I remember being offered the same bed. It was a joke amongst friends, amongst friends who'd already heard my heart flutter when I'd brought you along for quiet drinks in the kitchen. You couldn't sleep without a smoke you said after everyone had gone to bed.

In the summer air I joined you outside, turning down the cigarette when you offered. Something about the summer haze made it only natural why I'd followed you out in the early hours.

We used to talk about our lives and our feelings and the flitting of people through them. I recall the grass being wet as you paced, insisting you were holding on for something better and it was coming, you just didn't know when.

Last year in that morning dusk all I recall is the content quiet, the improbable, the quiet of the garden as your company became the volume. This was never love, this was a collection of moments that put the bird calls in the day. Placed us in orbit around the sun. Made days feel like days and nights feel like night.

(Early fondness)

For me, every moment of contentment
is often followed by the realization
of having a lack of either ambition
or the means or ability to achieve it.
And though I can live with the lack of both.
I often wonder
why do we feel the need to be validated
by some measure,
by some reason,
to belong in one of the circles
that the world is divided into.
When we end up questioning our self,
“Who would be actually there for me
if not for the pieces of me
that I am feeding them everyday?”

What has happened to me,
to my social skills?
Frantic, and panicked,
are not conditionally ideal.

I want you to like me,
I want you to see.
To see through my awkwardness,
and help set me free.

I do talk too much,
my mouth won’t shut up.
It’s like the relay in my brain,
is broken, or corrupt.

I’m not usually like this,
I hear my mouth say.
Constantly apologizing,
and then you’ve gone away.

I want to explain,
the jumbled mess of my head.
But I don’t know how to do it,
without making it worse instead.

No I’m not weird,
I’ve just been alone.
Social skills need exercise,
and mine are skin and bones.

When you walk away,
another part of me dies.
Part of me wants to explain,
and part of me wants to cry.

Im turning into two people,
the oddball and the norm.
When they try to coexist,
it creates the perfect storm.

So no, I don’t blame you,
for walking away.
Just know that I’m sorry,
for being this way.

When you are around
my happiness goes like a spaceship going to heaven on light speed

Without you
I feel like crap
dying
miserable

I used to be as the sun
always shinning
Now I'm the moon
hidding my feelings and waiting for you

Would I still see a girl who is tired of constantly being misgendered?
Would I see a girl trying too hard at looking good?
Would I see a girl not trying hard enough?
Would I see a poor excuse of a partner?
A girl who cannot possibly love someone else because she cannot find love in herself?
Would I see a girl whose self hatred seeps through her body with every aching breath?

Or

Would I see a person whose gender identity is respected and valid?
Would I see a person who always looks good without any effort?
Would I see the best partner I could be?
Would I make you happier than you've ever been?
Even if I cannot love myself, would I still be able to shower you with all the love in the world?
Would I see a person whose confidence can light up a room?

I crave the thought of switching places for a day.
Not just because I no longer wish to be myself, but because I need to know if I am good for you.