Why do you care so much are you gay?
A question I remember often being asked.
How illogical it is to assume your child
will be anything other than straight,
to be raised on the belief that other
was either a phase or a sin.
Maybe I just care about people as human beings -
or maybe there was something more to it.
How wrong it felt to push my sexuality in a corner
and pretend it did not exist.

Once I pushed past that,
the feeling was surreal.
Finally embracing your true self
is a feeling you never forget.
I did not choose this;
To fall in love with words, personalities, feelings,
never confined to gender,
but I have accepted it.
That is what is most liberating.
I feel free.
~ I.M

Strip me bare of my insecurities
Lay a breath of cold air upon the chest I hide from all
Stripped of my shield
I sit vulnerable and scared
The galaxies and black holes,
That makes up my mind,
Widen with each word

Hopeful feelings lay in spots on my stomach and arms
Spots that have healed
But not left me
Dreams of acceptance and confidence
Have since become the shattered pieces of my bathroom mirror
The same mirror that makes me remember
All the ways my identity is fractured

Like the black holes in my eyes
There is a mystery to me
I believe that I am bad
I believe that who I am is disastrous to those around me
Yet what is an identity without such beliefs
Perhaps a good one

Colorful feelings, followed by dark and grey
That’s what you see when you strip everything away
Bones cracking from the pressure of being so conflicted
Signs of ripping as the heart tries to follow what it desires
The head, bleeding, as the pain of resisting grows

Cannot be me,
Give me back my insecurities
Give me back the bindings
Give me back my shield
Give me back my dark feelings and let me bleed
I can hold up fine
It is only my identity I am hiding
But we all know this is just a lie

if I told you
the "F" marked on my
birth certificate wasn't me
would you tell me how wrong
I am?
how I'm too young
to know or think something
like that?
if I told you I'd rather
flatten my chest
deepen my voice
shorten my hair
be called something
you think I'm not
how would that turn out?
I hope one day
I can tell you how I feel
without the fear or proof that
to you
I wouldn't be a child
playing dress up

I’ve written before
About living in the grey
The in betweens and out of lucks.

I seem to never escape
The areas where the line blurs.
I don’t love just one part
I can’t be just one type
I’m a hurricane and a sprinkle
A little lost a little found  
Blue grey black yellow pink

These dualities live in me
The insecurity yet destiny
The anxiety yet certainty
The love of one v love of all
And above all
The absolute knowledge
That these dualities
Can’t
Be
Known.

"it's either my thyroid
or an iron deficiency"
i would say.

but it was always you:
etching away at
my waist
my thighs
my cheeks
straight
to the bare bone.

how did you expect me
to busy myself
while i slowly withered away,
waiting for the day
when you'd realize how
you
were the one
who was drowning me?

but it's just that
every ******* time our eyes met,
or we grazed each other
under the platonic guise,

i collapsed.

i exhaled,
retaining my semblance of calmness
while i dutifully
parted ways with
another fragment of my pure innocence;

i knew it was you.
it always was you.

Walking on eggshells
You never knew what that quite meant
Until she came along
Aphrodite on earth
Tugging at your fingertips
Loving all your curves
Whispers in the night

She took your hand
And dragged you along
Through her personal fairy tale land

Her land
Her confidence
Her freedom so loud
You could see an eagle next to her

Why couldn’t you be like that?
Maybe she would’ve stayed if you had
But you had the voice of a mouse
The freedom of zoo animals
The land of the not-so-free

Perhaps she got sick of the endless hiding
You called them adventures,
hoping she would buy into the idea
Of sliding, sliding, sliding
Deeper into the closet
she had so proudly dug herself out of

It wasn’t meant to be
The girl of the trapped
And the girl of the free
Yet they so strongly held on
To giggles and cuddles
The love of your lifetime
But soon she was gone

it's been a day
since we last let our love seep through,
since you held me close
in that moment, now long gone.

then you shoved me away
once you'd had enough
of my then-green heart;
it's been a day.

your punches and kicks
have turned my heart black;
i will no longer feel.
i won't let myself.

"that didn't count,"
your worried soul insisted
never venturing beyond
your delicate bubble.

go after her then.
Leave me here,
a sinful
nothing.

go after her then.
go be
your father's
son.

love
is simply too elusive.
so you may as well
get comfortable.