i love you
and you love him
i know you are scared
because i am too
but is this love
not enough
to answer
your fear

"He's young now." I look into the mirror. "He'll grow on you."

"He's learning. Unwise in his few years, low in confidence."

I ponder..." Will he always be so...scrappy?"

Here stands a young man, looking in the mirror. Still baffled at the reflection he sees.

There goes a woman, his mother, still determined to have a youngest daughter.

People say "He's changing, look in the mirror...see for yourself."

What I see is a scared young man....

scared to live, scared to take up space, scared to make a sound in the noise of society's never ending chaos.

She's trying...she says. To understand. To support. To move on. She knows not her faults nor the effect her words have on you...she only knows that one day her daughter stopped wearing dresses, cut her hair, and left a life of pink and pageantry behind.

No, she doesn't know what she does, but she can see the light in your eyes began to dim when she calls you her little girl.

His father....slowly decaying, pushes the ideas of a son out of his mind. Refuses to see the beard and changing physique in front of him, clings desperately like a moth to a flame to his little girl who he swears never grew a day past the age of five.

Back when things were simple. Back when there wasn't so much **** change. Back when things mattered less about pronouns and more about peace of mind and reputation.

When I grow up, I want to be the change that I wish I saw in all of you. I want to embrace who I love with open arms, decide that I'd **** for the man I see in the mirror. Let all those who disapprove be ******.

Because if I couldn't protect the light in that little girls eyes so many years ago, I'll be **** sure that the man I become is one who will protect mine.

"A man so flat and boobless you could skip him across a lake like a prized stone"

I showed my surgeon the text post, and she said
"We'll get you there!"

**** right, she did.
Staring into the mirror, I see all of me.

Mortal boundaries declaring who I've always known myself to be

Thank you for all of your support throughout the years, dear readers <3

Finally, finally, finally
I am free

the fan on the lowest setting
still disturbs the decade of dust
enveloping the books that formed
my adolescence;
the disorganized organisms and
******* that have dissolved
in these sheets and these short days
haunt my dreams;

how do i sleep,
knowing that the past future present
perpetuate the block universe of
betrayal and boredom and
baby cries, my mother's eyes,
the abdication of adulthood
and absolution in the absence
of harrowing hope.

i broke my own heart
three states over and now
working and waiting for the
answer to be revealed;
my teenage self says that
sadness is my truest form,
but my soul knows there is more

When
doors open with no breeze
chimes sing with no wind
ya blunts keep goin out… and
Candle flames sputter
You’ll know it’s me
Passin through
to color your aura blue
raise your vibration and leave
my scent in your shirt
palo santo or eucalyptus
In the air…
just
breathe deeply Baby…
exhale slowly Darlin…
and feel betta
cuz it’s just me
Carla-Marie
to get on your nerves
or make you smile
or both
as per usual

My clothes are heavy, pack animals
with bags full of worries, I have them
washed when I sleep, dried
in the light of the moon, breathe

Water ripples in the dark
of the gorge between the mountains
here and there fireflies
wanting to ***, they dance

in front of me to the bay
the water is still warm
like when I was a child
with mama in the bath

her soft body
the sweet, lukewarm air
that I still can smell
in the light of the moon

I spread my arms and legs
like a peacock
and draw a circle around me
only my body is still here

A LIFE OF LINES upon a page upon a chest would you believe it yet. WOULD YOU SEE a crime to vandalize or would it be a pleasure to your eyes. A WORK OF ART upon this skin but would it do the trick within. AN EMPTY BOOK full of boxes full of checks though the emptier it gets. A SKULL THATS SPLITTING full of gritting anger and emotion. COULD IT HEAL or might it just rot the soul increase ten fold fester and congeal. WOULD YOU FEEL a flame beneath your palm or would it burn not noticing at all beacause doesnt seem youre reacting as youre getting mauled. MAYBE ITS that spot within your chest between the things they just cannot forget. THAT SPOT WHERE THERES an open wound from which your heart falls out each moon and to the ground it hits the stone and there it sits til you atone for deeds that maybe have occurred though the pain is to insure. BUT DO YOU THINK the tear will ever close. DO YOU THINK youll ever add two more. COULD YOU EVER have three lines upon your chest all neatly in a row. AND IF YOU DID the body still could rid the heart each time returned to core and blood inside your head coagulated red with palms that have been burned - THEN WHAT WOULD IT BE FOR.

rainy days like these
I fill them up with
tenderness,
visions of the unknown
like lymphatic vessels
roaming the world
just to keep myself
from not knowing
that even the gods are weeping
or hidding their cries
in unwritten stories
when the pain is so
so so so so so
alive

what a blessing
what a chance
what an accident
a wonder:
the horizon itself is in
transition
to something other
than the blue speed
of the earth

There is for everything under heaven a time,
And mine has come,
And mine has been,
And mine has become history,
And so now time for something new,
For someone new,
Someone with whom to enjoy
The benefit of all the lessons learned
With me,
Someone fresh and unsullied
By our mistakes
And our cocking up,
The rows and the stupid misunderstandings,
A bright new future in
Those sunny uplands we oft discussed,
Those painful conversations
We both hated to perceive the truth of
Have come home at last to roost,
For everything under heaven
A time comes,
For everything and everyone
A time also leaves,
So now I am left,
Now I am alone,
As perhaps
Indeed
Should be.