The more I fall,
better I get.
In your visions of mundane mud
I try to cleanse through my soul
Where the heavens,
these locutions are streaming me?
I really don't know.
Just pouring in the cup of
this wonderful poetic journey
My heart...
Scribbling.
The more I fall,
better I get.
In your reflectors of dig dust
I try to scratch each wound,
Again, I'm ready to behead,
For my words can't ever be dead.
-err1585 aka Ritika

‘Are you a boy or a girl?’
They shout down the corridor in a chorus behind me
Like the cries of “Good morning, Miss” in assembly
The patronising tone
in sleep deprived confusion
Droning throughout the halls
ringing around ‘she’.
    
Going to lessons is the scariest thing
Head down, walking fast hoping
they’ll never say anything
Hoping no one will question you
Glance around and notice you
not daring to look up
in case you make a wrong move.
    
You can’t know what it’s like to be
in a room all alone,
in a house that is not your own;
'Your body is a temple’ they said.
But they don’t tell you how to treat it
if it’s right in your head
but wrong in your skin,
and that feeling
of being and existing
is like dealing
with a thousand anxieties
suffocating within;
Chest too obvious
voice too loud and feminine
not enough to be ‘gentleman’.

'Why does this bother you?'
I hear you enquire,
it's because society’s construct
of gender is too based on attire,
an old fashioned concept-
Telling your children
that 'blue's for boys'
'pink's for girls'.

'Is it really?' I say.
Gender is not just binary
it fluxes and changes,
just like any scientific theory;
Einstein for instance,
didn’t come up with special relativity
in a night!
It took years of work
until he was right

Let this apply for gender too:
not just black
and white it's not as
clear cut as that
this is black and this is white
Evolve the theory
from system to spectrum
of freedom and pride
to reside in one's body happily:
Humanity allied.

This is what I dream about,
but it is not what
I've been living throughout,
in our world of shame;
where we are reduced to words and themes.
Driving my community,
those who love and support me,
to thoughts of suicide.
Being known
only when they're reduced
to rags and bones,
dead bodies
hanging
from their hashtags
thrown in the corner
another into the pile of disorder...

But people think it’s okay
to come up to you
abuse you in the street.
Knocked to your knees
to cries of 'queer'-
you end up living in fear-
'well, what do you expect given
who's watching Wall Street?'

Yet I stand here
talking to you
a queer boy-
with all connotations of the word-
a queer boy with a voice.
Look at me!
My chest,
My unbroken voice,
My broken mind.
I am not proud of what I am,
what I’ve become and
how much it hurts
is indescribable to you.
I am not what you want me to be.
I am a man.
Not trans.

In the chills of those sprinklers
These shivering hands are bleeding.
Bleeding the ink on the bright glamour of whiteness,
And roughness yet serene looks of this inked morn
I cannot but just able to break these concrete wall
A thousand ton probably,
I'm underneath this hard-core stuff!
Gulped the last **** of splashed pity,
Can't hark anymore.
**** your ****** core!
I don't really see any empathy or comprehensiveness
In the pale skin of yours!
Hey, ever you see through those reflectors!
Well, I do.
Thanks for your *** to be concerned.

The waves of those blurred mists
Are just calling for rhyming
But I told that I'm just a poor one
I can't really write poetic stuff,
Though I love to call it poetry in motion,
Oh! This gush, is what I'm scribbling
And not really always the sweet winds.
Those light steams just caressed,
Tried to cool me down, calm me,
Clasping my lids and just trying to listen
What it has to say to me,
I'm finding my solace,
In the purest rides of clouds.
Switching off the whirlpools,
These threads of air, resting me
Making me dip inside the slumbers of peace.
The waves of those blurred mists,
Are now what I'm dreaming.
Awake I'm scribbling.
©err1585

when you go through something trying all the good guys and do-gooders flock to you. they wring metaphorical hands and ask if there's anything they can do, like some baked ziti or wadded handkerchief will caulk your cracks.
then an acceptable timetable for healing goes by and they lay pity eyes on you give you that how're you doing honey smile, but their baked ziti didn't serve as the salve they'd hoped and you're crumbling fast and maybe that pity smile is your solution so you tell them.
you tell them how many times you count the cracks in your ceiling before falling asleep (27) you tell them how many glasses of wine it takes to feel decent again (at least 4) you tell them how many hours it's been since you last ate (56)
and they wish you ate the ******* ziti and blew your nose in damp handkerchiefs because an acceptable amount of time has passed and you should be healed by now, but what they don't know is your timetable is inverted and you work in wrong-way highways. they don't know that time is scar tissue much more delicate than the lock-box you've put him and all the things he did in, and each second chips away at that box and the essence of him is seeping out like acid that melts through all your barriers.
the good guys and do-gooders don't want to open your broken-heart bank and let all the bees out. they want you to eat the ziti and say thank you like it actually fixed something.

and it took me some time
to realize that i was dating
a boy
not a man
that i wasn't looking
for a boyfriend
i was looking for a dad
hold on a second
its not what it seems
theres no oedipus complex
this isn't ******-y
this is a girl
who can never love a man
this is a girl
who never had a dad
this is a girl
that wants love-
the pure kind-
the lets go for icecream at 3am
lets go to the park
lets name all the animals at the zoo
this is the girl looking for protection
by sticking her head in the cage
her safety net
is a beard and colored eyes
and it took her time to realize
that every boy that smiles at you
doesn't mean well
and when they say they love you
don't think they will hesitate before they leave you
because they won't
don't
be fooled by their smiling eyes
girl you need to realize
your father loved you
and he meant well
still
he left and these boys no they don't love you the way he did
they won't save you from the demons in your head
baby girl
still
lie still and know
that "boy" isn't a safe word
and "man" doesn't mean love
and that the bridge between those who stay
and those who leave
is jammed with those
who said they'd be
here.
stop looking for a man.
stop looking for a dad.
you-
you
are enough.

please dont ask me if i miss it when you know that i do,
please dont ask me how it felt to sit in the passenger seat of your car every day for four months straight.
because i will tell you.
how it felt like yellow lights in a dimly lit café on monday nights,
like ***** snow underneath your tires,
like a resurrection of fresh air after feeling trapped since september.
every now and then i come back to this.
now that it's february and i cant remember what your house smelt like.
i often wonder what your parents think happened to me. and your sister.
i've started to wonder if i would have gone to her wedding with you.
i hope she's happy, and i hope you are too.
don't get me wrong, i needed you to leave i know i did.
sometimes it doesn't feel like you did much for me although i know you did.
sometimes it doesn't feel like you were ever part of me although i know you were.
now that it's the end of february the weather has started to become lighter and i keep finding myself rolling the window down, making the music louder and wanting to sing, wanting to smile, wanting to feel what it's like to be euphoric again and i just, can't.
not right now.
i don't know if a year later can be considered "too soon" but i do know
that i hate you, and the way you made the snow feel like you so now i dont even feel at home when i look out my bedroom window.
i hate you, and the way you made the car feel like our safe space so now i don't feel safe when i'm driving with my mother.
i hate you, and the way you made me think that you would stay,
the way you made me feel like you were going to be a part of my family
the way you threw me away as if it was easy for you.
i hate you for everything that reminds me of you like guitars and troye sivan and sleepovers and driving down the ******* highway and being someone that cares about you so much i'd miss saying goodbye to my dad to spend another night with you.
so don't,
do not
ask me if i miss it
when you think you know that i do.
because i don't miss any of it.
not anymore.

I've had bad days for as long as I can remember,
Anxiety, loneliness and depression swirling in my head.

(You might think loneliness and depression are the same but that's not true, loneliness is just a SYMPTOM of depression)

I used to have good days,
Light,
Days,
Where it didn't hurt as much,
Any more,
But these bad days come back,
And the came,
And they stayed,
For weeks at a time,
Anxiety had me mumbling,
"I'm fine"'s

(The actual act of being 'fine' is something I've never had the privilege of experiencing)

I got so many bad days,
My therapist,
(Along with my mother)
Tried to convince me they weren't,
ALL bad.

So,
I'm depressed, turned into:
The weather,
And, I'm alone,
Turned into:
Call your friends!
And,
I'm suicidal,
Turned into:
Philosophical.

I don't think you understand...

That this plan,
Of telling me my feelings aren't real,
Or that I shouldn't feel what I feel when I'm feeling it.
Isn't helping me,
Or saving me.
Because I remember being 12,
In an emergency room,
With death on my mind,
And burns on my wrist,
Being told,
I couldn't be admitted to a mental ward,
Because they only accept 13 year olds,
That, the qualifications,
Where there,
That I wanted to die,
But You were,
Just to young,
To be feeling,
What you were feeling,
When you were feeling it.