What do you do
When a loved one lives in suffering?
What do you do
When every sentence spoken starts with, "Unfortunately..."?

What do you do
When you see an endless void of pain
By looking through their eyes
Where logic and reasoning lay slain?

What do you do
When you cannot calm the storm?
And have no other option
But to pray that new hope is born?

What do you do
When you want to stand, take action,
But can't?
Feeling so hopeless
As you watch your only one
Struggle to advance?

Hugs and kisses don't alleviate the pain
Logic and reasoning have been slain
Helplessness is your only reaction,
To the inability to take helpful action

What do you do
When you are afraid to lose
The only person who truly gets you?

The only girl you've ever had,
Needed, wanted, been with
From the start thinking
That the end is just a myth?

I love her with all my heart,
I hope she reads this and understands
Why I feel as though I'm falling apart
As though I'm stranded in a ravaged land

Don’t you ******* dare
to romanticize me
Don’t act like my ribs poking through my skin
And wrists so frail I’m half-certain they’ll snap too
is beautiful
Because that’s exactly what you’re doing
through your glossy magazine pages
and water-and-kale only lunches
Making it seem glamorous
that I lay dying slowly at my own hands
Don’t paint over my
sallow complexion
And hair falling out in thick strands
As I tried to put up a ponytail
Here’s my thigh gap
(it’s writing my obituary)
but isn’t it just #goals
Don’t make me
the reason a twelve year old girl
is squeezing her tummy
I did not fall for that trap
But I’m in the same pit anyway
I am not a costume
Not the “**** anorexic”
Don’t tell me to learn to take a joke
Because it isn’t a joke
to make my best friend sick with worry
Because the pounds keep peeling off
I’ve felt sinking in my (empty) stomach
when friends ask me “how do you keep so thin?”
in pale green tones of envy
when their bodies are so full of life
and mine is withering
and I’m crying over a stupid ******* bowl of soup
that the same girl (but a different one)
would have drank in two minutes
soaking in the warmth in a full tummy
But that I heated in the microwave
three, four times,
forcing down spoonful by spoonful
just to have something in my stomach.
I just want to eat pancakes that don’t taste like dust
but all my meals are tainted with self hatred
and how ******* dare you
teach them that hatred
like it’s *pretty?

It burns so much to think that his hands touched another girls' the way they touched me
I waited for him and he took advantage of me never being able to say no
and I couldn't smell the cinnamon whiskey on his breath because I was already drowning in it
but he could never touch me unless he threw a few back

I grieve for humanity
Because my own may harden
I grieve for justice
Because war knows no pardon
I grieve for courage
Because with fear we may govern
I grieve for children
Because a fire burns in their garden

327

Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see—
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way—

But were it told to me—Today—
That I might have the sky
For mine—I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me—

The Meadows—mine—
The Mountains—mine—
All Forests—Stintless Stars—
As much of Noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes—

The Motions of the Dipping Birds—
The Morning’s Amber Road—
For mine—to look at when I liked—
The News would strike me dead—

So safer—guess—with just my soul
Upon the Window pane—
Where other Creatures put their eyes—
Incautious—of the Sun—

All those stares everywhere I go,
Beating and burning the back of my head.
Can you even imagine being me -
“Different”, a minority?
Everything is changing as I am
Finding out what I am made of -
Giving me unending pride and
Hope for the future world -
Inspired by equality for all.
Just look inside my soul and
Know that I am not so bad.
Look at me and understand that
My name has changed and it is
Not the same as when I was born.
Operations will transform me into the
Person I am in my heart and in my mind.
Questions from you are welcomed,
Rudeness, however, can be left at the door.
Send your bitterness and hate away to learn
That not all people are the same.
Understand that I will always love myself and
Violence will never ever be the answer
When all I want is to be accepted.
X marks the spot on our hearts when
You have decided to wholly learn to
Zero out the hate in which our society takes a toll.
Zero out the cold-heartedness and
You will feel better about yourself.
X’s and O’s go to the people
Who love me for simply being me.
Victory unending goes to those who  
Understand and love each other
Through the most difficult times -
Sorrow, hate, crimes, and pain.
Realize that we do not need help,
Quit telling us that we are mentally sick,
Pretty pretty please, with a cherry on top.
Oh, I hope and dream that the day is
Nearing when we are equal in each eye,
Minorities will cease to exist anymore with
Love that is pure and acceptance for all.
Knowing that each of us is not the same
Just simply goes to show that
I will never let you bring me down.
***** is not my name, never ever will it be.
Gender identity is not a choice -
Forgiveness, though, is a choice.
Educate yourself to gain knowledge.
Do not call me “dude” or ”man”,
Call me Unique, not my birth name.
By all means, you don’t have to love me -
All I ask is that you accept me for being me.