My childhood was sunshine,
summer days,
pool,
book,
trees,
It was yellow dandelion, carpet lawn
and endless blue and green
as far as I could see
standing on my tiptoes
on a swing in the backyard
jumping down onto smooth soft summer grass
in the flat calm ivy-colored sea

It was stars on the night sky
like stars on my ceiling,
hair floating up around me with my dreams,
pulling me out the open window
into air,
into indigo,
into midnight blue, nail-polish painted sky
on the sweet-smelling cedar easel,
in the dark room,
where I come sometimes
to touch the beginning with butterfly-soft fingers

My childhood was hide and seek,
shut up in closets,
smiling,
laughing,
giggling,
yelling tag you’re it,
as it touched board game movers
and pushed them
one
two
three
around boards colored like rainbows
that I rode around the world
and into the universe

Now my childhood is two yellow foam blocks
asking me,
“Why?”
“Where?”
but I don’t know why it’s gone
or where it’s gone to,
all I know is that I’m not ready,
but here I come

I was a *****
When they told me that I “needed” to wear a bra in the third grade
like my eight-year-old body was too ****
And they would want things that they shouldn’t
Like it was my fault for being this way

I was a *****
The kind that got sent to the office for too short skirts and too much cleavage
Already guilty because I had hips and thighs and *****
And I was guilty of making them look of being big of taking up space
My body was an ugly indecent thing

I was a *****.
Not the ******* in the bathroom kind of *****.
Although, given the chance I might have been.
I was the kind of ***** that loved them seeing my body.
The kind of ***** that was great at ******* and better at stripping.

I was a *****.
I was the kind of ***** who faked ******* with the best of them.
Because watching them when they heard me, saw me, felt me coming.
Was unbelievable.
It was empowering.

I was a *****.
I did what they asked because it made me feel like I was worthwhile.
It made me feel like I was valuable.
It made me feel like the pits in my heart had finally been filled.
It made me feel like he didn’t leave me when I was eight months old.

I was a *****.
I pawned myself out like answers to the history test.
Because he smiled.
Because he was the kind of boy that made you want to say yes, yes, YES
And I did what I wanted.

I was a ***** because I couldn't say no,
Yell no
Scream no
Whisper no
When his hands twinned around my wrists like handcuffs keeping me there in the silence

I was a *****
Because even though his hands were touching me
I was too afraid to say so
Too afraid of it all falling apart
Too afraid of being the thing that broke it

I am a *****.
Because you don’t stop being one.
Just because you learn that *** is more than a strategic move.
Because you see the scars it’s leaving.
Because you finally start to hear your broken heart.

I am a proud *****.
I refuse to be ashamed.
My “number” is a badge of honor I wear right above my *****.
Because being a ***** takes refinement

I’m taking it back one word at a time.

*****.
*****.
******.
***.
*****.
****.
****.
Daddy Issues.

I am a *****.
But now I’m the kind of ***** that backs away when it starts to hurt.
When they get rough.
When they bite too hard.
When I can’t hold back the tears anymore.

I am the kind of *****, who stopped giving.
Giving *******,
Giving it up,
Giving little pieces of myself,
Giving a **** what you think

I am a *****,
My ****** is singing rally songs and yelling protest chants
It’s wearing a sticker that says “I voted”
It running around barefoot in a sundress with nothing holding it down
And it’s backing me up in every fight

So call me a *****,
Because I’m the kind of ***** who won’t stop fighting until **** is always, always, always a crime.
The kind of ***** who will never be afraid to say no again.
I’m the kind of ***** that’s going to tear down your patriarchy one ******* brick at a time.
And I won’t stop until I am ****** and aching on the ground where it once stood.

This wasn’t the first time that she had felt suffocated
by skinny girls and standards of beauty.
It got like this every winter,
feeling the heavy layers
weighing her body down.

She never felt comfortable in the sweater and boots,
socks and coats that she bundled up in.
She liked light clothes,
clothes that fairies would wear,
or angels.

Even in summer,
bracelets felt like shackles,
trying to pull her down to earth.
Socks and shoes and pants,
dragging her down.

Coats and hats and mittens,
tethering her in place.
If it was just her
in a sundress and bare feet,
she turned into some sort of ethereal being.

She was like dandelion fuzz floating on the wind.
But the sweaters held her together,
the way that stars and fireworks and splashes of water
should never be bound together
but let explode.

Because some things are only beautiful
if they are coming apart.
And she came apart in wisps
flowing up like smoke
and smelling like lilacs in spring.

They say Cover it up now
Make it look the same as all the other manufactured bodies,
Being pumped into this assembly line world,
But my body is not the same as those,
It is soft and made of silk in an iron factory,
And the cold metal burns my skin.

Because I have the right to bear arms but not to bare arms,
Telling me that the guns that ****** are the only thing I am allowed to have,
And even though my body is hot hot hot, it will never be killer.

And you tell me that I am like the guns sitting in a shop waiting to be picked out, grabbed, paid for,
Except I'm worth less and and worthless and more disposable
Telling me I'm all hormones and ***** moans
Telling me that I am yours.

But I am not yours,
I am the little schoolgirls with battery acid thrown in their faces
Touched by hands that harm not help
Little schoolgirls that get you big angry ***** shoved into them
Ripping apart their hearts and bodies.

But I am not yours,
I am not even mine,
I am in the freedom,
And that freedom is not in your guns or your yells or your stars,
That freedom is in the plant pushing out the iron girls, girls, girls,

Pushing them out into your world
The world that belongs to you because you claim it
But you're no match for the iron girls and their metal hearts
Taking everything you have and have had
And making it theirs, theirs, theirs

On snowstorm nights the lilac sky hangs in the balance,
Lighter than the feather it rises up, up, up like lost party balloons

And the stardust falls like old firework sparks between pricked hair
It lands on the ******* from fall like a crystalline white blouse over ***** ******* in frosty air

Cold-shivers are *******
And toes curl under sheets of ice

Footprints mar fresh womanhood
And shouts turn to ice as they leave blue lips

In spring they melt female to make way for testosterone sun
That burns snow skin like cattle brands— hot

They yell on fire-breath like acrobats in Arabian orange
Scorching feminine and leaving maleness in their wake

And in the morning when the dawn breaks,
My hearts stops breaking with it.
And the only thing left that isn't shattered is the silence
And the mirror
Where the rapists go to look at themselves before they sleep at night. And I walk across the brokenness with holy bare feet,
Sacred because he didn't touch them,
Thinking that I'm a pebble thrown at a double-pane glass house.
I bounce off and fall down.
And one day someone will pick me up
And hold me in soft hands
And carry me home.

And it's graduation,
I'm thinking "now or never",
And you look at me
Like this is it,
And you clasp my hand
Like when we were kids,
And my ******* are hard
From the nighttime chill,
And our pasty skin is fluorescent,

We count backward from ten,
And at one we leap off the dock,
Into the icy river,
And I can hear your feet
Propelling you to the thick black surface,
But I stay under
Feeling the water
And the little bits of sand
Floating up around me,

And when I'm ready,
I plant my feet on the ground,
And kick off,
My head finally bobbing under the stars,
And you're already laughing
Like your mind is as far from me as your future,
But I'm ready now,
Because all I can do is move on
and laugh with you

First, it was the stars on my ceiling
Glow-in-the-dark stars
That I stuck up there with double-sided, sticky foam
I stared at them every night,
Thinking These are the real deal
I traced them with my index finger,
Squinching up one eye so that I could play
Connect-the-Dots: Cosmic Edition

Then it was the stars on my walls,
Boy bands and Orlando Bloom
The epitome of hot, I thought
My friends and I would trade each other
Picking and choosing our favorites
The very best were the ones where you couldn’t decide
Which side to display of
My Galaxy Love

Then there were the stars in my eyes,
The ones everyone told me about
The only stars that were ever real
I used to look for them in the mirror
Leaning forward
But maybe they just meant that my splotchy
Gold-brown irises looked like the cosmos my
Eye Color: Starry

Now I see the stars in the heavens,
White, shiny stars,
Like pin-pricked holes in the sky,
Patterns that people tell me are there
That I pretend to see
These are the real stars, I think,
But after all this time maybe there are no stars
Maybe stars are just a dream

I'm sitting across from her,
My mom,
And she's standing across this concrete field,
Talking about it,
Talking about that time she got drunk and how he ***** her,
And she's so far away,
She looks smaller than my world when I was five,

And I can't tell if she shaking or I'm cold,
But then I think that "if I was cold, my tears wouldn't be so warm"
And then I realize I'm crying
And I realize that I can never tell her
I can't tell her because I can see how much pain she's in
And I can feel how much it's hurting me
And I know I can never tell her that it happened to me, too

And the little girl inside me that cried when it happened
Is screaming that IT ISN'T FAIR
But I haven't been that little girl in so long
That I forget how she saw the world
Forget what it was like before
"Have to wear pants, no skirts, and don't let them see cleavage"

My body is a secret I won't tell
Even at a slumber party after the lights are out
And we should all be in bed
But they'll justify it
By telling me that even if my clothes stayed quiet
And I stayed sober
My body was asking for it with hips and lips an *******

But I don't see a question mark,
All I see are marks that turn to scars,
That turn to sitting in a dim room with my therapist
Wondering how to untie the knots in my stomach
And the knots in my tongue

But even though my knots are impeccable
I could never be a boy scout
Because I was never prepared for this
And I was never prepared for this
And I was never prepared to listen to the **** stories
Ans I never prepared to tell my own

I see lines of you in the silhouettes of the scurf of a world without you
I hear your voice calling my name:
In empty hallways,
Serenades,
And odes written on deathbeds,
Declaring that your final words should "I love you"
And as I lie dow unfamiliarly in a bed without you,
I curl up and imagine that you are here,
And as I drive back to you-- home, across dark landscapes,
The headlights of the oncoming traffic reflect off my glasses and beam through dark air,
And your voice calls my name one final time in the lonely hotel room behind me

His messy hands make magic pencil
Like holy Gods make worlds
And I know he will someday draw my universe--
My universe
All stars and no suns,
Always so far-- too far
Too cold
My cold hands on his warm chest
Cold hands, warm heart
But my love keeps me warm
Warmer than goose-down coats and wool socks
So much static
So much friction
So many sparks--electricity, zapping
And I am patchwork-quilted memories in his creators' hands

They’ll make you feel like the bottom of a shoe.
Like you’re just meant to be walked on until you wear through.
But the only thing you have in common with a shoe is that you know what the ground feels like because their weight pushes you toward it every day.
And they may tell you that you’re all hormones and ***** moans.
But that’s just not true.

I'm driving past the school I went back to for
Five
Six
Seven years straight,
The place that grew up around me like a desert oasis--
Or Rapunzel's tower,
I wonder if I should stop and put my hands on the old white bricks,
Like maybe touching the school will be like touching my childhood,
And it will heal my broken heart,
But I'm already past the turn off, going 45 miles per hour,
So I turn my wandering eyes back to the road.

And at the green light ahead,
My unrequited love is riding a bicycle across the street one-handed,
And smoking a cigarette,
Wearing a shirt that says "Please hit me with your car, so that I can just stop feeling".

The first item of the gay agenda is call the meeting to order
We count for quorum and make sure the entire rainbow is present,
My mom taught me meeting manners
At our conference room, dinner table.

They told a Ginsberg to write like a Kerouac
And they told a millennial to act like a baby-boomer
But the difference between Ginsberg and me is that he could’ve had the Dream
But when they wrote it down, they left out the gays
And the the LGBT’s left out me.

They saw the way that the gays were eyeing monogamy
Like it was a sequin halter top once worn by Bowie
So, white, straight, cis America wrote to the government,
And now it’s The American Dream, Patent Pending.

I love looking at highways from aeroplanes,
They snake across the blotchy, flat earth
And slither into the endless blue haze,

I wonder what they find there,
Is it love or death?
Or old friends?
Or happiness?

Perhaps, their happiness
Is in the curly-q designs
They scrawl like ancient script

I trace it,
Running my fingers over three-pane glass,
Until they disappear

And the clouds look like fingers and hands,
Reaching out to touch me,
Expanding with every breath I take,
Calling me down to the river,
Calling me down to the trees

But my happiness is in the single, breathless moment of take-off,
The moment I feel my heart lurch,
And bang into the something inside me pushing me forward,
Into the illusory blue

It’s funny:
I came home from the hospital two days post operation
After open heart surgery to put it all back together.
And I died of an infected wound.

They'll tell you that the big bad boys of hip hop and rap are sitting around writing songs for their little girls and crying

And you'll try to remember what it felt like to cry

And then you'll text back $100 for an hour, $55 for 30 minutes, and $30 for 15, hoping that he won't respond and praying that he will

And then you'll ask him what he wants you to wear
And you'll meet him in dim parking lots, beaten up cars, and then the home he shares with his wife and kids

He'll tell you, "you're too **** pretty to be doing this" in between telling you how amazing you are

And you'll wonder if being pretty means you shouldn't need the cash

And when the timer rings, he'll leave cash on the bedside table, telling you he'll text you when he's ready for another ****

And one day he'll ask you how you do it: how you break up families, how you lie to your friends, how you have *** in the bed you sleep in every night, where you have nightmares about loosing everyone you love

And maybe you'll laugh, or sigh, but you will not cry like the sad fathers loving their little girls because you are harder than diamonds

And the world will tell you that you sparkle

They say write a poem in ten words,
And I think that I can’t pour out my soul in such a small space
I think that my mind is worth 15 words at least
But I think
And I try
I crumble up paper like it’s love letters from the people I hate
And I write a poem
Write my heart and soul out in thin black ink
And then I pick the ten words that I can’t set free
And they are: small, trees, alone, forest, love, flashlight on a broken sea
And I sigh
Because I was never good with stories

He taught me to be afraid.
Not horror-movie afraid.
Not power-out afraid.
Those kinds of afraid propel you down dark hallways with the shadows nipping at your heels.
And he made me the kind of afraid that pushed my head down so I couldn’t meet his eyes.
The kind of afraid that made me absolutely still-- frozen-- like an ice-queen.

I don’t think he knows that I’m afraid.
He just watches me like he’s puzzled.
Like I wanted it.
And he can’t understand why I want to take it back now.
But it’s a Christmas present without a receipt, and the department store won’t let me return it.

He taught me to be afraid of myself.
Afraid of my voice.
I should have said no,
Yelled no,
Screamed no,
Whispered no,
But it would have shattered the quiet darkness.
And I’m afraid of the broken glass.
I was afraid of all that I am, and all that I was.
Afraid of my skin and my lips and my bones.

And he doesn’t know how afraid I am.

If being gay is a disease,
Then I'm so sick
That I'm coughing up rainbow phlegm