I am thirteen
    when the mean girls call
me weird—
I do not shave
I do not wear makeup.
I do wear basketball shorts
and messy ponytails.
I am pressured to be her—
Aria.
I shave relentlessly
    for the next two years.

I am fifteen
    full of discomfort
    and anger
breaking my bones like they
    are glass
reckless rage—
all reckless no brave
    depraved of a home
    inside my own skin.

I am fifteen when I
learn what gender dysphoria is.

I am fifteen when I
    realize I am a boy
that I always have and will be
    a boy.

I am fifteen—
putting holes in wall and
    overdosing on advil
like it is a sport
championing my own self demise.

I am fifteen afraid and closeted—
I write my name as
ALEX
on my school assignments
I always change it back
before I turn them in.  

I am fifteen
    convinced everyone loves the girl
I am not
    and will never love me as the boy
I actually am.

I am sixteen crying on the floor
    of a psych ward
    this is my fifth hospitalization
in fourteen months.
Pretending to be her is
killing me.
I choke back tears as I tell
my mom that I am
transgender.
She tells me she loves me,
    and she saw me writing
    ALEX on my papers.

It will take five years
for her to let her daughter go.

I am seventeen when I am shoved
    to the floor in a men's bathroom
    slammed and slurred across the tile—
It will not be until six months into
    Hormone Replacement Therapy
that I use the men's public restroom.
I am eighteen when my moms boyfriend of the
time pulls me aside
and tells me I am making a mistake.
He would wear his mothers dresses and heels,
    hiding in her closet
    all of this is to say
    this is a phase.
When people say that this is a phase—
    I am sixteen
    sobbing on linoleum floors
    covered in cuts
    wanting nothing more than death
    if I have to pretend to be her
    for more than one second longer.

I am nineteen hopeful
    and naive.
Voice cracking and hair sprouting
    I am coming into my own body.
    I have learned that there
    are things much worse than needles.

I am twenty out of the
    ashes of abuse and trauma
    I am finally becoming
    the man I have always been
    meant to be.

your kisses, gentle or messy, have the ability
to make me happy for an entire week.
your touch, soft or grip, has the ability
to strip the breath from my body
distract me from life.
your smile has the ability
to free my thoughts of sadness.
your laugh has the ability
to force my mouth into a smile.
i wish i could lay with you
until my lungs lack oxygen
until my heart can no longer beat
until my lips can no longer meet yours
until my body can no longer wrap around yours
until you no longer long my love for you

Hollow
The difference of being empty and void is the middle part
The void tells you there's nothing there
Empty means something is lacking
Something is not here
Hollowed-out means emptied out
Like a smile fading
Tears falling
Heart breaking

Full
Abundance is what it is
The many the merrier, the more the richer
Fill me with peals of laughters
Of handkerchiefs to wipe the oceans in my eyes
Make my heart full of you

Make me hollow. Then fill me in again.

Bisexuals have it the worst

It's double the ****** frustration.