my worst heartbreak
is when I learned
to love someone
who isn't myself

i hope you revel in the normalcy
when you feel the sunrise on your skin
walking down a brick path
i hope you breathe in the morning
hold the ordinary close to you
like a life that almost didn’t happen

because for some of us
it didn’t happen

i have never felt the blissful repetition
in being surrounded by what is expected
standing in seasons and looking at skylines
that your mothers and fathers
have stood in and looked at
mothers and fathers who do your laundry
when you come home to a home
that has smelled the same
for the past twenty years

so i hope that you laugh and drink
a little too much
and kiss people who make you feel seen
i hope you listen to bad music
and hug your friends too tightly
and skip your eight a.m. just because
you need slowness and stillness
and a coffee from the corner
and a breath of fresh air
in the morning
on a brick path
with the midday sun
on your skin

i'm always naked
sure, it's beneath my visible clothes
and yeah, when i'm in the shower
and more or less every time i'm home alone
but there are other times
other whimsical nonsensical times
when i'm fully ****
and nobody even notices
when i'm raw
when i expose any facet of my idiosyncrasies
when i fall
when i suppose i'm in pain purposefully
when i draw
when i paint with a purpose to show my sadness and rage
when i write
when i put words to use in the way conversation betrays
people react to ****** in various levels of extreme
some get aroused
some get repulsed
but nobody seems to appreciate the nakedness of my raw mind
completely exposed
full frontal
appreciate it or just don't look

His arms feel like home,
When home doesn't feel like home.
His firm grip secures this body, this house that  many weird things reside in.
His lips are too good to be of human flesh.
They talk and kiss sense to me.
The little things matter to him
And for the first time ever in my life,
I need not to worry.
Need not to cry.
Need not to hurry.
Need not to shy.
A rate tall skinny totoro,
One that I get to call mine

I can squeeze myself like an orange
Giving my sweet and sour soul
To sate the thirst of passerby
Whose stomachs will never be full

Strangers sipping saccharine nectar
Spitting putrid pulp
Tasting only the sweet of fruits
Wasting what makes us whole

I give my body for others to love
Not for them to take
My personality is part of me
So please don't cherry-pick

ten years ago, you sat next to me
propped against a wall on my bed
strumming each string
of my red electric guitar
tuning the cords, slowly, gently
too embarrassed to play a song
you were going to be a lawyer
I was going to be a journalist
we both had high hopes then

our usual food order was tater tots
with extra (extra!) sauce and
pad thai in a box which we'd swap
back and forth in between sips
of whiskey from your metal flask
sitting on the curb of the parking lot
late at night after everything closed
both exhausted from work

you brought me a cd in the hospital
I listened to it a hundred times
I know all the lyrics to every song on it
even a decade later
the music is still ours, you know
we gift each other mix tapes
you always include a song
by my favorite band (thank you)
I couldn't make you just one playlist
because all music reminds me of you

our conversations flow easy
we bounce back and forth
teasing, joking, talking openly
you always make me laugh
and I don't tell you this enough
but I love you and our friendship
even when we go months
without ever talking to each other
what we have is beautiful and
so important to me, I cherish it every day