when i get nervous i cannot eat.
this is eating me alive.

paint—

on my brushes
my jeans
your shirts

on my arms
my fingers
your cheeks—

i'll be working
part-time
at the gallery, and

sweat—

on your neck
your shirt
my hoodie

on your skin
your jaw
my lips—

you'd be looking
at offers
to go pro.

i'll sell my paintings
but checks will only get me
oh so far, so

my wallet would be nearly
empty of dollar bills,
but with you,

my heart would be nearly
full of sunshine,
as long as i'm with you.

hell, i'll buy the
sunshine for you
if i could. and

i'll paint it on the canvas
(acrylic paint, mind you)
and i'll have it hung

up for display,
for you, for the world,
for everyone to see.

i'll come to your DI
games and
cheer for you,

would you come to the
gallery openings
and support me, too?

make art,
make love,
i guess.

Entertain my broken brain
Numb me till I feel the pain
Swirling, whirling agony
In my blank stare.

Anaesthetic, my aesthetic,
Curled up in a ball, pathetic.
Surgically remove my fears;
Does anybody care?

Interweaving, spirit-reaving,
For my peace of mind I’m grieving.
Nothing matters so I scream,
“It’s just not fair!”

New beginning, used to winning,
Patience with the world is thinning,
Failure strikes, though through the years,
Protection has prevailed.

Codependent, my defendant
Is betrayed by my resentment.
Coddled by the Understood,
My lack is now unveiled.

My decision, hooded vision,
Heart and Will engage in fission.
Thus the end will soon begin,
With both my halves impaled.

I wish adults still understood what it was like to be our age because yes, I'm going through phases and relationships and change and I smell disgusting and I am going through depression and I am transgender and discovering what that means and learning what it means to be a person, something that some people never learn. I don't understand why the people who seem to care about me aren't the same people I want to visit constantly. I don't understand the concept of 'blood is thicker than water' when the full phrase is 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb' and why adults use this to their advantage. It's not unhealthy to want to have a social life and go hang out with people all the time. These are the same adults that say I don't get out much and need to hang out with people more often on the occasion that I'm not doing anything. The same adults that have convinced me that I need to go to college and simultaneously have fifty-plus years of experience for a decent paying company to employ me. The same adults who have given me such a crippling anxiety and fear of the unknown that I've cried multiple times over homework thinking that not being able to understand quadratic equations will be my undoing, that there's no way I'm going to college now. I am so terrified to not go to college, yet I find myself unable to think of what exactly I want to do. Rather than letting me figure it out eventually, I am being rushed into roles that I don't even understand yet. I am being scared shitless over things that I don't need to worry about for years. I am being convinced not to legally change my name until after college because otherwise my boomer aunt and uncle won't pay my college funds. It feels like I'm being forced back into the closet, forced into a career that I may or may not enjoy doing for the rest of my life, forced into both solitude and society according to my parent's terms, forced into something I don't understand. This is not consensual. This is far from okay.

although the trains are not the same
i close my eyes and drift away
and when the trains blow on their horn
i almost feel i am at home.

Los días aquí
Pasan muy rápidamente
Y yo no sé
Si este es bien o mal

Por ejemplo
Siento triste todos los días
Pero los emociones van
Como la gente en la acera

Sin embargo
Emociones de felicidades
También salen
Muy similar
O no les aparecen enteramente

3:30 pm
i walk to my class early
sun showers outside

i can hear oceans
in my hands pressed to my ears
when white dreads guy talks

i count the minutes
till i can get a word in
without smelling him

again it has happened,
that radio silence, that
perfect broken brilliance;
so familiar, so threatening,
that hum of anxious breaths
and tongues and chests,
my glass has shattered
again and the blood has
filled the floor and i
step towards you too eager
to kiss the wounds
on your feet and ankles
and pray to god you
kiss me back and you do;
there is a nineteen-year-old
inside whose heart begins
to burst but there is a grown
woman out here pretending to
be into this tragedy
this destruction of naivety
this stranger who continues
to call himself my friend;  
maybe one day he'll mean it