I open a
box of insecurities and
add one
more.
The sound of my voice.
The boys in their Vans
have them fully-formed by now,
chests heaving, with splotches of hair
and the usual marks of transition.
I don’t, I can’t have those
things. I meet the requirements:
I am a boy, I’ve tried it all.

But in my bed at night, sometimes,
the ocean hums its wavelength
of monsters screaming, howling
for a rise up, to see more light.
a cloud formation gargles and spits out thunders.
A shiver reaction. Muffled. Loud. The strike
cracks the lips of our skies,
and it confesses some secrets about
its own insecurities; that there is no more
wonder in silence, that there is constant
stimulation and reduced pondering,
that there is a need to get rid
of the bad feeling.

It says,
when the thunder strikes, listen
up and listen long and hard,
because there is plenty of
chaos from your own making, but I offer
you unannounced, unpredictable,
disjointed disruptions of comfort, and it is
I who make you scared of uncertainty. It is I
who make you jealous about my loud voice,
my formed voice, my raspy, powerful voice,
not the boys in their Vans.