A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

Ebony wings flapping,
It streaks across the sky
Free as a bird.

you ask for a definition
but does anything have a definition?
the universe
for example
is always changing
definitions don't account for change
therefore
the universe is undefinable
there is no definition for me
because of that same reason
i am always changing
and definitions do not account for change
i am undefinable
seven billion people in the world
and no definitions
capable of describing them
and their change
we are, all of us
undefinable
i am the gay girl,
the depressed kid
the photographer
but that will change
(maybe not the gay part)
everything else, though-
i will be in a better place
eventually
i don't know where that place is
or how people will try to define me
but truly
i am as vast
and as beautiful
and as undefinable
as the universe
and everything in it
we are undefinable.