you only clean your wounds
to see if they made the words you wanted them to
SELFISH
USELESS
TOXIC
LIAR
sprawled across your arm in mean print
in bright red letters
and have you ever gone that deep before?
and will they make you go back to the hospital?

On the days that I don't have to wake up at 3:30
I can be found cross-legged in the low light
I do not want the extra sleep
I do not want to waste another second with my eyes closed
I am not so secretly afraid of wasting my life
I can't stand to work this job I hate,
Throwing away 8 hours every day
To survive is not living
And I want to be alive, not just breathing
I want to stop drowning, start swimming
I want to live my life with my eyes open
If I spent the time that I spend at work with my family maybe they wouldn't feel like strangers
I am so disconnected from the world that my loved ones are foreign to me
It's hard to say hello with the exhaustion crushing me, I can't open my mouth to speak, it takes too much energy
But the days I do have free I hold close to me
And the times when I do see my friends I hold close those memories
Tonight I will feel every unstrained breath that passes through my body
Tonight will trickle effortlessly into tomorrow and I will hold its hand as we cross
Awake to see what the sun will bring

sign to me your letters clearly
i keep trip,trip-tripping on words
my dyslexia must be confusing me
i don't know what you said and what i inferred
tell me something honest
bold like our stars used to be
i cannot ask the question
but would you answer it for me?
seal it up and send it
watch the paper airplane fly
as you drink sicksweet nostalgia
as i not to choke on mine

I will pick myself up off the floor
With sharpened teeth
I will shake
It's not exactly "brushing the dust off"
More like a punishment for feeling and acting out and breathing in someone else's space
I have holes in my neck and my back and my heart
Times I have stabbed myself, times others have stabbed me
Times I have thrashed my own body around, locked jaw and sharpened teeth
No one around cares to encourage me
So I have learned to punish me
Though I never seem to stand when I drop myself back on my feet
No one taught me gentle touches
But I know how to use my teeth

you, my love, a universe all your own, stars and impossibilities
you, my sun, with a smile like no other, genuine and glowing
the way your eyes can be a gentle gray, a midday sky, a dark ocean in the low light
from the lightest of freckles that dust your face, star, you are beautiful
it's the way your soul shines right through you
light pouring out your very being like sunday morning blinds
this is the way i see you
in those little idle moments

it strikes me in these lonely hours of night
everything you are
and the burning fear
of how little i am to compare

you and i've been through a lot in such a little time
but if there's one thing you and i know, that's how it goes in life
we've seen things no one should see, been places no one should go
that's how i know we're strong enough to crawl out of this hole
we've been put through wood chippers, we can handle busted knees
i'll hold onto you if you'll hold onto me

I love you
But I guess it doesn't count

We are large chests on large bodies
Bodies like valleys
Bulging hips and shoulders too wide
We still make ourselves small, try to hide
Because we are not the pretty boy flower princes you say we should be
Nor the perfect picture of masculinity
I wore a sparkling Cinderella blue skirt to my senior prom,
Paired with a button down and a bowtie because *******, I'm gonna be me
Even if I cannot shatter in your hands
And there are days when I stare at the mirror for hours wondering why I look so wrong
Why I wasn't born the way I was supposed to be
But **** that, this is my body
I am my definition of man regardless of yours
I am not your Token Trans stereotype
And I do not have to "pass" at anything, my identity is not a test
I do not have to press the air from my lungs every day to be valid to you
*I know who I am
I didn't ask for your point of view

another recovery story
another story about the kid who killed himself
that isn't really about the kid who killed himself
but the things he left in his wake
i hate stories like these
stories about suicide
never quite sit right in my stomach
i think i just want the story
where the kid gets better
where the kid stops hurting
but doesn't just, stop
and it's not some other kid that saves him
some angel who finds it in their golden heart to love the broken boy
but so much love
an all enclosing embrace from the universe around him
from the people he needs and has been reaching for
his friends stop laughing at those jokes and his mother starts to understand that screaming can be so, so quiet
and when he says he doesn't want to be alone
he isn't
and when he says he needs someone to hold him down so he doesn't float away
the world cradles him gently
and when he needs to cry
he can
and it doesn't feel like knives and empty and drowning
and the kid gets better, slowly,
the kid gets better
the kid can get better, right?
if all he wants is for the hurting to stop
can the kid get better?

Pack it all up
Condense life to an old RV
Paint the sides
Redo the interior
Drive and drive and drive
Wherever the job takes us
New place, new project
Live life like a roadtrip
A constant vacation
Have adventure at our fingertips and in our veins
Play every song
Watch every sunrise

Won't you come fly?

Tell me how my eyes look like hot embers when the sun catches them just right
And how they light up when I talk about my latest obsessions
Tell me you love the way i jump across rooftops
Unpredictable
Always an adventure
Sketch a more beautiful portrait of this marred flesh
Like you don't see my scars
Like my extremes aren't deadly
Like you aren't afraid that one day jumping across rooftops will be my literal downfall
Just a simple slip
Always just a simple slip away

Our carbonated hearts beat neon
We tear out into the melting scarlet sky as it spills onto candied clouds
The birdsong resonates within me
All life, all energy, everything
It somehow all leads back to your hand in mine
Our feet echoing bare against the cold pavement
You are the sun that rises to warm the earth
I am moon in waiting
We break the peace with our laughter
We are the morning glory

Someday I hope I get to the point where I can be alone for a full twenty four hours without thick syrup flooding my chest, weighing down my heart
It hasn't been a full day and I can feel the overflow as it climbs higher in my throat and chokes me
I sputter for breath, burrow deep in my blankets, and try to escape the lonely

Tell me how my voice sounds like late night summer laughter
And my smile feels like sunlight kissing your skin
Like I used to
In our golden years, years ago
When you smelled like home and comfort and sleep
And I'll sleep in your hoodie to breathe you in deep
Like nothing ever changed.
Your voice sounds like late night summer laughter
And your smile feels like sunlight kissing my skin
Like you used to
In our golden years, years ago.

when we are finally close enough for you to see them
there will be many things about me that you will inevitably hate:
the way my leg shakes when we are trying to sleep, or trying to cuddle, or trying to watch a movie;
the way i am always moving, always tapping my foot or touching my hair, like a moment of silence and stillness is impossible, like the anxiety that inhabits my brain has branched out to possess my entire body.
you will either love or hate the way emotions come over me like a crashing wave,
rocking back and forth when i am uncomfortable or side to side when i am happy,
waving my arms with excitement, repeating and repeating and repeating myself, or the doorbell, or the passing car, or you.
i am a nonstop wind, a room with multicolored lights blinking to varying unheard rhythms, music in my head that only i can hear, rising and flying and falling and crashing.
you say i could have anyone and i wonder if you have ever spoken to me before,
really spoken to me,
noticed the way i grin when i am sad and laugh when i am angry and cry when i am happy.
you say i could have anyone like you haven't seen me living outside of my body, thoughts somewhere in the stratosphere,
like you haven't seen me thrashing and wailing and bruising my skin.
anticipation to meet you aches my bones but i am so afriad
you will meet me like you've never met me,
blinding sun and pitch black and blaring laughter,
all fidgets and fire alarms;
i am so afraid
you will see me, living caution sign, and run.

i disappear
into drawstring pants
with the drawstrings cut out
and the tee shirt i wore
for two days
before i was brought more clothes

paper shirt paper pants
see through when tight
and bright yellow non-slip socks

if i try
i can easily return to that place
the white lights
the pills in dixie cups
the isolation room with chalkboard walls

i can return
anytime
to that post-attempt numbness
just shuffling along
destination a to destination b
"okay everyone,
it's time for group"

watch the yellow socks move along
forget you're controlling them
forget your feet are within
forget you exist
it's almost peaceful

Melting
Pulsing
I know well enough
It isn't real
Close your eyes
Breathe

i fold my troubles into little envelopes
like fifth grade notes, like childhood secrets
i slip them safe into my back pocket

I experience the world in neon
I stare at the bright, bold colors, mouth open in awe every time I see them as if it's the first
I will fall in love with something new shamelessly every day until the day I die
Play a sweet song and I am ecstatic, I am dancing, I am emanating light and life and joy from my fingertips
Tell me a story with heart and I will hang onto every intricacy, hold close every character
Tomorrow I will be chasing a different star in a different direction
So I may not ever get anywhere, but that's not really the point
I will never run out of things to chase
You may tell me this wonder is immaturity
But one day you will have the light clasped between your palms, escaping through your fingers and you will not feel the warmth and you will not know the beauty
and what then?

I count up the artificial things in my life and cannot stop the sigh that passes my lips as I include myself in the endless list.

after the doctors, the family therapy
there remains a feeling of white walls and sterilized gloves
sterilized gloves, handling me very carefully
they make you wear non-slip socks but you can't have your shoes
you might strangle yourself with the laces
and my pills are all locked up somewhere now where i can't get them
my mother's voice sounds like the hush of tiptoeing feet on too-clean tile floors
they handle me with sterilized gloves and panic when i'm in my room for too long
as if it's abnormal
as if i haven't been known to hide
the echos in the hallways sound different on the other side of the hospital
nervous, uneasy peace and hushed whispers
i am made of glass
but being treated like it feels like standing in drenched clothes
my fingers are pruning up
i have a feeling
this will take a long time to dry

Tell me if it's wrong
Loving you
After everything, after all this time
'Cause I can't help missing the days when you were mine
And talking to you now aches a little bit
Mixed up, uneven nostalgia
I don't understand how my heart swells when I talk to you
After everything, after all this time
Why do I still want you to be
My everything, after all this time?

I am losing you
I never wanted to lose you
I am angry I am scared I and waiting
Waiting waiting for the axe to drop
I am trying to act tough
I am trying not to care
I am trying to brace myself
Cut things off early,
Let's not drag this out any longer
I can't take another drawn-out heartbreak
Wondering over and over if it's okay,
If it's okay to talk to you,
If it's okay to love you anymore

if you find me somewhere along your way, let me know
i think i left me behind somewhere
back on that path, in that past
somewhere between the shopping carts and the street lamp and the long, long drive that lead me here
i'd look to find me, too
but i don't think i've ever seen me before
so i ask you
if you find me somewhere along your way,
let me know

when will my mind stop force feeding me thoughts like poison
like 'im not worth your time'?
when will i mature enough to leave all that behind?
im not sure ill ever ever take a step free of this tether
my mind keeps me ******* here alone
trapped in thoughts, i'm on my own

I had a dream about us last night.
We went to the movies and bickered about snacks,
It was almost like a normal day
Except we were on the bus instead of the backseat of my mom's car
And you could still look at me without disgust in your eyes.

I cannot wax poetic
About the feelings on this flesh
I have no pretty way of wording
The destruction I desire
There's no beautiful way to say
I want to cave in
Until I am barely here
Until I am bone

I am wearing his marks, his sweater but I am not his boy
He tells me without wanting to tell me, he tells me with the collar tucked under my pillow, with his mouth fresh on my skin
And this is not to say he does not love me but he cannot be this
And I am trying trying trying to be okay while my chest busts open, while the bruises feel like burns
I know he doesn't want to hurt me but I feel like scrubbing my memories clean, taking steel wool to the inside of my skull, cleaning up the vulnerability I've shown, scratching it out
My eyes sting, my chest aches like he's gone- he's not, he's right here, it shouldn't matter,
But I adoringly opened a particularly delicate part of my already fragile heart for you, my love
I am not mad I am not angry I swear I am just so hurt I was so scared and I was right, dear, I was right,
I always have been and always will be an overdose of a person, there will always be a part of me too tough to swallow,
Foolishly, I still wanted to give you all of me
And it hurts, it hurts

tell me what i am to you
it doesn't have to be a song, though your voice is lovely
i'm afraid our song is sung and what's said and done is Done
and even though i can't look at you without my heart trying to escape my chest i still don't know
so tell me what i am to you
a lover, a friend, a parasite
just tell me where we stand
you call the shots, i'll bite the bullet
feel the bleeding from the inside
it's easier than the unknown
so tell me what i am to you
i need to know, i need to know

The heavy, dark Lonely sinks into my skin again,
As it always does this time of night.
I don't even try to sleep, I know my thoughts will win the fight.
I'm always kept awake by my overactive mind,
And the ache in my chest gets stronger with the time.
The Lonely manifests in physical pain,
Double-teaming my body and my brain.
I want to spill my ink,
I don't want to rhyme,
I want to break my ukulele's bridge and burn every page of my sketchbooks,
Because no matter how I try to show people my heart
They shrug me aside—
And I know I'm not wondrous at art,
But I could write you a symphony if you'd just let me
Lay my head against your chest and listen to your heart beat.
I'd sing for you forever, at that tempo, about that safety.
I swear to god I'd worship you if you could somehow **** my Lonely.

When I was a kid, I used to pick myself to pieces trying to find the part that was wrong.
I guess I thought it’d stop at some point, but I find myself reflecting on every little thing I’ve ever done,
tracing back the footsteps to where I lost you.
I guess it has to be me, but it’s the same elementary game,
Molding myself to meet your needs until I don’t know where you end and I begin,
So when you leave you take a part of me.
I will try to fill the space with whatever I was missing and I will play this game again with some new player who won’t tell me the rules.

There’s a hole where you were
And I still remember
There’s this violent, persistent gnaw in my chest
There’s this hole in the center where I grew around you
With part of me missing, how could I forget?
So I will always wake up frantic, searching for the ghost of you
Following breadcrumbs long gone stale
Sometimes I find some old lost piece of you
But it’s always a dead end, never a trail
And I wonder where you are now, I wonder how you’ve been?
Did I leave a hole in you? Could you ever fill it in?

petty taunting thoughts-
you were wrong , you were wrong!
silly selfish little thing,
what did you expect?
vain, greedy child.
you don't deserve so much.

Cut my heart out of my chest
I don't want to feel it ache
I'm so sick of being in love
You have me all bent out of shape
Burn up my body and bury my ashes somewhere with a fruit bearing tree
So I can finally be something with more use and worth than Me

I wish I never borrowed in another's arms and called that Home
Maybe then it wouldn't be so hard a task to sleep Alone

some days i just bury myself so deep underground
it seems the dark is all that's there for me
you know how hard i try to be strong
but there are days where i just can't be
forgive me if i don't dig you out
but i am six feet underground
i will keep digging, say
i am not allowed to feel this way
but i cannot force that smile today
say,
it's best i go away, say
i deserve this for my lack of strength
i so often forgot that i am a tool to be used
i am just the shovel underground
i am meant to lift the dirt, not get buried

We used to live down each other's throats, in each other's homes and now I'm lucky if we speak monthly and it hurts somewhere deep inside me
We used to talk about cartoons and books and nothing at all while we'd listen to music on your bedroom floor but now it seems you're caught up in more taboo entertainments and I'm caught up in my tailspin
I think the only thing that hasn't changed is the love for cartoons but we have kept none of the childhood spirit they used to bring, inspiring us to stay up all night hush-hush talking through your DS
I'm afraid that we don't quite fit together anymore, puzzle pieces bent at different spots so we don't quite work
I never expected to be out of place in your company and I'm so scared to talk to you and risk realizing that when they say Everything Goes Away they mean EVERYTHING and 7-year friends are no exception
I'm used to everything falling away when it's not ripped up from the roots but I guess I'd convinced myself we were two branches on the same trunk so the roots didn't matter
But here we are, old friend, here we are.

A certain kinda sadness that you slip right into
Like an old sweater, worn soft, once perfect for you
But now it just clings to your body
Too close
Suffocating
But it's your favorite sweater
Such a pretty shade of blue

THIS DATE IN MY MIND SHOULD HAVE A JOYFUL ANXIOUS AIR TO IT
BUT SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY I SLIPPED AND ADDED YOU TO IT
DON'T YOU DARE PICK UP THAT PENCIL AND ACT LIKE YOU CARE THROUGH IT
WHERE ALONG THE WAY DID I ADD YOU TO IT?
DEVILED ANGEL HAZEL EYES SEEP INTO EVERY CRACK AND PORE OF MY MIND
AND I CAN'T HELP BUT FEEL LIKE
THE DAY I TURN TWENTY -FIVE
I'LL STILL WONDER IF OCTOBER 7TH MAKES YOU SAD
AND IF YOU REMEMBER YOUR OLD FRIEND WILL YOU SIGH FOND OR WILL YOU WRITE MAD
I HOPE YOU NEVER PUBLISH A PIECE OF POETRY
WITH OCTOBER 7TH THE DATE OF ARTISTRY


(february feels gray and heavy when i think of how far from each other we've run away)

Cry baby bleeding heart
Ruin everything you touch
Wet with tears, wet with blood
Hold too tight, **** it up
Deep red handprints on white sheets
Killing what you try to keep

stop take a moment and think
take two steps back
step out of your head for once if you will
do you think, are you arrogant enough to think
this is written for you
into your skin
for your side of the distance?
step back out of your head
selfish, self absorbed
playing games
look at yourself
do you really think you're worth the time?
do you really think you're worth the thought?

I curse my heart and all it stands for
I curse my laugh for rolling on
I curse your eyes for being so blue
I curse myself for falling again for you
Why do you have to make things easy?
Why do you have to make me feel safe?
Why are you so fun to talk to?
Why are you my happy place?

I wanna read your mind
look into some crystal ball, see all your thoughts
I am not good at deciphering meaning or feeling
every word blazes neon, colors flashing
I can't make it stop or slow or clear to see a color I could find meaning in
I sit cross-legged on the floor and look up at the neon lights
the rapid blinking raises my heart rate
I should look away
but I am determined to read the sign

It's always so good until it isn't
And you make me so warm til you freeze over
I am left to traverse this paper sheet of ice to the other side of this lake
I remind myself that even if the ice breaks I can swim
But the cold makes my body heavy and unstable
I am uneasy on my feet trying to navigate you
To get to the spring of tomorrow
When the nightmares are less frequent and the silence less deafening
I am calling out to you but afraid to cause an avalanche
We said we'd do better this time
So why am I left barefoot on thin ice?