my boy with fig leaves and lightning bugs
******* in his hair, he kneels with
crimson palms pressed to the unquiet dirt
and hums an abandoned melody.

my boy with sunbeams shining through his skin on the riverbank,
neatly coating the grass in thin white trails, woven into footprints like cotton twine, snaking their way across brown earth,
ankles slick with mud and the dead things that lay just underneath.

my boy with rosewater and stained glass ashes
feels me bless him with blackberries and the softest crush of words,
ice cubed, beneath my lips,
as he wipes the ichor from my chest with callouses
worn down gentle.

the light echoes from his skin
there are no symphonies nor sacraments,
only cicadas singing warmth to shivering willows.

the sunset imbues its last glance
as molten lavas cool into exotic crimson
painting the color of romance over the horizon.
the clouds flew, and you closed your eyes,
cicada songs humming through your ears,
and pink hues glowing across your skin.

when my aching heart ached in excess, i sought out to sleep, dream, escape.
the first thing i saw was you.
but upon your heavenly resemblance, i was washed ashore.

i remember the sand as soft ivory, dancing under my feet. buy pay no attention to the sand, for something else had already caught me.
the sky.
wrapped in the wildest hue of violet, with the drape's silky edges tucked into the horizon. the color was deep and passionate in every way, it intoxicated the evening with its romantic cologne. the west reaches for clothes of new colors
whom it passes to a row of ancient trees.
the stars constantly winked, praising the earth in repetitive bangles.
the moon was its fullest on that night, and so it wasted no time, it beamed in bravado, the strangest white.

you open your eyes, and soon these two worlds both leave you; one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

ever since that august evening,
when our paths crossed,
everything in my old life changed,

my mornings became happy again,
my days grew bright,
no longer sleeping the days away without dreams.

learning to write words of love to you,
i spend my days through the seasons,
writing love songs for a dream,

throughout the seasons,
the cold of winter, words to warm your heart,
the scent of flowers and birds singing in the spring, words to make you smile,
the heat of summer, words to make you feel alive looking at the night sky,
the colorful leaves of autumn, words to help harvest your dreams.

east to west the sun travels,
knowing you are dreaming under the stars half a world away.

i fall asleep and dream,
of you and i together,
under a moonlit sky gazing in the soft moonlight,
letting us feel alive.

hi! my name is DEADNAME
i hear it resonate through my dysphoria, i recoil from my body. i desperately want to hold a match stick up to my birth certificate and watch every letter blacken into ash, when i grow up to be a tombstone i want you to burn me too. ignite all the dresses i wore to church.

my name is WOMAN and
no matter how many times i insist that it is not, i will be categorized with a quaking punch in my stomach and i will throw up SHE. no matter how many times i jam this hoodie into a washing machine it will reek of MISS. i am cloaked with words of caution to the public (WARNING: PROBABLY JUST A PHASE) in attempts to subdue the truth because if it unraveled i would be myself, and myself will shatter minds and destroy virtue because my psyche is a crime scene, my humanity is a dangerous opinion, and my identity is a car crash. it is a siren wailing magenta; it wraps around my chest like police tape- i wish i could use it as a binder. those knuckles feel infinitely more therapeutic than the aftershock of FEMALE. i would much rather be bruised and downtrodden and battered and beaten from every centimeter of my body than to submit to the declarations of GIRL. i want you to punch me again please punch me again please punch me again please punch me again please punch me again please

my name is DELUSIONAL and
i heal paper cuts with bow ties because it’s as close as i can get to a suit when me and my wardrobe are confined within the same nine square feet of wooden floor. i still come close to weeping when i get my flu shot, but fill that syringe with testosterone and by god you can slay me like a beast, skewer that needle through my skin like a katana and i will embrace it. i will live for the torment, pretty hurts and, by god, i am a *******, to mask the sting by god i will sing like a gospel, a gospel who gets called handsome by strangers and owns a voice deep as a ******* ravine.

my name is SNOWFLAKE and
i hope i give you hypothermia, *******.

my name is YOUNG LADY and
while filling out my passport application i flooded the box with an M beside it with ink and never told my mother and i smiled to myself for the first time that week and i still don’t regret it, i will never regret it because no matter how many times i hear edicts of DAUGHTER she can never take that precious M away from me.

my name is SINNER and
i am a disgrace to faith. a mutant, a freak, an abomination, a monstrosity, not a man- just a girl who aspires to mutilate herself into an excuse for one. i am a shapeshifting sorcerer, you see LESS THAN HUMAN. little do you know i am a ******* DEMIGOD and i may be the owner of weeping willow twigs for arms and i may be left on the brink of passing out when i climb up the stairs but i will grip you by the collar of your shirt and haul you into hell with me on the other side of this mirror, by god.

my name is BLAISE.
i found this out at age eleven. i deciphered myself at age eleven. it’s just one syllable. it is a firecracker mistaken for a gunshot and i will leave cisnormativity riddled with bullets and the pistol’s name will be BLAISE. a kid from middle school will run into me on the street and tell me they can’t quite remember what my name is and i’ll shamelessly rewrite history and remind them, it’s BLAISE; a lady at starbucks will ask what to write on my cup and i will say BLAISE and she’ll spell it 'blaze', but i don't give a ****, it’s good enough, i will scream my revelation from my fire escape at four in the morning in triumph MY NAME IS BLAISE and someone will yell back from their car HEY BLAISE, SHUT THE **** UP and i’ll take it as a tribute, BLAISE is a MAN and HE sliced his body open and poured ecstasy inside when a cashier called him SIR that one time at walgreens. BLAISE is yet another piece of proof that the assignment received by some ****** in a lab coat doesn’t have to be a prison and you don’t fully understand these boxes we’re crammed in until you break them yourself. BLAISE'S individuality is authentic, HIS love is authentic, HIS reflection in the mirror is authentic, and its name is BLAISE. BLAISE found out the life expectancy of a transgender person is around thirty-two years old and you better believe that BLAISE will live to be thirty-three and HE will give a little bit of hope to trans youth who don’t even think they’ll be able to wake up to sixteen and HE will give a big ol’ ******* to everyone who doesn’t think HE deserves to breathe in their world for that long, by god, you better believe that BLAISE will live to be thirty-three, you better believe that BLAISE will make it to thirty-three, you better believe that HE will make it to thirty-three, you better believe that I will make it to thirty-three.

the sunset imbues its last glance
as molten lavas cool into exotic crimson
painting the color of romance over the horizon.
the clouds flew,
and you closed your eyes,
cicada songs humming through your ears,
and pink hues glowing across your cheeks.

then, i saw your chocolate brown
eyes gazing out in awe.
your fawn satin skin seemed so delicate,
as did your jet black hair.
coral florets glowed among fluorescent orange, yellow, pink flavescent clouds, calm in migration.

the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
you open your eyes, and soon these two worlds both leave you;
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

it's nearly dark now, and the stars are peaking out amongst the clouds.
you're lying in the grass, feeling every strand tickle your bare legs.
you close your eyes again, and the air you're breathing is hot and heavy.

i strode my fingers through your hair, sighing softly
gazing away at
blue evening grandeur skies, and you smiled…

pastels in yellow flow around my scene
and i relish in the comely gold light for at last,
we are gazing at the same sun.