MY SEXUALITY IS NOT SOMETHING FOR YOU TO GAWK AT

MY LOVE IS NOT FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT

OUR KISSES ARE NOT PERFORMED FOR YOU

WE ARE NOT AN EXHIBIT THERE FOR YOUR VIEWING

'TOGETHER' DOES NOT INVOLVE YOU

SO KINDLY *******

you say you're fine
you say your good
you stare into their eyes
"I'm fine"
"I'm good"
You probably smile through your lies
fake happiness and safety
I know your pain
I see it in the mirror
I see it when you tell jokes
I know

you need to talk about it
you try to talk about it
you can't hold it in
it's not good for you
its what I did
think of me now
how I hate myself
bottling it all down

don't push it down
don't pretend
I know how hard it is
pretending your okay
keeping a blank or happy face
avoiding eyes
faking smiles

sometimes I still pretend
that I'm still who everyone thinks I am
that i am like everyone else
a whole girl
unbroken
unscarred

then I think how scared you were
when you told me
how you tried to pretend it was fine
like I did then
I can't pretend to be 'normal'
when your words came out broken and shaky
one step from breaking

I remember the day I told you
that I was 'different'
how my heart raced
how my hands tremored
my words barely slipping through my lips
you barely reacted

that's how you were
shaking and almost crying and almost backing out
and you told me that sometimes you feel like it isn't real
like you are lying to yourself
I still do that sometimes

a lot

She told me that she never had real spaghetti before.
Of course she's had spaghetti before but not in the sense that made it worthwhile.
When I asked why she replied that it didn't feel real.
That in a sense it was pasta.
She always broke the noodles when she made it.
She developed a fear that everything would boil over and catch fire.
That part of the noodles would be too crunchy.
All of it would never fit in the ***.
Her mother always broke the noodles so it just became habit.
In the same breath.
She told me at least once,
That she'd like to twirl the noodles around the fork.
The complete taste and feel of what makes it spaghetti.
The cheese blending into the sauce.
The big ball of noodles just wrapping around the fork waiting to be bit.
When I asked about the meatballs she laughed,
She was vegetarian

do you feel like a boy, boy?
or just like a bad person?

you like it when your bangs
touch your greasy blackheads,
when girls squeeze your earlobes
while you kiss on the staircase,
and the way your calves
look like mayonnaise covered gerbils
every time you flex in the mirror
or cross your legs in the coffee shop.

you don't like playing foosball
and going through all the scenarios
on how people question your being.
                 metro?
           "we don't have those in Nevada"
            

you label yourself as a straight white boy,
because you can't call yourself a feminist.
you want to be a feminist,
but you're a wannabe feminist
according to the ones
you let down and continue to
because you're not quite a man,
yet you aren't female.

what are you, exactly?
according to the history books
we only know what masculinity is,
femininity a vague genre tag of
every other piece of music made
when villages aren't burned
and the ****** has to wait
another day before becoming
a prize in Heaven.

do you feel like a man, boy?
or nothing at all? cause
you can't feel like a bad person
       when you don't feel human.

I offered my heart to the hands of the world
A mendicant to love’s holy shrine
But my world took a human form
the arms wrapped around him are mine