There are red makes etched imto my flesh,
and I am finding it harder to breathe afresh
underneath the layers of painful bandages.
Still my ribs ache and sting when they push through my skin, but can't push through that final layer hiding me.
I can't comcentrate on the lessons,
the words are a blur and the faces are obscured by tears,
but I will not stop because the pain of facing my body is even worse.

Everyone is shouting in my ears,
pulling them and stretching them to ensure I really hear,
but it goes in that ear and out the other.
If this means broken ribs and sickness,
then so be it,
because still the pain will be worth it.

I'm sweating like hell
even though it's cold as hail
then she says, "hey, David"
and I can't even tell
how I got this happy.

Sometimes I want to take her up in my arms
and feel like a man,
because I'm a lot bigger than her
and my hands dwarf hers,
but we both know I can't.

My heart rises up to my throat
when I think of her
and it swells from the love I hold so dear
and it breaks when I remember that I can't be close to her.

I'm not close enough to stroke her knotted hair,
and I'm not close enough to make sure nobody hurts her.
She can protect herself sometimes, and I know she isn't hurt as Much as I am angry when she is insulted.

Their jokes about me loving her hardly seem like jokes now,
and I might just be a bit high on pain or hunger or maybe it's just the lonely hurt,
but I want to hold her
and love her,
but I have to know that it isn't possible.
A love between us is impossible,
however much I wish I could be a man to her, for her, just to simply be
for her.

I smash my skull against the wall
when I hear you call
that name as if it is mine
because every day it hurts a little bit worse
and the realization sinks in that I will never be who I feel I am.

My feet were splintered and cracked from crawling in the broken trees,
but still I stood and stared through the wooden beams
to see far below me, to gaze into the eyes of the howling beasts.

I hoped desperately that they not see me,
but their heads flashed upwards and their tongues pulled me from my perch.
I could hear every word now, trapped underneath their fumbling feet.
They moved slowly over me, working meticulously.

I waited for the evening, when the dying rays of the sun sank into the tile from the doorway,
and when they would vanish melt into the darkness of his shadow.
I wait and wait some days, but they never melt just right,
instead only turning the whole world into night.

His shadow doesn't arrive sometimes for days and nights,
sometimes, though, it takes months and once a year,
but every day I long to hear,
his rough and Southern drawl,
whether it be telling me that I am queer
or small.

Most days I do not care what it is he'll do or say,
I only care that he is there, and that he will make the monsters go away.

When I can't breathe or uncurl,
I will know that I am back,
back on track.

When I can only feel sharp beneath seas of cloth and downy white hairs,
I will know that I am getting closer to the goal that I can never reach,
even though my friends won't want to hug me because it will be painful for both of us.
It will be worth it, even when I've lost everyone because I couldn't be there.
It will tell me everything is back,
back on track.

You call it plummeting,
failing,
relapsing,
but I call it finally getting back on track.

Tear, tear, tear.
Spend classes tearing paper into tiny bits.
Why do I do it?
(Tearing until my fingers hurt.)

Count, count, count.
Almost run into people every few minutes.
Why do I do it?
(Count my bones whenever I can.)
(Count the steps on the stairs when I ran.)
(Count the steps I take and how many breaths I draw.)

I am aware that everyone sees me,
counting and tearing and restarting,
and I don't want to stop even though it's not with a degree of panic.

Check, check, check.
Check so many things again and again,
but not the things that are really important.
(Check that everything's not changing or if it is.)