even if your name
doesn't match the one on your drivers licence
or birth certificate:
be proud

even if your pronouns
aren't the ones they use at
family gatherings or birthday parties:
be proud

even if the one you love
isn't the one you're with:
be proud

even if who you are
isn't who you want to be
right now:
be proud

even if people
don't understand
and still use slurs:
be proud

even if you have to fight
to stay visible:
be proud

even if you're not okay:
be proud

Loving her, they say,
Is sin.
A sin that'll pull you straight to hell from the weight of it.
'look to God'
They say
And point to words of man.
'are fleeting lusts worth damning gambled souls?'

So I looked at God, my God.

My God, who tends a garden.
My God whose light is all the sun
My little leaves could ever need.
My God who steered the wind
To wrap a younger lonely girl in hugs.
My God who fills the sails of ships
My God who cares, and always has
My God who calls us children
My God who tends
With water instead of brimstone
And with rescuing palms
Not uncaring heels of boots.

I look at my God
And I look at my love.
And I say,
I'll take those odds.

How is it that
after all of this
I still find myself dreaming
that you would come back?

Perhaps if I looked
like your tamed beauty
you would have stayed
here with me.

Hiraeth creeps up on you
once more
and lulls you to sleep
with tears in your eyes.

And in your dreams
you are once again
in the land you loved
so dearly.

And you see me,
the ingénue who
you loved
more than anything

The faeries sing
their melodic tintinnabulation.
This inexplicable moment
has gifted the mute with voices

The rain has ended.
The storm has passed.
And the world is new,
coated with petrichor.

And I wonder
if you’ll join me,
and I wonder if you also think
that you and I are sempiternal.

With you and me
here in the woods,
would you agree
to one last dance?

I would hold on tight
and refuse to let you go.
I won’t ever let
that happen again.

But then you would inevitably wake
with that dainty beauty beside you,
with wrinkles on your fingers,
and with a wringing in your heart.

And when morning comes
you will arise from your tear-stained bed
and remind yourself
that you can never come back.

Do you regret leaving me?

But I would die happily
if I were able
to live that ineffable moment
with you.

And then I came out

My heart skipped a beat just by looking at you,
It would have stopped if you looked back at me.
Time froze when you smiled like a shining star, we were in the same room but million miles away.
I tried to speak but fear took my words away.
How can I be brave when I am just a lost boy from Neverland.