turning twenty once with grace
shoveling teen years out of space
tears slipping down my face
ive never been so unsure of my place

drunk and crying alone
family’s in home
did i make you cry
i’ll always wonder why
tho i told you to disown
you still pick up the phone

lights pass through windows lit by broken bulbs and held by failing foam
moving at miles per whoever knows trying to get home
underground where you can’t hear the rain know the sun shines even on a darkened train
come up from the tunnels where light only flashes in funnels

i can’t say i miss the heat
never really been one to sweat and forget
i just miss the beat
ac’s broke and life’s joke let the breeze in
swelter summer sun burn kisses into brown skin

on the way i say
   oh see i spy with my little eye
   a cure for what’s eating me
once more gone back
    same billboard in tact you see
    what is a cure for ptsd

oh what a beautiful time to be dead it is
to walk amongst the theatrics of absurdity
to deep inhale four counts for nothing
when none of your bloods still pumping.
     oh, please!
start my stilled heart before my brain fa
                                                                    lls apart.
i can’t help but think what a lovely night it is
to lay here inside a body just coffin-sized
to exhale eight beats before you’ve forgotten
what a beautiful time it is to be rotten.
      so please
take my brain ap
                             art before they start my heart.

oh brother, holy mother
take my hand and bring it asunder
hold me after morning light
take in shoulders, make me smother
choke me deep into the night

i say you don’t know me
so you parrot back too many back and forths to count
you have this favorite and i have one different
you remember this one time and i remember another
you have these few problems and i’ve worked through them prior
but you don’t watch when my eyes are closed
or when i’m turned away in imagined solitude
you know things, moments, memories
about me but you don’t know me
you’ve never cared enough to know me
and i know this cause i know you
and i’ve been you and i love you and i want you dead

is a walking contradiction not a contradiction of himself
if i wake up in the morning more tired than before sleep did i rest or just close my eyes
if i’m having the time of my life whilst also the worst sense of what else is going wrong did i feel or just watch it float by
if i’m alive and numb am i really still breathing
i am this walking contradiction you cower from
close you eyes and face the sun
but watch as it rises and sets

i’m so happy i wave at myself in the mirror in wonder
i wonder when the bags underneath my eyes began to look so heavy they might rip
i wonder why my wrists and elbows look so fragile surrounded by my own fingertips
i wonder where all my sadness has gone to im so happy
im so happy my sadness has taken root in other parts of my body
my brain so overcome by happiness all other emotions take a back seat to it
but i can feel my own ailments crawling and climbing their way under my skin and through my veins
limbs grow heavier day by day as wrists grow smaller and smaller
while joints get stiffer second by second taunting my attempts to move
i’m so happy my sadness is practically stuck gum on the bottom of someone else’s shoe
so happy my sad becomes someone else’s problem
one i can always look back and check on and choose to forget
i’m so happy i’m sad
i remember songs of sweet sorrow and sob silently
when was the last time my sorrow ceased before tomorrow

light another bowl and then run away
smoke a little more become my sweet escape
i think if i could i would be gone all day
sit down, stand up, pass out, wake up
i do it all the same

green leaves sporting brown rings
followed by the last breath of summer breeze
one by one the boots come out at night
and sleeves come into sight

there is no intricate ritual just the touching of flesh
tension torn down by tips of tongues, lips, and lungs
the way men touch far from simple yet too at ease for intricacy
are we practiced in pretending or have we become masters of intimacy

body to chin
fingers to strings
toe to floor he plays
and then he plays some more
right up til they close the door.
for when they close the door he plays no more.

there’s a moment when the train stops
take a look to watch it settle: see it breathe.
see life push and pull at inanimate objects
breathe alongside it: match its exhale.

there’ll be a moment when my heart stops
take the time to watch it stutter: feel it stop.
see life beat and bang against rusted ribs
stop alongside it: cherish is ending.

weightless and alone in a darkened room i close my eyes to realize the colors painting the corridors of my consciousness
dandelion and clementine climb up the doorway dragging daylight along with them as i sit within my own silence
it’s almost like a life sentence, the time spent in self enforced solitude
every breath choked back by stuttered sobs
every movement interrupted by wiping of waterworks
every second stalled by feigned forevers
but there’s sage and emerald breaching the back wall just barely breaking into my eye-line
green glimpses into greater times grabbing my attention mid-thought
it’s moments like these i forget color theory as if i haven’t stared at a color wheel until it spun
green grows grey
orange goes away
and night turns to day like clockwork eternally moving counterwise

blank billboards on the side of the highway
i go home to a place i’ll probably forget
the only time i see your face it’s in blank space
forever frozen in time
memories become memorials
screens replace faces
and i am caught between missing these moments
and longing for your looks in life

i forgot how much i enjoyed seeing life stay silent
still as i watch from above.
trees brush past the windows reaching for life
eyes trained on one spot forever changing.
on the other side of these panes of glass life is loud
quivering along with heartbeats of plenty
breath pushes past all kinds of lips and it’s finding life stilled only long enough to be taken in.

when we die i hope they put our coffins together
preferably an arms length away
i want to reach for you still when it’s all over
so place our hells side by side
when i go i want to go as i lived
by your side with your hand holding mine

i don’t recall becoming my own mother
not quite sure when i began to bandage my bleeds
and make sure i break down where nobody sees.

i just want to be held in the arms of my mother
almost need her arms around my slouched shoulders
holding me up between shoulder blades.

i remember always getting hit by my own mother
loving faces became toxic embraces and she touched down harder every time i fought her.

i wish i knew why i always have to help my mother
guide her through the gutter and back to another
god i miss having a mother

we are tearing down the walls between childhood and the rest of our lives and i fear we’re ill prepared.

i can feel the residual innocence of unbridled emotion underneath the label of immaturity resting atop you ribs and i am sorry.
i’m sorry we took you for granted,
sorry you’re sick of finding yourself,
sorry that sorry feels empty.
i know you’re waiting for the day it makes you whole.

we’re all trying so hard to be good people we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a person.

i can see you filing away your feelings in false order so not even you can find them and i fear all this filing doesn’t equate to functioning and i’m sorry.
i’m sorry we aren’t your people,
sorry that ignorance is your bliss,
sorry that no one really knows you.
i know you’re trying to teach us in a way we’ll learn.

we are caught in the throes of change and tossing out the parts of us we need touched.

i can hear the ways in which you throw your thoughts aside for someone who refuses to acknowledge they notice you and i am sorry.
i’m sorry we can’t make up for it,
sorry this is the thing you need,
sorry you aren’t being seen.
i know all you want is to be the one looked back at.

we are winging our way through a new world full of wonders and wandering through ourselves.

i know hard i worked my whole life for something for it to become the thing that’s made me worse and i think i am sorry.
i’m sorry it’s not getting better,
sorry i put my faith in a falsehood,
sorry the illness isn’t situational.
i know how i wanted it to not all be on me.

i am sitting in a building i wish was on fire
me sitting still trapped inside it
not wishing for anyone to find me just
hoping i pass out before my insides start boiling

i am in class with a man i hope would choke
eyes locked with mine
i don’t want him to die just understand
what the vice these assignments have around me

when drawing with silver that paints your skin red
proper preparation prevents poor performance

barn doors broken from where the wind once bashed,

there used to be love and light and life pouring from those doors.

locked inside the stalls next to sunken straw,

there were ideas and innocence untouched by outside forces.

the red is weathered and the white peeling but

behind those paint fractures lies a life to be remembered.

one call is all it takes for catastrophe to come crashing through,

bashing and breaking the last vestiges of hope held inside a heart.

just one final click and a walk to a barn boarded up and beloved.

its life never to be lived again,

its laughter drowned out by dread,

its love held inside by broken doors and aging boards,

but the light kept inside it continues to shine through the night.

creeping between cracks of paint and climbing through piled up straw.

it stays lit in its remembrance.

To transition is to attend your own funeral time and time again in hopes of allowing yourself the delicacy of being truly known
Identity becomes a public affair and day to day life reads like a eulogy
Imagine you are the corpse, the coffin, and the church your body rests in
You haven't lost yourself just, killed that version and put her inside a box for only her dearly beloved to see
You now become the house in which they’re prepping her body for eternal sleep
You are the final destination
The one stop shop for little girls who become boys overnight
I became him over night and the next morning i wrote her eulogy
Its been almost five years since girl became boy and i am still giving her eulogy
I am speaking of a little girl to people that only know the grown man she died to be and i am so incredibly tired of doing so
I see family and the remnants of the little girl i was believed to be and i am forced to take part in their mourning
Every day feels like the day after you lose someone you loved
There are bits and pieces of her around my house, and my mind, and even my body but she is gone
She has been gone for almost five years and i am still attending her funeral
There is no longer a corpse, coffin, and church just a man her memories rest in
I am the man her memories rest in yet i put her to rest long ago
I need the world to do the same, for my dearly beloved to do the same
For we are gathered here today not to mourn the loss of a daughter, a sister, or niece
We are here to celebrate the gaining of a son, a brother, and a nephew
I am celebrating the birth of me and giving her eulogy in the same breath and i am tired of doing so
See i am left carrying the grief of a person who still exists
I exist
Changed but still present, still breathing
There never was a corpse, a coffin, or a church
There was only ever me, my body, and the world around me

there’s a rush of something to my mind that drags it’s calming palms down the back of my brain.
now i can hear the rushing of blood in and out of my aorta warming up on my cardiovascular walls.
this is what summer suns leaving final kisses to foreheads before a cool moonlight makes way.
something kind of like end of autumn when leaves transition to dust and dusk feels like the first brushes of winter winds.
i am dragging cool, calm, collected, metal across
hot, heavy, hesitant flesh and i feel
nothing until blood starts pumping and then i feel
this unabashed bliss and this unbearable shame.
it’s akin to knowing without having the knowledge the way i crave a humiliating high.

i keep watching my head get blown off in living color
sitting on a bench in 42 degree weather and across the platform there’s me
head firmly attached to neck
neck firmly attached to shoulders
and a resounding boom.
the train rushes by and i’m gone and back on this side of the platform there’s me
head firmly attached to neck
neck fully attached to shoulders
and a ring building in my ears.
i keep watching my head get blown off in black white
in the middle of the night and under the covers
i am shaking
head attached to neck
and neck to shoulder but i am shaking because
i keep watching my head get blown off

life gets clear when the wind gets cold
it’s biting really
nipping at every nose and
noise and noose maybe
i’m attracting an autumn depression maybe
maybe heart misses home tonight
it’s two in the morning and
i’m not asleep and
the seasons are shifting so
the fan is unplugged and unused and
my thoughts are weighted and worthless

i wish you good luck and a cup of tea
and maybe that you’d think of me
in the morning between that chicago breeze
you’ve become so fond of.
i wish you warmth and a warm pastry
in hopes that you stay sweet after 9am classes
and glasses that refuse to sit still on your nose.
i wish you love and a bowl of soup
so that you’d give me the inside scoop
on the perils of higher education and
one of those end of the day smiles.
but for now i wish you rest and glass of milk.

air at a standstill
sounds echoing
and breathing still as
melancholy brushes my shoulders and settles inside my chest
this is someone else’s life
my life is
the stench of marijuana on the weekends
we’re sitting closer than needed on massive couches
and each smiles is a rush
because i’m these moments there’s just us and
happiness has made its home in our flesh

i’m unplugging the month old box fan for the first time since i moved in
september 22nd the first day of fall and im excited i was made for the slight breeze of the morning and the warmth right before the setting sun
but like i said i’m unplugging the month old box fan since i took it out of its box when i moved into mine
august 29th a midwestern summers peak when i truck back into the alley of a save a lot and the empty room i moved into
it doesn’t really matter though cause it’s two in the morning of the morning after i shoved the first box fan i ever bought myself under the last bed my mother would ever force upon me and i’m getting upset about the rate at which the world keeps turning
so maybe i’m sad because i haven’t seen my friends since i saw my broken box fan i had for four high school summers and didn’t have to purchase with my own barista money and i miss the way we’d understand the nonsense and sit too close together
but it doesn’t matter cause yesterday way september 22nd. the first day of fall and i was excited and i am excited because i’m unplugging that month old box fan that drowns the quiet in an empty room alone at 2 in the morning

sitting at the edge of the water where the moonlight floats across an unstable surface. tonight we’re all glowing black, and blue, and maybe purple too just sitting at the edge of teal colored turbulence and rusted barriers.
bass pumping through the concrete to the patter of wind borne waves. forces beyond our grasp become visible on these last summer nights and we have our sights set on becoming someone in this city.
there’s a boat sailing across this sea and there’s me in the middle of you and maybe i can understand why they say to stop and smell the roses red and the see the ocean blue as we sit on the edge of the water: moonlight just skimming the surface.

two red pills to cure a cold and the chill of fall
wading through the apartment
pants go on one leg at a time and it’s easier if you ignore the jeans that mean you have a shift later
two slices of toast like grandma used to make and maybe some tea with too much sugar
down three flights of stairs to go see the train you take leave the station above you

there are lighting bugs dying atop my fridge
and shoes i don’t recognize by the door
the other day my sister looked through me as one looks through air
and so i pause
and try to rewind
to pinpoint when i became the stranger mom let’s into the living room

i am standing in the fountain of eternal youth
and i have never felt more like me in my entire life
this 18 year grown body seems to pair well with the mine of an oldest child grown too soon
man i am standing in this eternity finally grasping what it is to be youthful to cater to my inner child
gone are days spent wondering where i might end up once i brave the world on my own
i am now my own and the world is mine to wander

Should i compare me to another’s form
Use their appearance as mine own blueprint
Mold my body into one else’s norm.
Could i oust myself to fit their imprint
And force myself to become but a hint
Of the man I once thought myself to be.
If i were to lose my personal tint
Would my life then lose authenticity?

Instead I compare my body to me.
Forget old models, I am the new first.
Born not of man but mine audacity,
Forged in mine own mind I arose headfirst.
The brightest rebirth to date I became
Someone wholly new and not just in name.

i practice putting patterns in my poetry
i know you can hear them popping
and pushing through parted lips.
starting and stopping and starting again
trying to take trash and make it treasure.

she never beat me black and blue
just made sure i knew discipline
was the back of her hand, the width
of a belt, a smirk on her face as if
she became a righteous being when
her palm turned my cheek.

my tears turn into to holy water
burning their way down swollen cheeks
she doesn't like it when i cry says
shining eyes are a sign of selfishness, says
i should be your everything, i give you
everything, why can't you give me peace?

grasp at the air, try and
clutch the body the mind forgot.
feel the chill of empty air beneath
spread fingers reaching
for someone no longer there. keep
reaching for a familiar body and find
foreign instead. find
newness where old curves sat, see
harsh lines where bare arms used to lay, feel
that foreign body. commit it
to memory. remember
where old flesh resurrected, where
he left one body not to migrate
to another but to rebuild, and
remake, and recycle, and become
something new. how he became
someone only he knew.

as i untie trapped tongues
and undo knotted nerves
your smile slips unto lost lips
and words wake inside your throat.

when those words walk the path
from your mouth to my eager ears
know how i crave creation
that comes from tied tongues.

there's a monster in my closet
he's been there as long as i've breathed
he has moved where ive moved and seen what i've seen
there is a monster in my closet that looks just like me
he moves how i move and sees what i see

i feel like a narcissist.
like i've met jesus and told him
wash my feet, make my supper,
sacrifice me for your sins,
and call it divine intervention.

i met god only to tell him i've stopped believing.
walked up to his gates with my own key
to denounce sinners and saints
for i know humanity to be both
and neither all at once

see i feel like a narcissist.
not one born from man and his ribs creation
but something else - someone else entirely.
i do not follow any lords blueprints
i draft my own and title them the First.
adam and eve be ******
i am a new type of human
for i know my sins intimately
and shall sow them into a new garden
to know well the fruits of my labor.

i miss reading and the enjoyment that stemmed from seeing the world through other people's words
the library used to be my favorite place and books were my sole escape but lately i can't bring myself to read
it's as if all those years never lifting my nose from a book is catching up with me and i don't know how to slow down and fix it

i have a list of books i would like to read or that other people would like me to read
and i feel guilty everytime i look at it
it'd be great if i read something off it but im scared it won't feel the same as it did when I needed an escape from reality
feels stulid when i say it out loud but when i was a kid i needed books and the worlds they provided
and now not so much

it's not like the love i had for literature has just disappeared i know it's still there
it's just stored away for a rainy day when my brain again fails to process the fast paced world around me and reality again becomes suffocating

until then I'll try to write my own stories onto blue lines and blank screens and hope that's enough to keep myself from falling into dark times
I'll write stories real and fake to remind myself it's okay to take up space and live in the real world

If my life were a movie it would be one of those films that gets hyped up to no end because I’m one of those kids with the rough childhood who just wants to make it
When in reality it’s just a less action packed but just as dark dc movie
My story has also been confused with a marvel movie since the protagonist is me
And i can't help but cut my overbearing traumatic tragedies with self deprecating comedies

But my life to me feels more like an edgar wright movie where the action isn’t as exciting as The fact that I was able to get out of bed this morning
And my day to day reality will forever feel like a motion blur of edited out negative emotion
I think Maybe my life could be a wes anderson movie stuck in one color palette for the rest of my eternity
And my maturity tends to overwhelm me
my journey is like an anderson movie because i tend to create a world around me
Taking time to shape my own protected reality so that the outside world can’t hurt inside me

If im being honest though i want my life to be a spielberg movie that grabs attention of all ages coming from all sorts of places
I want to spin my truths into his fantastic fantasies where no one equates my past with me
But at the same time I want my life to be a blast from the past john hughes movie where i find a way to stop my past from haunting me
And everything ends up okay at the end of the day because my minds overbearing insecurities
No longer have control over me

Now i see that in actuality other peoples movies are just too much for who i truly want to be and how my trauma impacts me
I mean between my all of those boring biographies and my abundance of favorite movies
I’d want my life’s movie to be full of images depicting my fondest memories and all my angsty gen z tendencies
If my life were a movie i’d make it about how I am, or was, or am going to be
If my life were a movie I’d make it about me

Its march 20th 5:30 in the morning
And i wake up to the sound of my overbearing self-deprecation
Ringing through the front of my frontal lobe
They grow louder and louder as i begin to look down at a body
I wish didn't belong to me
Soon but not soon enough i'll pry away my eyes and try not to cry
Over the size of my chest or my voice that’s two octaves too high
I’ll blink back the tears out of fear that somehow someone would see
I’ll simply shut my eyes tight and hope that I’ll vanish from the worlds sight

It’s march 20th 6:00 in the morning and my school alarm finally sounds
Under that blaring beat i begin to hear a voice softly speaking
Its careful cadence reminds me to remember my binder
The voice begins to grow louder and louder every second
It’s sound set on letting me know why i need to know what i can’t show,
Can’t say, and can’t
So I’ll suffer while I squeeze into the single thing sure
To ensure that all my efforts will mean something at end of the day
The voice quieting as I struggle to breathe deeply

Its march 20th 6:30 in the morning and my 2nd alarm starts ringing
I’m exhausted and the secondary alarms in my brain are bringing me
Boxes of commentary carefully sorted under the names of each insecurity
As i toss myself toward my phone to turn off my phone's alarm
I want to scream at the sounds of shouts in my head
I know deep in my heart that I soon have to part with the comfort of my bed,
Deal with the alarms in my head, and go
Even though all I want is to stay surrounded by the soft safety of this comforter

I get up to get dressed and as i look into my closet
Full of things I may not want to wear but I have to
my thoughts race to remind me that that plain black tee
I wore three days last week needs to be washed and even if
I was still clean people can see the curve of my chest and the rest I don’t want to be seen
So i’ll reach for that black button up and another thought reminds me
That the pattern doesn’t quite distract the eye enough to not need
A jacket today

i turn to check the time and feelings of fear fill my brain
And see it reads 5 minutes to 7 o'clock and i havent started the walk to the bus stop
In a rush ill grab that huge hoodie i know is two sizes too big
And yank it on in hopes that hides every part I wish to shed
Since they’re what sets off those daily alarms in my head
Then i’ll rush to the bus and hope the day will disarm my dysphoria
So the bells in my head stop sounding and shouting
Throughout the depths of my mind

this isn't how I was supposed to be
I was supposed to stay innocent
but now I just stay quiet
for the words my mind whispers
have stolen the shreds of innocence
I once called my own
the childhood I held so closely
slipped through my hands
and I stopped trying to hold on to it

I'm not who I was born to be
at least not to her
the child she was supposed to raise
has disappeared and with that
has disappointed and ******* up
but who she thought I was born to be
will never be who I am
so she'll have to settle for disappointment

why am i to spend 12 years of my life
learning the same history 12 ways
each year getting more into depth
about how straight, white, and cis,
"all" of history just happens to be
when in reality anything that was ever
deemed abnormal or harmful to america's image
just doesn't get taught.

all these years of being sheltered from the truth
about america the great
has left me with questions i'm scared will go unanswered
and so

I'd like to know which group of old white men
decided erasing history was a good idea
If i'm stuck learning about these so called achievements and revolutions which only came from the self proclaimed superiors
i'd like to know whose idea it was to forget about
The whips cracked in to bleeding black skin
Making it known that my ancestors were no more than a tool
No more than what white men, white masters made them in to
No more than a slave until 1865

I want to know who made it possible for my history teacher to ask me what my opinion on slavery is since i’m the only black kid in sight
When will they teach me why it’s okay for the 20 white kids in my class
To call me their ***** but it’s not okay for me to get mad about it

Please tell me how these people figured out
who all they should kindly choose to silence?
maybe they thought it's too much to cover in class
Since we have to have time to be taught about manifest destiny
And how Americans had every right to take land and lives
Because white men deserve to take what doesn’t belong to them
or maybe it's been deemed inappropriate
because they're too scared to admit
That America would rather hose down black kids
waiting for our skin to become clear and
praying for our melanin to wash off just so they would stop having to look at the skin they deemed sinful
than admit that America loves to make black people fearful.

When are we taught about who chose to write about all of
america's triumphs and good times but
somehow seemed to forget about the scars passed on to me from over 100 years ago
But didn’t know i had until i was ten years old.
And honestly that no longer surprises me i mean
America only speaks of cishet white guys.
and I bet you didn't know about very first gay pride.
It was a series of riots started because America decided
Loving who you want makes you unequal
And the only way to fix that is using force that’s lethal
Force that would leave lovers lives laying in the street like the never even lived
Force that led to June 28th through July 1st becoming riots that didn’t need to happen but the police couldn’t keep their privileged fingers off of gay people
But it’s fine because ignoring that part of history has become an American steeple.

At this point I know all the answers to every test asking about the history you feed us
In attempts to hide the truths of this country that wishes it never freed us
so stop teaching me the same
cis, straight, white history I've already
been taught 10 going on 11 years of my life
because i don't care about the men who wanted to keep my ancestors bound
Or the country that keeps trying to tell me that my love isn’t allowed
i care about the history they'll continue to ignore and erase.
i care about the history America begs me to forget.

this feeling is of a pendulum swinging
side                           to                         side
as if it cannot seem to make up it's mind.
the feeling tends to contradict itself by                                  

dreaming of
self discovery                  
                                       and longing for
                                       self destruction.

thought of not understanding it's truth
has been locked up in the             back
simply because never knowing why is
                                                                    .
                                                                            
                                                                     .
                                                                              
                                                                      .