You are my fate.
My light in the sky,
My belief in a future,
My friend, my lover.
A man who I can talk to,
Who I'm always happy to see,
And who right now is miles north
But miles have become lightyears
And fate has become hope.
You are my fate,
Your light leads me home.

I sleep with a knife under my pillow.
I hold it in my hand as I fall asleep,
A lifeline.
Like the final rope holding me steady
To the ship I have sailed relentlessly,
Sweeping across the rolling waves,
I sleep with the knife in my hand,
I hold it just in case.

That's all he is,
All he ever was.
I was younger,
And stupid.
He is the coffin my mind
Lays down to sleep in
The body I see in my dreams
When it's not you with me.
The body laying in my garage
Underneath my breath,
Where you are now,
Where you wish to be.
He is a past lover,
That's all he ever was.
The one I see in my dreams
When it's not you with me.

My body and soul are not synonymous.
When I look at my body,
I still refer to it as she,
I stare into the mirror,
And she looks back at me.
You can regret her but please
Don't forget her.
We'll never be those kids again.
I can't wait to be someone else again.
I'm an anomaly, a shapeshifter.

I want to be sacred
In a way that only I can be.
I want to be held
In a way that only you can hold me.
Sacred in my skin, that falls from my bones,
When buried deep beneath the waves,
I want you to hold me sacred.

She's back;
There's ***** on the back of my tongue.
Sleep with a knife beside me in bed;
I fear that she'll retrieve the liquid red,
My time has been wasted, but I am still young.
She's back;
The creeping feeling behind my throat;
that maybe somehow I don't want to die,
But I don't want to stay alive.
If I give up the reins, that's all he wrote.
She's back;
The aching of my shoulders and back,
Losing pieces I fear I always lack,
I do not want to wake again;
She's back;
She's back;
She's back.

I am shaking in my core though my body is so tired
I miss you so much
I miss you so much.

I'm laying in my bed with my body feeling totally exhausted
And not in a fun way,
Feels like just lethargy and painful muscles,
I might cry just because my eyes
Are too ******* heavy now to hold in their tears.

I really ******* miss you all the ******* time
And I don't want to bother you
I don't want to bother you.
Your attention makes me feel validated
In a way that's truly gracious
I wish I had you here now.

Sprinkle sugar across your face, love
And trust me you'll be fine

She was beautiful. Blonde, blue eyes,
She loved sunshine and old rock music,
She was everything.

Sometimes things just fall apart.
It's okay.

She was nothing

Busy hands.
I don’t know
Sorrow is so much more glamorous
Than obsolete joy

In panic mode
A bottled up feeling
Is trying to get out
Through a hole
She’s ripping
Between my skin
And my spine.
She feels like
A wave of burning
A wave of scared
A need to keep
Busy hands moving.
My body is on fire
The smoke is choking me,
Hard.

I will not learn to cry less,
I do not cry much these days
I will learn to cry the same amount.
I will learn to love this body,
If not in this form then the next.
I am still but a fetus
I have not finished growing.
I am an anomaly, a shapeshifter.
Something so very human.

I don't know if I never want to see you again
Or if I definitely want to see you again.
I think a little bit of both.
Let's do this again sometime.
You're quite the adventure.
You are worth everything that you come with.
And you come with a lot, you know.
You are worth everything.

I want to change, as in,
I want to be better, as in,
I think something's wrong, as in,
I wish I could go back to before things mattered

There are some signs that I'm not a child anymore. I walked through my house tonight in the pitch black darkness for a glass of water, and for what I believe to be the first time in my life, it did not scare me that the shapes seemed to fade in and out. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and walked around the island in my kitchen with a pattern of footsteps I have learned without realizing I was memorizing. I touched the water dispenser on the refrigerator before filling my glass with my finger hanging over the edge to feel when the glass was full. I drank it quickly but with patience and calm. I walked up the stairs and to my room and climbed into my bed without turning any lights on. I feel a yearning for the man in my life to be next to me.
I guess there are signs, I'm not a child anymore.

Until I look in a mirror, I forget that I have a physical form beyond these arms and feet and hands, outstretched into a world I do not like or understand.
I am a cherry cordial of mismatched matches that have all been doused in a liquid, I cannot tell if I am covered in gasoline or water.

I feel that the magic has left my fingertips
That my art in all forms
Has become greyed
And unenjoyed.
I feel that the childlike love I once poured
Into pots of paint
And graphite tips
Has gone away,
To be replaced by need
And money

Do you ever hear a sound so beautiful
Like a river with a rainbow flowing through the winding curves and flattened banks, the sound of sunshine on a beautiful girl's eyes, like the color red, not fear but in flowers, and purple like lilacs, these sounds that are so beautiful you can only describe them in the language of the stars,
Have you ever heard something so beautiful
That you have to stop everything and hear it go
Like the drums of war but no blood just the glory
Like the edge of the cliff but no fear, just the butterflies in your chest and the skies, have you heard anything so wonderful
As the sound
I hear
When you laugh,
When you smile.
I know it's hard-won.

I am so thankful.

The truth is,
To see her like I see her,
Unedited and raw,
Bright eyes on dark nights,
Everything in the galaxy,
Combined and condensed,
This takes time.
Look through the corners of your eyes
At the corners of her smile,
The way she moves,
In those moments,
She is so beautiful,
You don't always see this,
The way I see her,
Hair made of honeydew spider silk
And a smile that could tear me apart
And put me back together.
The tearstained face I matched
Some nights some days
Under the brightest darkened skies
We could dance and laugh and cry
And you would never really get it.
In every piece of her I know,
I have seen god.

The biggest change
In the past three years,
Is that I have become
Someone important
To myself

Something I have learned,
From my years of existence,
Many will stay just because
You were nice to them
And yet
Those same many don’t leave
When you are unkind.
This shows a grand human wish
Either just to maintain love
Or to believe
That we are all good.

I don’t want kids
But I see her,
And she’s smiling,
And she’s so innocent,
And she is the most beautiful piece
I have ever seen
In this ****** up world,
And I have to ask myself,
Do I really not want kids?

When I was younger,
I had a friend.
He'd come to my door every so often
And bring me a granola bar
And ask me if I wanted to play.
I'd go to his house
And watch him play video games
While I ate Nilla Wafers
And Slim Jims,
And smiled.
We hid under a blanket,
And he told me he liked me,
I think he wanted to kiss me,
But I didn't do it.
I had popular friends,
And he was considered uncool,
A dorky, weird boy,
With very little filter
On what he wanted to say.
He was fun for me.
We found a knife in his backyard,
And joked about killer ghosts,
And once, he put his arm around me.
I reacted weirdly, and pushed it off,
But I remember him fondly.

Buzz
Buzz
Buzz
My chest feels like it's buzzing
Like a joke
I'm not any more awake but I'm definitely not asleep, just a whole lot more anxiety.
Buzz
Buzz
It's like getting a notification
On a phone
Walking feels like a daze.

I want to stop hearing my voice
In everything I write.
I used to not hate it so much,
But every time I talk,
It's too high,
It's too girly,
It's too something or other,
I just want
To hear the voice
Of a boy

I want to stop writing about him
But I see him everywhere.
In the eyes of every teen boy
With a bad haircut and
A V-shaped smile,
And big eyes,
And a scruffy chin.
I get the memory of it on my neck,
And his hands on my chest,
And then wandering,
I couldn't write this a month ago,
I'm trying to be okay with it,
I'm trying to not be afraid of it,
I'm trying not to be afraid of him
I avoid him at all costs but
I get to class late and
I can't stop thinking
About the day he looked at me
And he smiled
And I felt special.
And I find myself wishing,
I found myself thinking,
I could have left it all then.

I'm going to be better
Than what I was before.
I don't want to make false promises
I don't want to make false threats
I want to mean what I say
And say what I mean
I want to be better
Than I was before.
I'm sorry I didn't stop before
He got to me, before
I left you behind in the heat, before
I lost everything in my blood, before
I forgot who I really was.
I'm sorry.

My ears underwater
I open my eyes, and stare
At the water dripping
And flowing into the tub.
I can't  hear anything
Except for my thoughts down here
And the sound of water
As it beats on the surface
It brings my mind quiet
But sounds quite loud from down here
I consider leaving
The water on a while more
I close my eyes and breathe
I just want to listen now

My whole life is made of acts,
Different roles to play in peoples lives,
Different things I feel I should be.
And I'm sorry,
I don't want want to play anymore

The first time taking off my binder,
I breathed a heavy breath,
And tried not to cry.
I had an item in my hold
That could make me happy for a day.
I had found my key.
Now I have trouble taking it off,
Because at the end of the day,
I still want to be happy

I look at my chest the way I'd look at a wound
I know it's a part of me,
I know it's there,
But it feels temporary,
And a little gross,
Like when I sliced my thumb
On glass at 1am.
My binder is a bandage
And it's hard to take it off,
Because I feel the wound open up,
And my back hurts from wearing the bandage,
But it's so much better than
Seeing where my skin splits in two

When we are old,
And my legs are too weak
To twirl for you,
And my cheeks are wrinkled
From laughing with you,
And my hands are rough,
From the tools I've used,
And my memory is fading,
From the damages of age,
And your arms are too weak
To toss me into the lake,
And your eyes are yellowed a bit,
From the nights we stayed up drinking,
And your voice is raspy,
From talking for hours upon years,
I will still be in love with you.

I'm afraid of myself
I'm afraid of myself
I'm afraid of myself
I'm afraid of what I used to be

I forgive you.

   This isn't a poem to my old friends
Who stabbed me in the back when I told them the truth.
   This isn't a poem about the boy down the street
Who took my might and makes me quiet.
   This isn't a poem to the girl
Who I trusted too hard and couldn't talk back to.
   This isn't a poem to my now best friend,
Who leaned on me too hard, and who I hurt so badly.
   This isn't a poem to the guy I'm in love with,
Who was hurt when I told him about the past, way too late.
   This isn't a poem to my mom,
Who doesn't believe in who I am, and who is going to be hurt when I tell her I'm trans.

This is a poem to me.

I forgive you.

He stands at the precipice of their design,
Losing something in the night air.
The edge by which he stands is still and cold.

My ribcage hurts but I don’t want to admit it.
It just feels so nice.
To have a flat chest.
To be a boy.

It's nights like that,
When everything's quiet,
   Everything's still
When I really wish
   I had something to pray to.
I grew up without God,
With a capital G,
I can't bring myself to believe.
But it's nights like that,
I honestly wish,
   That I had something to pray to.

You're lovely, you're lonely
In the crowds, everything passes
Way too quickly.

Dance in the world's
Big Baby Blue Eyes,
It stings, but you're alive.

Cigarettes and condoms,
Blocked-off bridges,
Climbing the fence.

Silence surrounds you,
Ears ringing, **** everything,
It's lost, but you're alive.

Headlights blind you,
But this feels like where
You're meant to be.

****, it stings,
But I'm not lying,
I swear that you're alive.

Tonight my parents were out of town.
I didn't have a party,
I didn't do drugs,
I made soup and washed dishes,
My brother went to bed.
I headed upstairs,
My parents' door was unlocked,
And I just,
walked in.
I don't know what I was looking for,
I just was looking,
I knew I shouldn't,
But if there was anything that could tell me,
Anything I could learn,
About them,
Any way to be closer.

I found old love notes in a box
Hidden under my dad's socks,
And the box my brother used to propose
To the woman who broke his heart.

I found old photos,
Ones I hadn't seen in years,
I wished I could be their kid again,
It was so much easier then.

I knew I should go, but I found something else,
A necklace in a gold paper case,
I put it on, and it felt like my mom.
Sturdy, and heavy, but elegant, and beautiful.

I left everything as it was found,
I never meant to invade,
But there's too much privacy,
Too many things unsaid.
I guess I just wanted to know.

i could never go to war.
i could never shoot, or help someone who will.
those soldiers on the other side, are just like me.
their mothers cry, i can almost hear it.
their best friend will never hear their laugh.
their room lay empty, an unused bed,
dust-covered books they never read.
young men go off, **** other young men.
if you're very lucky, you'll see your son again.
i could never go to war.
my grandfather narrowly avoided the draft,
he was a teacher.
his high school friend got expelled,
and within a week,
he was dead.
his mother cried.
he was nothing but a name on a plaque,
and barely that.
i could never go to war.

He tapped my shoulder
He said a few words but all I heard
Was the buzz of my heart beating faster
And faster
In fear.

He acted normal,
If not a little nervous,
Knowing,
I would be around campus.
With him.

I thought I would’ve yelled,
Or screamed,
Or told him to leave,
But I just took it.

I just took it.

I texted my friend a minute later that I’d be late to class.
I was busy crying in the bathroom.

Attention *****.
I've only called myself this,
Though I know it to be true.
I create conflicts at convenient times,
Where everyone has to pay me mind.
I do terrible things sometimes,
Just to have something to regret.
Just to have something to complain about.
Attention *****.
I'll do anything to get your mind off that
And onto me, the king, the needy.
I'll answer any question, I'll do any dare.
Give me something to regret,
You're only fueling me.
How many things do I complain about
That are honestly real,
How many are just for being an
Attention *****.

I was drunk last night.
I made a sandwich at one in the morning
I hated the feeling of alcohol
Burning in my stomach,
But I was drunk last night,
I was alone.
I remembered how
I stood on the edge of the cliff,
I had no fear that time,
Because if I'd died, I wouldn't care.
The way my arm was torn and split,
So I could prove that I still feel,
I wasn't drunk then.
But I was drunk last night.
I wrote poetry about wristwatches
And watched music videos
Until I passed out in this bed.
I don't know why I did it.
But I feel sick today.

Mixing ***** and juices,
On Tuesday morning, Monday night,
The parents are asleep.
The stars are so bright.

My body is a temple,
You're **** right.
If it feels good enough,
I'll respect it tonight.

Bandage my chest,
Hurts my ribcage,
I’m a ******* kid,
Shouldn't have to be brave.

You should've been a brother,
Should've got the name right,
Should've been her son,
Instead I'm drinking tonight.

I am built of ashes and bones and guilt-tripped sundaes topped with cherry-loving men,
I am built of fire and stains of tears and blood and cussing standing in a pool of muck I see my feet sink into the floor I cannot move I am not allowed to exist no more.
I am built of dedication and love, I'm growing up, I am made of courage and flattery I am a tangled, troubled mess,
I am built of flowerbeds and boyshort underpants and digital pictures taken as I jump, my hair flying.
I am built of pretty things and sixteen eyes, two spiders curled up in the outskirts of my mind.
I will survive.

Little scar on my arm proves to my eyes,
I have endured, and I am still alive.
3am, I am reminded that I opened holes to my soul,
To prove that I am human,
To prove I am in control,
I am reminded that everything I am is rooted in this, blood.
Dig me a new home in the muck and the sand and make me a new man.
A love poem to my arms, for I am grateful. I hear my brother sing and you feel like home, my skin. I felt alone and I was lonely. But I know I am alive. I know I am alive. I know I am alive.

you are forgiven.

Curled up, half-past-three, my leg around her waist, I felt like crying
and I called it love.
She snapped her fingers and made me pay attention, I felt bruised
and I called it love.
She joked about *** with another woman and I stayed silent,
and I called it love.
I bent over backwards and nearly broke my spine for her and it wasn't enough,
And I called it love.
I never knew that love wasn't supposed to make me afraid,
Love wasn't supposed to make me silent,
Love shouldn't require that every day I be brave,
And bend over backwards 'til I feel pain,

Love is supposed to make me feel brave, not require it.
I deserved to be okay.

Legs crossed,
Riding my bike over the curvature of these roads,
Their patterns I've memorized,
The people in each house,
I remember.

I pass by Blue,
The house where A stole my hat
And made me chase him down the street,
Childhood crushes and games of catscratch,
His father called me "Sweetheart" once.

I'm so tired today, I couldn't sleep last night.

I take a breath,
And pass by Red,
The house where B walked his dog daily,
He was getting very old and acted very young,
Talking to him made me smile.

I nearly fall going around a curve, and my shoelace is ripped in the chain.

I take another breath.
I pass by Yellow,
The house where I visited C for new year's night.
It brings regrets and shame, but I hate to show it,
So I sit up straighter and with pride while in view.

I go around a second curve and go down a hill, picking up speed.
I pass a car, the driver and I exchange waving hellos.

I get home, dripping sweat.
I enter White,
The house where I have the most memories,
But that I did not begin in as a baby,
And that I don't think about remembering as much as the others.

My Momma told me this,
"Be strong for your Dad."
So I stood tall, strong for him.
The day Grandpa died.

I put on my snow pants,
I was just a kid,
And walked out into the cold.
Only then, I cried.

I walked alone, through snow.
I barely minded.
Everything was cold that day.
I thought about him.

Larry was a good man.
He liked photographs,
And  he taught me how to wink.
Grandma loved him much.

I walked quite far that day,
Before coming home.
I wanted to be alone.
I had to be strong.

On the day Grandpa died,
I didn't eat much.
But I stood tall for my dad.
The day his dad died.

7th grade, she told me,
"I don't want to live,"
I can't take it as a joke.
The fear of goodbyes.

8th grade, a friend of a friend,
It could've been him,
The way her face contorted
As she said goodbye.

I lost sleep, just to talk.
Would it be the end,
If I left my broken friends?
I lost sleep, for them.

In 9th grade, he told me,
I made him say it,
"I will see you tomorrow."
I said that nightly.

A promise. It meant hope.
The worst days' nights,
I'd say it again, with love.
It was a promise.

Words are everything here,
One mistake, it's over.
I may not hear his voice again
If I don't sway him.

Pressure, is this love now?
I'm so scared, always.
He came first, after all this.
I had to leave him.

Feeling selfish, alone,
I had to leave him.
Now getting close, major fear,
Terminal goodbyes.

I'll love you, for a while,
I might not get close,
It's overwhelming, dear god,
The fear of goodbyes.

I will steal myself from this earth

And take my arms and my heart and my car and just drive for days and days and days and become the stars I gather between my hands in the dead of night,

Gather the sun and the moon and the planets that spin with the rings,

Gulp it all down in a jar of lonely tomato-flavored candy tears,

I am built of the stars I gather 'tween my hands in the dead of night, I am built of regrettable cherry orchard prints on the walls of not a house but a home,

I am built of late night music and unshakable starry skies, I am built of diamonds and gold,

And I will steal myself, and take my arms and my heart and my car, and just drive