If I were a peacock,
I would blue-green iridescent burst beauty
pretty would not mean strange or weak
brightness would be bravery, screaming LOOKING THIS GOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SAFETY FROM PREDATORS
I would love my women drab, concealable, nearly invisible
... maybe some of us are already part peacock

If I were a leopard slug,
I would never worry if I was man enough
I would love all of my hermaphroditic glands equally
or, more realistically, I would be ashamed of all of them equally,
never sure if my gonopore was symmetric enough,
if my translucent blue-white ***** was beautiful enough to ever intertwine and bloom with another's
there would be no gay bars or marriage equality movements or swallowed-wink "no ****"s
no one would tap around your abdomen in search of the right organs before declaring your birthright aptitude in cooking or car repair
you and I, we would follow each other around all night, exchanging playful licks, before impregnating each other, circus-suspended from a tree branch
... I guess that part would be the same

If I were cricket or frog or songbird, my music would be my perfect gift to you.
I would learn guitar and start a band and
everyone would love me
(way more than the bass player)

But I am a man.
I don't know what that means yet.

Shouting is not an art form
it's ugliness; rendered in-concealable,
for there is no beauty within it -
although it is sometimes necessary,
as sometimes;
we need to be exposed, whole-heartedly,
to the harshness,
within this destructed world
within our blackened hearts

but

Expression should be whispered,
as only those willing,
to strain their
delicate ears to hear,
are capable to listen,
to shine through.

after all

shouting will not unveil
ignorance,
it will simply shatter the
delicacy of expression,
and blacken our hearts once more.

lately everything makes me wanna cry
so i'll fix it by going out and getting high
drive straight through 234 like russian roulette
to see if i'll get hit
i need another hit
and one turns into the whole bowl pack
i get dazzled in a daze of technicolor and emoticons
flying through my eyes like doves
i hope the black birds don't come
because i'm superstitious
throw salt over my shoulder
so satan doesn't come near
but what does that do when i have horns too
with a halo hanging on them like ring toss
i don't wanna do drugs anymore
i can hear my liver whimpering in the corner
begging to not get beat
but i use the belt again
and bash my head against the bathroom sink
sometimes i wish i died in my dad's bathroom
when i fainted from my prescription
funny how the legal drugs
almost always **** me
but i wake up alive after altering my mind
funny how peaceful heatstroke is:
losing sight
drifting sound
moving farther away like my ears are
detached from my head
last thing to dissipate is touch
until my fingertips turn blue
funny how burning off my fingerprints
wouldn't remove my identity
because i already wiped it out
with the ganj- and the grass
alternative medicine isn't healing
if it's being abused
and i'm so tired of feeling abused
even three years into the future
demons seeping through the cracks of my walls as i sleep
they haunt my dreams and flip them over into nightmares
but i will always go back to sleep
because i get to escape here but stay here
i want to astral project
and shoot my consciousness into the sky
instead of shooting myself in the head
i want to soar
and pick shooting stars out of the sky
and hold them in my hand with the same warmth as yours
i want to feel body heat on body heat
until i start to sweat and squirm
and you twitch in your sleep
i want to stare at space
instead of into it
when you can see the trauma
hollowing my eyes out
and caving my face in
from bashing it against the bathroom sink
and ripping my hair out
strand by strand
clump by clump
i would cut myself
but there's no spot on my body
concealable for when i feel better
i don't want to be reminded
every day of how i used to feel
because my mind already does that for me
i have good moments
so i tell myself after the bad passes, good will always come again

i am building a brick wall
in front of the mirror
because she's saying that when the bad passes, the good will come again
but what's the point when the bad comes back
an uninvolved father
stopping by every now and then
to use the tv
with the sound off and the static on
dissolving into the couch
like the lysergic odyssey melting on my tongue
absorbed by the grayscale of unhappiness
but i'll never say depression
because i'm scared of going back to therapy
backwards progress is not progress in my head, it's failure
maybe that's why i'm scared to go sober
because i'll always relapse