special
but I have come to the conclusion that
saying everybody is special is really saying
that nobody is.

And if nobody is special,
should not our own human condition be the same?
or is is simply that no,
humans are manufactured on a mass-produced scale
for the pleasure of those powers that be?

Yes, they have a tough game with tough rules,
and they’ll win (and I’ll always lose)
but am I a design flaw?  Something wrong in manufacturing?
I’ve traveled to these human distribution centers
and there were many babies wrapped
in blue or pink cloth dictating from birth
a key aspect where the human in question
has no choice.
And their human condition has been dictated to them
but I paid no mind

(I ignored the stains on)

I allowed human condition to be dictated,
knowing most of these children will grow to be
a design flaw like me.

Lost.
Confused.
And waiting on a mother swan to come
and tell me I am beautiful, and indeed
I have been in the wrong place the entire time.

And as I left this distribution center
of humans, and the human condition
I asked myself
“What god would make this world?”

“What god would make this world
with so much suffering and pain and make us
unable to identify for fear of what will happen to us?”

“Was it an angry teenaged god who played a game
only to find that his friends were murdered around his ears
and he must have to build this universe by himself?”

“Was it a god who lived in a world all alone
only to hate any form of life beyond himself?”

And as I asked myself these questions
I prayed that it wasn’t true.
That maybe, this is just exclusive to my
inability to find my human condition.