A coffin came my way,
They said, therein you lay;

I could believe them nay,
Until they said they could flay;

Wild I went,
I could not vent;

The expression remaining,
Before it started draining;

I was no longer composed,
I had to be dosed;

You were ethereal,
This had to be surreal;

No enmity could matter,
When everything had shattered;

You had been battered,
When you had me flattered;

I can not apologise,
You have been baptized;

I seek not your forgiveness,
I need not your liveness;

For you’ll always be,
Right here, in my heart;

I woke up, to find you gone,
For EVER in your zone..

I need not repent,
For I have your scent;

Your memories alive,
Shall always thrive;

You were one of a kind,
Never out of your mind;

It is not cowardice,
For it requires courage;

It shall not be despised,
For it was your suffrage..

It’s easy to see what others see,
Just look into a mirror.
Except when my eyes approach the glass
And a trembling hand moves hair out of a face
That belongs to a me that isn’t there,
When I feel the clench of teeth that aren’t mine
Baring a terrified, threatened smile,
The lungs of someone else threatening collapse
Like a tower of rose coloured glasses,  
A facade so beautifully crafted that upon its creation
It was given the wrong name.

I look into that mirror and only when the eyes,
The bars of the prison my soul desperately claws at,
Meet my mind do I truly see the person who is there,
The man who grew so safe in complacency
That he refused to question what it meant
To be anything other than what
His body told him.

There’s comfort in conformity,
Especially when the character is curated in such a way
Where no one's the wiser.
A costume so extravagant that even the mind gets swept away
By the splendors of dissociation because surely,
Surely this body belongs to this character
That was so painstakingly molded
By the roles and rehearsals presented to it, surely
The discomfort it feels with these mounds of flesh that hide the lungs
Is not because they shouldn’t be there, but because
They are making it so much easier to play the part
Of the one that isn’t me.

Surely I feel guilty and complicit when I speak because I am fooling everyone,
Fooling, Deceiving, Making it so incredibly easy to see
Someone who just isn’t nor has ever been there.
Even Myself, for 22 years.
For 22 years I’ve let myself take on a role rather than actually stop and think
That maybe I am not a girl who likes dolls,
Who likes dancing and dresses and lover’s confessions
And wrestling and writing and eating and lighting
Up the entire room when I laugh, No,
Maybe that was the rough draft of a character that was meant
To be played by a man.
Maybe, just maybe, it was a boy doing these things.
And when that name was crossed out and replaced
While the critics walked out and looked down with disgrace,
The boy in a dress with his chest all in lace
Finally let out the breath he was holding
For 22 years.

The mirror still lies on occasion to others,
But to me, I look and see past this body,
Past the hair and the chest and the shortness of breath
From the noose of conformity around my neck,
And I see the man that god made me.
And while I want so badly to be seen by the masses,
How I want to shatter their rose coloured glasses
So they see the waves of purple and blue that adorn me.
How I want the people who have scorned me
To say I didn’t delve from the scriptwriter’s plan,
It just took them awhile to see I was a man.

I know it will never happen.
That even as the curtain falls, no matter the costume or lack thereof,
They will only see the girl that isn’t there.
And maybe I will take this facade to my grave but as I return
To the one who truly made me,
He will say ‘welcome home, my son.
Your performance as her, it’s finally done.’

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒
𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓,
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑵𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑛𝑑,
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑦 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛.

𝐼 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟,
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝,
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑.

𝐿𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝐼 𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓.
𝐴𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑓 𝐼'𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛
𝐼𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝐼 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑡𝑜.

𝐿𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑵𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓.
𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑠
𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑠,
𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠.

𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠,
𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑎𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑠ℎ.
𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑘 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓,
𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼'𝑚 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑑𝑜.

𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑫𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓,
𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒'𝑠 𝑛𝑜 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑒,
𝐿𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛.
𝐵𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝐼 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑛.

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝑰 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.

i once wished i was made of
sharp hipbones and tainted glass,
that my wrists were tiny fragile things,
with fingers that looked like spider legs
covered in too large rings.

no one told me how much it hurt.

i once wished i was made of
cigarette smoke and black coffee.
that my body could look like a model in a magazine.

no one told me how much it hurt.

i once wished i was made of
sugar free jello and *****,
so that my body could be small and dainty-
with a hunger that could only be quenched
by photographs of unknown girls i envied.

no one told me how much it hurt.

i once wished i was made of
rotten flesh and bone,
if i couldn't be small-
i had no worth at all.

no one told me how much it hurt.

i wish i had said no to you
i think about it all the time

i can’t let [ it ] go
i wish i could forget
( if i don’t think about it, it won’t hurt.. right? )

i swear i had said no to you
maybe you just didn’t wanna hear it

i can still feel your hands on me
i wish i had made you listen
( pretending something didn’t happen doesn’t make it so )

i took pills instead of chances
i thought i was healed
but this is only the beginning

there’s no failing
it’s a process
slow progress is still progress

forgive yourself
keep going
keep g r o w i n g

hurt as long as you need to
hurt as LOUD as you need to

miles away
i’m feeling F a r  A w a y…
i see myself and i just float (t)here
waiting to wake up from this fog

things are hazy
curse that **** juice
what happened exactly?
the words are heavy on my tongue…

can’t get myself to spit them out
can’t get myself to speak the truth
can’t get myself to admit what you did to me

out of character behavior
out of body experience

oh
you don’t remember
oh
i’m sorry i’m holding onto things you forgot all about

i tried to use you as an antidepressant
you just used me
i should have left my feelings for you at the door

i wish i had said no to you
i wish i had been given the choice

i’ve got to let it go (but when? and how?)
if i don’t think about it, it won’t hurt.. right?
gotta focus on someday cuz today hurts a little too much

i wish i could stop thinking about this
i wish i could forget you
i wish you could understand that i don’t hate you
i just wish i’d never met you

i can count the number of times
i felt like killing myself
on both my hands, feet,
on all of my bones with my eyes shut.
i could tell you details,
how, when, why,
but change my answer each time-
i could count those times on both hands.

i could tell you of the days i think of
fireflies in the summer
and snowfall in january,
how both disappear after time,
yet i can remember the images
so clearly, so vividly.
i could count those times on both hands.

if you asked me to share
the number of times i felt like killing myself
you’d be waiting for months, years even.
maybe sooner,
as you might be reading my note,
with them all included.