Whoever my future lover is,
Know that I will not like you.
At all.
Never ever never
Ever.
I will never like you.
Like is so bland of a word as to simply disappear in
What will be the splendor of
Shared lives and hearts.
I don't care about the words used
To define our relationship, all
I want is to know you.
I want to share our secrets at 3 am over a crackly phone connection,
When only whispered "I love you"s hold together our
Vulnerable hearts as one.
I want to memorize how your eyes
Crinkle up when you laugh and I need you
To see the way my lips turn down and my eyes go dark when I'm not looking at you
And when my heart goes
Thump-thump-thump in the middle of the night
I want your cool hand on my forehead.
I want us to lay together in a dim hotel room and
Kiss quietly as we shyly reveal our worries and shame to each other.
I need you to be gentle, not because it's my
First time but because I'm not sure I'm ready to be loved and
I need you to find the hope in my skin when you trace my scars and
I want to hold you close and tell you how much you save me.
Let your hands wander and
I will answer your gaze with a mouth parted in an
Itch to fit my lips to yours.
Whisper your moans that I know come from your heart when I send
My soul drifting over your hips.
Let me love you
Let yourself love me
Coupled by shared heartstrings on a summer night, watching the moon.
Whoever my partner is,
I will not like you.
I want to find traces of your heart in your collarbones and
Search out your soul between your ribs and
Kiss you like your lips are the oxygen keeping me alive even as we gasp for air and
We will be each a temple for each other's hands to worship
And we will love deeper than our
Skin pressed together and
We will live fuller than pounding hearts and bodies twined together and
We will love more than the sun and the moon together
Just because we can.

Take a moment
and look at your hands.
look at the lines
more creases and folds than a dismantled paper airplane
you can look into hands and see the future
those creases read like a map
and in the distance between your fingers lies a novel.
With fingers intertwined you can pray
and you can love.
you can beckon melodies from the belly of pianos
and scrawl poetry on shredded napkins
you can punch and scratch and fight
you can revolt
you can deliver Shakespeare
you can place blame
and you can nurture
you can wave hello
and you can wave goodbye
but remember they are the same motion
wiggle your fingers
count them
10
a perfect round number
take a look at the miraculous work of art at the end of your wrists
put them to use
embrace
high five
fist bump
use them to make art
dance
music
fight injustice
celebrate your victories
and help those around you.
with those two hands and ten fingers
the world is yours.

take a moment and look at your hands
and notice how you don't need a mirror to see yourself.

I am Christian. I believe in the
Trinity of the Holy God, The Son, and The Spirit,
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of mankind
I own more than three Bibles
I teach Sunday School every week and
I pray every night.
I am Christian,
And as such I
Hate queer....

Phobia. I can not stand intolerance
And I cry at hatred,
Blood running in the streets,
Fear running in veins,
Running away from the truth.
I am Christian, yet
There are bloodstains in my Bible
And the prayers on my lips
Are for forgiveness for who I am.
The entire story of ***** is
Crossed out, blacked out angrily
In the dead of night
In all 4 versions,
Leviticus is blurred,
Wrinkled with my tears,
Soaked with my pain.
I am Christian
And I am not homophobic.
I know my church won't recognize
Non cis-het marriages,
Leaving entire worlds of rainbows in the dark
The higher-ups insist
Weddings are white, shiny, husband-and-wife, happily-ever-after affairs
That shove me and my friends, my  family, my lovers,
Into closets of heavenly wrath and
Fire and brimstone sermons,
Locked into personal hells of shame
And confusion.
I am Christian
And I am not straight.
My God doesn't hate me for who I love,
He loves me because I try not to hate.
So to the homophobic Christians, I ask:
Who is your God?
Who is your God that supposedly condemns people He has created in his own image?
Your rainbow picket signs are nothing but a cruel mockery of a covenant
Not truly shared by you.
Your tongues are no better than the viper's who called Adam and Eve to sin,
You are the vipers of my world.
Do you think you avoid judgement
When trans teens are killed
By the bullets you spit with your words?
Who is your God,
That tells you to picket the funerals
Of those you hate?
Who is your God,
That refuses to let you open your heart to differentness?
I am Christian,
And I don't need your permission to
Love my God.
Take my scars and tear-stained Bibles,
Listen to my fervent prayers,
Watch my lips tremble when
I listen to my pastor.
I don't need your permission
To love who I want,
In fact I don't want it.
Take my midnight screaming and fear of coming out,
Listen to my frantic pleading for a hand to hold,
Watch my eyes linger on her chest.
I am Christian.
My God doesn't hate me for who I love,
He hates you who refuse to love
While you carry His name, if
Not his blessing.
So I ask again
Who is your God?
Because mine loves all of me,
All 5'6" of queer pride.
Who is your God?

Sometimes i wish i was a silkworm
so that i could weave something beautiful
out of nothingness
and wrap myself up when i feel lonely
or scared.
Sometimes i want
oh so badly
to feel a lover's hand in my hair
just give me a sign
two tugs so i know you're there
i just want to make sure.
I am like a silkworm
because the thread i hang from
is so fine and fragile
but when woven together with more
we are strong.
I'm so scared that without you
I'll snap
I'll fall.
Hell, maybe i'll even cut myself down
and just walk away
unscathed.
unscathed?
i think not.
life is far too ******* us
to leave anyone unscathed.
from the moment we emerge into this world
the weight starts to set in
that's why babies cry so **** much
that's why i used to care so much
but what's the use.
once everything's gone to ****
you might as well enjoy
dangling
and watching the chaos ensue.
we are all ruined
we are all so broken
and ******
and that what makes it nice.
we are all ruined together
we've woven a fine tapestry of disaster
we spin destruction.
the destruction of innocence
the destruction of silence
the destruction of perfectly good bonfires
but that's what makes it nice.
We weave a web of bad choices
we like to pretend that we are spiders
we like to pretend that they're afraid of us.
but they still hold on to the illusion of calm
they think they can control us
conform us
or destroy us
and we play along because it's easiest that way
they can see us
and they are seeing a lie
because we are too cowardly to show them the inside
to spill our guts in the name of honesty
and confess our sins
to cut our silkworm threads
and trade our saturday nights
for shackles
because we are tangled up
in a spider web of lies
but it's nice
and i like feeling invisible sometimes
it helps ease your worries
if no one can place the blame
because it's not easy to find
someone so perfectly wrapped up
in a silkworm thread cocoon:
the only thing that holds me together.
i'm happy to be falling apart
i'm so happy to be dangling.
But sometimes i need you to give me a sign
two tugs on my silkworm thread
to let me know you're here
and i'll cut myself down
so beautifully ruined.

The parasympathetic nervous system
is responsible for regulations
unconsciously transpiring
within the organs and
the glands of
the body.
Such as:
urination, salivation, digestion, defecation, and
lacrimation
(noun. ‘the flow of tears’. Latin.
from lacrimare (‘weep’) and lacrima (‘tear’).
It’s why I cry
even when I don’t want to.
You are the parasympathetic nervous system.

The (ortho-)sympathetic nervous system
is responsible for the mobilization
of the fight-or-flight response
and constantly maintaining
homeostasis within
the body.
It acts
rapidly, enacting an attempt at stability and
the necessary and critical ability
to suddenly escape
on pulsing legs or
cling to survival through
brandishing adrenaline-doused knuckles
and dilated pupils.
It’s why you live
even when you don’t want to.
I am the sympathetic nervous system.

The parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
are two of three essential nervous systems which
compose the autonomic nervous system
(a part of the peripheral
nervous system)
that manages
involuntary
functions of the body. Such as:
swallowing, perspiration, arousal, breathing, and
heart rate
(noun. ‘the speed of the heartbeat’.
usually expressed in beats per minute. mine speeds up when I see you).
Individually these two systems oppose
but compliment
each other like our hands do—
pressed together and omitting equal force;
veins meeting
at the fingertips and throbbing at the wrists
but running amuck on our respective digits otherwise.
You are the invariable and unspoken reminder to
breath,
love,
sweat,
and live.
I am the sudden snap of reality always aiming to save you
but grudgingly willing to fight you and
ready
to
leave.

From the deepest lower half of my brainstem
and from every nerve
in my cycling body,
I’m sorry.
From all of my chromaffin cells
and from the truest parts of submandibular ganglian,

I am sorry.

The world is flat, a calendar picture,
Picture-perfect,
Afraid of being crumpled by the hand of a God and
Used to shoot trash can-basketball baskets
In a small, lonely bedroom where the only one keeping score is the
Parakeet statue perched on the broken clock, staring.
It's always 2 o'clock.  
2 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon in early November when
The whole world looks like it wants to curl up and cry  
So I curl up and cry for it,
13.6 billion years of tears dripping from green eyes
And a green heart meant for growing flowers and love songs,
Not crow calls and dreams that die in infancy
I float.
Salt water tears lapping around inside my ears
Maybe it will cover up the sound of screaming inside my bones
And the pretty girl swimming in my heart-lake
Laughing and stirring up the cold undertow of my thoughts and when I look at the sky
I see the cloud shadows against the blue,
Blue just a little too dark, little too deep,
Too deep, too dark,
The water beneath me too deep, too dark
I'm drowning and I haven't even left my bed
I wonder if that counts as talent.
Is this what it feels like to go mad?
2 o'clock my hands aren't attached to my body anymore,
They can't be part of me when they dance
Across desk tops looking for scissors and rummage through bathroom drawers to find razors.
That's not my blood in the sink,
It can't be because all my blood is locked up
Inside the red haze behind my anger,
Caught in sharp words like fish in a net,
Not my words but yet they fall from my mouth.
My room contains my screams
As they drip silently from teeth made crooked by too many lies.
The parakeet stares.
It's 2 o'clock but I don't know if it's a new day yet because the sky always looks dark
Outside my windows
So I shut my eyes and don't open the curtains.  
The world is collapsing,
The hands of God pulling down the picture,
Time's up, new calendar page,
I'm left behind,
Lost in the trash can pile of old words
And whispered thoughts.
The sky is too blue,
The water too deep,
I'm drowning.
It's 2 o'clock.