"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
-Maya Angelou

My soul is a sweetie:
She’s a cute but ****,
with an infectious smile,
an enchanting personality.
She wears dark colors,
slightly goth makeup,
and thick-rimmed glasses.
She likes candles, tea,
sweaters, and cannabis,
and goes on long walks
in the woods by starlight.
She’s cool and confident,
outgoing and fun,
and as beautiful as
a moonrise reflected
off of a frozen lake.

She’s me.
But I am not her.
She’s the me inside
of the me inside of me.

She cries when my mind
grapples with the bounds
of the mental illness
that gives her life.
She screams in pain
when my mind tries
to rationalize her
and explain her away.
And she glows with joy
whenever I try
to grow closer to her.
She’s the part of me
I never asked for,
whose existence hurts
like a deep burn,
but nonetheless makes
me truly be myself.

I have kissed boys

Girls

People in between

But lately I have been kissing bottles

Their lips are colder than yours

But slowly I have realized that the pounding headache when I wake is less hurtful than the shattering in my chest

Yet as these toxins rush through my veins

I can't help but miss the tracing of your fingers along my skin

Miss the numbness of the world when you lie with me

But when I wake I remember that a headache is treated with an aspirin

While heartache

Well if you have a cure for Heartache let me know

i’m like a stranger in my own body, my own head.
knocking, waiting for someone to come and help this
lost person. no one comes
no one comes because no one knows
that i feel like a stranger to myself.
begging, pleading,
grabbing ahold of any attention one
gives me to have a semblance of sanity—
normalcy.
what is normal for someone who has never experienced
it in their life
when someone asks what “normal” is to me, i stare
blankly at them unable to come up with anything
normal and this stranger inside me
don’t know each other

When I was small
I hoped to be just like my brothers
I didn't see gender differences then
I wanted to play the same sports
To join in on family football games
I wanted to be one of the boys too
Take my shirt off
Run the ball down the road
Play in the mud
Maybe I just wanted to be included
And maybe I saw them as the cool kids
Looking back now
It seems much more telling

Maybe brief, perhaps longer
but in this moment I am She.
It’s fluid, isn’t it? To decide
upon being Her, rather than
the prolonged Masculine----
that’s not to say I won’t be Him again.

This is liquid consideration,
rolling down my neck, my
collarbone, breast, navel----
It was so obvious when I felt it
like a switch-flip, dynamite ignite----
Boom. He is She. I am She.

Now name me, for I am born
unto this magnificence---- A body,
a mind---- Mine. His. Ours.
Stronger than any,
mightier than all.

Breathe me life for I am valid----
in this moment, we are goddess.
I am Now.

If you count the cracks
I will open my mouth for you
The injury
The injury,
falsely gaping
it doesn't fit and you count again
Look at my fingers
Stroke the edges
Feel the curves
How wrong can it be?
You press a hand to what's wrong
You hold my problems
Apples and Oranges
What if neither was real?
The inside is flesh
It yields
It yields
But if I do not ask you to count
my mouth will never have a use
Swallow my tongue for me
You put me in a place, but it isn't mine
Whose body is this?

person feels a wave of heat through their neck and face when struck with a thought of their ex boyfriend. a ninth grader gives them a ***** look. person leans against a cold cinderblock wall and relaxes their face. focus on the empty space between the eyeballs and the brain. feel the limp arms and identify the beat of a pulse running through them. repeat after me: self care is boring.

paul laurence dunbar knows why the caged bird sings. he never wanted to be an elevator operator. it's a point of privilege. person asks a ninth grader if a bird could see the wind, the river, the sun. "oh... no..."

one thing person notices time and again is that when these students drop something they do not pick it up. they let someone else do it. where person is from it is not like that. students would not help person like that, they think.

person remembers one time, when they themselves were in the ninth grade, dropping their lunchbox in a crowded hallway and picking it up swiftly in the next step without slowing down. a tall boy behind them said "smooth". person felt proud at the time. person feels good remembering this.