I walk into the mirror box again and it’s as if my life
really is just an extension of my own metaphors.
I’m caught in the mirror maze, searching for something
in the mirrors at angles, but all I can see is myself,
my sad, stupid self, stretching on and on forever
with the same boring face, the same boring feelings,
again and again until I stop being able to make out the details.
Am I looking back at myself or am I looking forwards to the future?
Will it always be the same or has it merely been
the same since forever? I stare into the mirror tunnel
at all these selves repeating themselves,
forcing the years, the weeks, the days into the same strict patterns,
merely following the self that came before them, merely mirroring
the feelings, only doing it worse and worse with each new rendition.
It’s just me, I think, in the mirror box, caught up in myself
because I am selfish and horrible. I’m selfish and horrible
and I want to turn my back on myself but
how can I possibly do that in the mirror box?
I meet myself over and over, and it’s just me,
in all this vast, repetitive vagueness, just me in
this long stretch of lonely unsettledness that surely doesn’t end.
I want to smash my own face in, so I close my eyes
and try to think, maybe, maybe, maybe, because I don’t
want to be this grey-cloud self forever. I can’t be, and so maybe,
just maybe, somewhere beyond all these selves
there’ll be a day when I’m down on the shore
and the sea will be calm and the sky will be
faded purple. Love will not sink down into nothingness
because in the cool evening air,  my heart will be full
instead of gaping and my mind will be at ease
instead dwelling on it’s own boringness
or entangling itself in own self-created sadness.
And maybe, I’ll have abandoned my book
and its pages will be dry because I won’t have been crying into it.
They’ll be no mirrors, just the ocean,
glinting like an amethyst cluster in the half light
and I’ll rest my head on the shoulder of the girlfriend
I'll meet someday and I’ll smile in this beautiful liminal moment
and nothing will be tainted by the dread of returning home.
We’ll kiss – on the shore – and rewrite it forever and
maybe the stars will fall out of the sky when I shake it and
all my trains will run on time and all the wounds
in the world will heal simultaneously.
It’s a moment surely stolen from someone else’s poetry,
but I’ve got to cling to something to avoid becoming
lost entirely in all this dark, intangible vagueness.
There’s got to be at least one imaginary moment
that isn’t just me, reflected over and over.
There’s got to be one moment that doesn’t stare
back at me from inside the mirror box.

Don’t fall in love with me.
There are days when I get sad without a reason and I just stare at the ceiling with tears streaming down my face.

Don’t fall in love with me.
On those days, I don’t talk to anyone. I just bury myself in my bed and think about how I became this mess of sadness.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I will become attached to you and I will cry myself to sleep if you don’t text me good night before you go to sleep and I will convince myself that it’s because you got tired of me.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I’m too much. I will depend on you. I need attention, much more than other people. I’ll talk to you in metaphors and make you one. I’ll write poems about you and opening up my skin at 2 A.M.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I couldn’t stand you coming home to find me on the bathroom floor shaking and crying, with blood spilling from my wrists. I couldn’t stand seeing the disappointment in your eyes.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I will pour everything I’ve left of me into you, every bit of love, until I have nothing to give. Until I become completely empty.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I’m scared that my sadness is contagious.

Don’t fall in love with me.
I will replay your sweet words in my head when I hate myself so much that I want to die. Your words will be the only thing that make me stay.

Don’t fall in love with me.
You will live in fear. You won’t be able to leave me, because you’d know if you did, I wouldn’t have anything to live for.

Don’t fall in love with me.
Before I met you, there wasn’t a single person who could’ve made me stay. You’re my reason now.

Don’t fall in love with me.
Because I will fall in love with you.

THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of "lilacs."
And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise
Of "mutton chops," "galways," "feather dusters."
  
Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries
Sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb.
Ah-hah these metaphors-and Ah-hah these boys-among the police they were known
As the ***** Dozen and their names took the front pages of newspapers
And two of them croaked on the same day at a "necktie party" ... if we employ the metaphors of their lips.

imagine that you live in a world where, until you reach the age of sixteen, the food orzo is forbidden.

you've heard about orzo. how could you not? it's everywhere, because it seems like everybody loves orzo. orzo this, orzo that. for your whole life, you've heard about the glory of orzo. most people you know can't wait to try it. they talk about it all the time.

you, though, you've never had the overwhelming urge to eat orzo, not like it seems your peers do. still, you go along with it, because everybody else loves orzo and can't wait to try it.

eventually, you ask your dad whether he's always liked orzo. "yes," he says, "of course. you might not like it now, but you'll love it when you're older." he then shows you how to make orzo, even though you're not at all curious.

your peers have begun to try orzo. they all give glowing reviews. but despite their enthusiasm, it still seems kind of odd to you. why is everyone so worked up over orzo? what makes it so great?

life goes on. maybe you tried orzo. maybe you didn't. either way, you've decided it's not your thing. the only problem? no one else gets it. they all say, "what do you mean you don't like orzo? everybody likes orzo. maybe you just haven't found the right recipe yet." but you know that you don't like orzo. you probably never will. and everyone else thinks you strange for this.

this is what it's like to be asexual in this environment.

These "poems" I write are only meant for me
I keep them away from prying eyes,
Where no one can see.

Because why should one receive "likes"
For the metaphors constructed by their minds
In an losing battle to get a grip on reality?

These collections of words
These regurgitations of the imagination
Hardly even belong to me.

If I am not my mind,
Then who am I?
Or is that question irrelevant?

Words in themselves do not belong to anyone
But the order in which one happens to put them together
Is somehow different?

My attempts to understand anything are futile.
So for now, I will say
That these "poems" I write are only meant for me
That I will I keep them away from prying eyes,
For no one to see.

I refuse to be judged,
Valued,
By something as absurd as these peculiar markings,
Lost in this peculiar system.

I refuse to care about whether people like what I have to say. Yet for some reason, I do it anyway.