Burning
Yearning
In my heart
It's deserving
To be heard.
Body's whispers
Become screams.
Thought streams,
Where are their hot springs?
Body-mind connection
Currently a hurtful interaction,
Heaviness inside.
Whether the mind's full or empty-
Hard to tell,
The spiral repeats,
Energy depletes,

As if under a
Spell,
Leaving the body
A heavy but empty,
A burning but cold,
A lifeless but longing
A hard but soft
Shell.

My heart may ache, but so does bone,
A weight too deep, a pain unknown.
Not just sorrow, my body knows,
It wilts, it bends, it breaks, it shows.

I'm tired,
But that's not everything,
I'm out of body,
Often with my soul wandering,
Watching over things and righting the displaced,
A fragment of what it should be,
So don't worry,
I'm tired too.

I live, I endure

the sharp sounds, I kiss the wounds --


then I cover them.

They call it a gift,
this body of mine,
but every month it gnaws at itself,
chews the lining of my womb,
spits out blood like a sacrifice
to a world that does not care.

I step outside,
eyes crawl up my skin like ants,
like maggots,
like fingers that never asked for permission.
A whistle slits the air—
a razor against my spine—
I swallow the bile, keep walking.

Mother said, don’t wear that
Father said, boys will be boys
I say nothing—
only dig my nails into my palms,
so deep the crescent moons bloom red.

I dream of shedding this skin,
peeling it back like an overripe fruit,
scraping out the parts that feel *****,
that feel weak,
that feel like they do not belong to me.
I want to be new,
to be sharp,
to be something they cannot touch.

But even in dreams,
they chase me.
Even in dreams,
I run.

I know I should find comfort in predictability
Haven’t I had enough of having my spine ripped out from behind me?
Yet the way you stare everywhere but my gaze
Midnight messages of what I tempt you with
The blatant absence of personality in the words you choose to describe me
Pretty
Funny
Smart
All trademarked generically
by countless machine operated boys I have played with before
Bore me past the point of even fleeting interest
So I fantasize about the beginning of cannibalism
Gory eroticism in the form of utter consumption
Compulsivity unbearable to the point of obsession
Because skin against skin will never sate my satisfaction
Yet I will lower my necklines and gloss my lips for you
Pose, flash on
in the darkness of a shameful Saturday night
And respond emptily to your mechanical propositions–
the only way you can digest me.

The pen –
is an extension of my body, held by my hand, as it
beats with my heartbeat; it's my very breath between
words, the intentions of my structuring, the brush to
my thoughts, the paint of my imagination.

The pen –
is the mic to my voice, the scope of my eyes, the chorus
to my soul, the bass to my heart, the shadow of my skin,
painted by the night, and why my pen chooses to be black!

It is bold, it is wild, it is persuasive, it manipulates words
to invoke change, it is controversial, it is understood by
few, yet it speaks to all.

The pen is an extension of my body –  for we are One!