I ask for nothing much.
Stay beautiful-
no difficult task:

Talk to me.
Listen to me.
Understand me.

If something is wrong,
tell me.
Trust me.
Confide in me.

Think about me.
Be faithful to me.
Love me?

Show me.
Want me.

Show me.
Hug me.
Kiss me.
Touch me.

Kiss me more.
Please please me.

Then hopefully I can change your mind,
so you will
eventually
want to
marry me.

in the land of white pickup trucks,
     the patriarchy
          really does exist
because the ladies want it to.




I revisited that place,
and only God knows why.

I will not go get baptized
for I fear the judgment
day.

To live in sin and
descend to the six-foot pit
sits better.

An empty label lingers
until you’re deemed clean
for further consumption.

Our filled label flies
off the tongue like
sour milk.

So come, fellow MSM–
let’s go down to the river
to pray.

To my kind and loving mother:
I never sought to be the other.
Fighting for an explanation,
consolation, you postulated traumas
caused a misfire
in the wires of me–
but the truth, chromatically,
static factors (masked by
willful ignorance and bliss)
wrought the otherness you see.

1. Elementary

Back as a child of nine,
fine and dapper in khakis and
a tucked-in button-up,
with parted hair and running shoes,
I began to fantasize
guys
and atonement girls.
Attempts to hide this from the world
were all in vain
yet vicious, as children are.

2. Middle School

***




******

gay-***

Did you hear that Brokeback Mountain is Victor’s favorite movie Victor is gay Have you been crying Where’s your boyfriend Victor has *** with children You’re going to hell ****** Do you know what packing fudge is Gay Do you like what you see Your garden is cute Quit looking at me *** Change in the stall we don't have to watch you ******* I brought you some glitter *** Gay **** ****** ****** *** Gay-*** **** Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay That’s gay Gay


I’d skip lunch to lock myself in a closet and cry.
Oh, my kind and loving mother,
I never sought to be the other.
I didn’t even know I was.

3. High School (Part 1)

Saving grace, Anne Folderol.
Last chance, Anne Folderol.
Only one, Anne Folderol.
Truly folderol.

I’d rather die than be the other
to please my kind and loving mother.

No more, Anne Folderol.
Last chance, Anne Folderol.
No hope, Anne Folderol.

You have the teeth of a crack addict You’re such a ***** Fat-*** I heard he was going to **** himself I heard he had *** with an eleven-year-old I heard he has AIDS Why does he hate god Hey pizza-face If anyone shoots up the school, it’d be him him him him him him him him him

State of madness, state of pain,
the state from which all killers spring.
Darkness, loathing, spite, and shame.

If the Father up above
was looking down in true love,
he would have answered my prayers
for death.

4. High School (Part 2)

Love and pain, Mom;
yin and yang.
We sang in church
until I left the brethren bereft,
and we’ll sing again soon.

But first know that I’m a spiritual seeker,
and that God loves me if he exists
and I truly don’t know– because I feel Him
at times, and sometimes I feel just everything.

And also know that I’m not the other,
that my love and yours are the same.
Know that if God made me, there is a reason why.

That reason is to open minds and hearts to the love of God, which is all true love. But I must love myself first. And when I live in such a way that does not hide my true self, I demonstrate that love. Love me, not in spite of who I am but for who I am.

You are just a glass of milk
standing stagnant in the sun
and for the moment
you could cool my tongue;
any longer and you'd spoil.
Yet still inside lies the pus and hormones–
you're infected in a way that no one else can ever see.
You are vile, repugnant, putrid, *****.