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Atlas Aug 2017
My thoughts come like lightning, without the storm.
They don't want to belong to this earth anymore.
But my body is frozen in fear
And I am burdened by obligations to stay strong.

I feel like I have no home.
I am just particles floating through the air
Trying to figure out where I belong.
Rey Storm May 2017
I don’t want to make a big ordeal,
but the way you see me is not ideal.

The world expects me to conceal,
but wouldn’t that be unreal.

Now that I’m saying this it feels surreal,
like someone grabbed my steering wheel.

My body feels like oatmeal,
and I’m trying not to kneel.

You turned this into a newsreel,
I wish I could repeal.

I tried to be stainless steel,
but you’re a spiked heel.
Abby Carpenter Feb 2017
When I was in the fourth grade I didn’t understand magnets.
You told me that they were like a boy and a girl,
that the positives and negatives stuck together,
but with two girls they would just repel.
Repel,
as if the idea of two girls being together was so awful that mother nature herself would come down to pull them apart.
I think about that a lot.

And now I’m standing here in front of you,
the words dancing behind my tongue,
and I am fighting to keep them down.
I want to tell you that I’m finally happy,
that I found someone,
that when I hold her hand I don't want to run.
I want you to know that I love her,
and that I didn't actually know what love was until now.
I want you to know that with her everything is brighter,
and that I take back my feminist rants because if she were my wife I’d always cook dinner.
the love songs I listen to finally make sense,
and hell,
maybe Romeo and Juliet weren't crazy after all.

I know this might be confusing.
But before her I was soil,
And now I’m a bed of roses.
I’m sorry for hiding this for so long.
and now it seems like a college phase,
but if we’re being honest I always knew.
I knew at junior prom when my date’s hand made me recoil.
I knew when I never really hit that boy crazy phase.
and I knew when I saw her,
When we watched a movie on the grass and I laid my head on her shoulder,
and I felt like I was home.

And I’ve tried to change,
if I knew how I would.
When Mom died you said you would always love me.
I hope you meant it,
because I’ve tried to pick between you.
Take you, leave her.
Take her, leave you.
But I can’t.
So please don’t make me.
Kimberly Lore Dec 2016
It's funny how when we are young
We're taught to be honest
Told that the truth is the best
By adults who deal only in lies
Because honestly they've learned
To fear the truth
And what do we get in return?
Panic attacks from (just thinking about)
how our parents will handle
precious, treasured truths that
we hold in our hearts and
giddily whisper to each other in the dark
with a sense of danger and adrenaline
Yet we can't help but want to share them
with each other, with adults, with the world
(look how beautiful and new and vulnerable it is
this truth that I've hidden in my heart)
Because we were taught to be honest
We long to be honest
But are afraid our precious truths will be tainted
By this society of lies
Created by people who say they love us and want the best for us
But if they really care that much
Then why
Why make it so painful to let you know
What we want the most
What we think is best
To share with the people we love what we love
Pearl earrings.  They came
in a red box with gold lettering
I unwrapped in the
restaurant parking lot
on a humid evening before
my college graduation
where we milled around,
waiting for our table.

My father's gift.

One year later, in the same place,
I put them on;
my father walked me down the aisle
to marry a good man.
Wrapped in a princess dress.
Towing a six-foot train.

My mother's dream.

They stayed in my jewelry box
for one decade plus five.
Years while I played
hide and seek with depressions
and wondered who that person
in the mirror was.

My straight persona.

When  I think of that now
I remember--
pearls are made of pain.
The substance the oyster makes
to coat the grit, or
whatever makes its way
into the shell.

The process transforming
the ugly, raw, pain
into the lustre of something
priceless.
In honor of National Coming Out Day
There always was a face
under this mask--
living skin, stifled
under the thick, white layers
immobilized by:

fear

the expectations/exhortations/excoriations

Logic found at the bottom of
empty wine bottles,
the dregs and sludge of sediment.

Hairline cracks, deepening,
flaking, peeling,
tiny pieces, larger chunks,
the slow work of years
until

my fingers ripping, prying, tearing
a sudden rending of it all.

I raise my naked face to the sun,
feel the wind on my cheek.
Take one, long, full breath.

Hello.  It's good to be.
In honor of National Coming Out Day
paintbrush flows,  patterns unfold
occupied hours, the doors closed
hidden in plain sight
both a comfort and a weekness until
little black tablets make a colored world
turn down transparency so you can be seen

on the screen colors
are arranged so
rainbow connections
bring you closer to who you truly are
so embrace your new found colors
in this colorless existence

make a new layer
draw another line
pixel by pixel it all comes into place
blurring into existence
pixie wings and pictorial symphonies
swing open closets
I'm coming out
aaah so I haven't been on in a year! so much has happened! so many new poems to make! this one I've been working on for a few days. Imma keep coming back to it and fixing it up because I really like this one
eva crown Jun 2016
She brushed her fingertips gently,
just barely, and
just enough to let her know
that yes,
she knew,
and that yes,
she still loves her just the same.

The girl didn't respond,
but gave a tiny smile,
to let the other know
that yes,
she was grateful for the acceptance
and the comfort,
and that thanks,
she loves her too.
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