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 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.

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.

angels.

angels who miss their wings at 3 am when they feel more out of place in this body then before, angels who need pain to bring themselves out of their dreams, who ink themselves with words only prophets would understand; angels who have the most ordinary jobs like bus drivers and paper boys, people see them and think about them for moments too long.

angels who turn to drinking and smoking, trying to forget the feeling of their wings pushing air behind them as they flew. angels who can't avoid the call of the sky and become pilots who are always drinking coffee because the caffeine reminds them of the golden ichor that was once flowing through their veins.

vengeful angels who become pilots as well, who terrorize the winged folk to feel powerful again, to feel control again. angels who message each other, fingers trembling as they type out their dreams, trying to grab those memories that are just out of reach, gauzy and filled with blood and silver-tinted skin and golden eyes and so many feathers. angels who live in church basements and see pictures of themselves in the stained glass windows and go unclothed, trying to reach that feeling of purity, freedom.

fallen angels who burn churches, filling their lungs with smoke as they climb to the steeple, not just from reprisal but from the feeling of mutiny. angels who ride out into the country alone with a handful of stolen cash who steal from nearly empty gas stations and throw rocks at the windows of abandoned barns after they've climbed to the roof and back to earth. angels who streak their backs with ashes because they don't have the scars that they should from having their wings torn away and the golden ichor doesnt bleed away and stain the ground like it used to.

angels who hang out in bookstores and coffee shops because they're looking for an oracle or someone, anyone, who will listen to their impossible dreams of flight and blood spattering the ground, of fighting and dying and they can't explain it.

angels with shaky hands who try to find love because there's something missing and everyone tells them that love will help them, and maybe it does, but there are always angels out there who have loved and loved and there is still something BROKEN, something LOST, and it's been pounded into their minds that they'll never know what it is. angels who run with demons and devils because there's nothing quite like the rush of running in the dark, standing at the edge of the city and feeling the wind nearly blow you off as you curl your toes on the edge of the roof, so close to the sky it takes their breath away.

angels.

you're flaming. little specks of crimson burn like fire in your heart. your physique melts like *** on a fire and sparks of amber make you glow like a candle in the darkness. magenta lines cross your lips and your skin mocks the setting street lamps and the burning sun.

you're a mountain to me. dwarfing cities below you with peaks that stride above the heavens, attempting to graze the planets if even so slightly.

you are worth becoming the enemy of hell. you are worth every friend you've ever lost to file yourself. you are worth it, because i've never met anyone who loves as perfectly and passionately as you.

my body had too many bruises
after loving you.
saltwater soaked scars
and red soaked into my bedroom floor.
i struggled to make my blood look pretty for you,
as it marked streams of crimson down my body.
you said my bruises looked like constellations
you called them beautiful
compared them to the cosmos

i just thought they were different.
something you can't always see,
but always crave to.
i said: “the stars are collapsing. can’t you hear?”
you placed your hand on mine and spoke,
their screams are why i sleep with the window locked shut each night.
their screams are why

i've kept you locked inside.

and i am not sorry for that.

run across the orange shorelines where the greatest empires have fallen,
and kiss the waves of the salty sea in hopes of resting your clumsy pulse and frivolous thoughts.

stretch your legs.
lithe up like a prideful little boy before a rigged game of 'the floor is lava'
and run!

run like your laces will never untie and your loaded veins will never misfire.

run through the realms of yellowing pages you cling to,
full of ball-point metaphors and crisp, eloquent descriptions of the beautiful feelings you've trained yourself to hate along the way.
i beg you to get over-friendly with your paintbrush when we reminisce this time.

run.
full-fledged, snot-nosed, scared-shitless-grinned
sprint!

run to silky cotton bedding drenched in the stench of your maladaptive daydreams;
peppered with layers of insight we've yet to discover,
and two cold pillows
that can never seem to sing your static head to sleep or fully embrace the weight of your bruised shoulders.

run like you can feel for once;
like a curious kid who's never seen a map or compass,
he just zigs and zags through the seemingly endless wildflowers at full speed as he pilots the backyard in pure and sincere bliss.

run to sun-drenched golden fields where the night sky tints itself blue to succumb to its favorite shade of darkness,
and your breath settles low on the tips of the tall grass like the fog growing over a prehistoric low-land,
and the stars twinkle like lake-thrown pebbles about to let you decrypt the gleaming secrets they hold...
and everything comes clear
and cool
and calm.

run free
and fierce
and nameless
like it's the only thing you've ever known,
run until you reach me.

i think about it every time i get into a car. every **** time. it used to be, how fast can i go? can i time the drop to the ascent?
can i **** myself
can i **** myself
can i **** myself?
i was eleven when i first realized i wanted to die. i was in a hot crowded car with three uncles who i didn’t know, one who caught me changing and stayed a lot longer than he should have. and the air was like breathing hot sand, and i thought i could just open the door and fling myself out into traffic. maybe i'd turn into a bird and fly free on the wind. when i think about cars i see all the ways i could die. i tremble every time i have to get into a car with my father because i know if he pushes me hard enough i’ll unlock the door and end it.
as i was walking to my room on the night of my first suicide attempt, i told my dad i would never see him again. his eyes flicked up from the book he was reading, and murmured out a simple "nice".

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.

somewhere in distant
horizons breathes my muse.
dawn comes to me in a dream.

while the sun's early rays
embrace him
he widens his soft brown eyes, he smiles…

darkness hands me my landscape
in silence as i breathe, staring,
my heart is carried along this imaginary line.

as he sips his cup,
warm within this daylight glory,
the morning adores him and he smiles…

a glimmer, a faint hint of light i see
of grapefruit bubbles and raspberry tea,
like fireflies on the midnight hill.

he strides his fingers across the curtains,
running his hands through his hair, sighing softly, gazing away at
blue morning grandeur skies, and he smiles…

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

and he smiles…

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.

then, i saw his chocolate brown
eyes gazing towards me.
mesmerized- his fuchsia lips
summoned me, drawing me closer.  
his immaculate ivory smile reflected
like ethereal diamonds in my eyes.
was i lost or had i been found?
his fawn satin skin seemed so delicate,
as did his smooth, silky jet black hair.
coral florets glowed among fluorescent orange, yellow, pink flavescent clouds, calm in migration.

he's the one who loves to dress himself in rain.