I find myself tracing my timeline
of all my littlest achievements.
That is the aftermath of all my failures.

Accompanied only by the solace of my solitude

wading through the trees and brush.

A blank canvas for creativity and imagination.

A ruined structure among the trees.

a castle, my castle.

The chilled stream flowing through the woods.

A moat, my moat.

The smell of the pine permeating my nostrils;

the feel of the rough bark, the smooth leaves, the luscious grass

My own kingdom of welcomed loneliness.

And here we are again,
Stuck between sad and lonely.
What is wrong, darling?
The world is right outside.

And here we are again,
A dance with the frightful and dark.
It is only your own thoughts, sweetie.
Can you not feel the warmth of the sun?

And here we are again,
Numb, and life foreboding.
How much more can you take, honey?
Cant you see the hand extended toward you?

And here you are.
Cold and lifeless.
Not much has changed.
Except now the world around you feels your pain.
Is this really what you wanted, love?

And here I am again.
Stuck between sad and lonely.

Being transgender is like this:
Everyday of your life, you have always wanted a dog.
For as long as you can remember--
even if you don't know to what extent--
you have wanted one.

You asked your parents, Santa, the easter bunny,
even the tooth fairy.
Then one day you get a dead cat for your birthday.
You say "This isn't a dog,"
But "You get what you get and don't get upset"
So you carry around and care for the dead carcass.

All sorts of people look at you,
unable to understand what you are doing.
So then one day you decide to try to make it look a bit nicer.
You wash it a bit, comb what little fur it has left,
cover the decrepit limbs.

But then you realize the futility in doing this all the time,
because you are still carrying around a dead animal.
So you continue to carry it around because you have to,
no matter how horrible it may be.

Although you are carrying around a dead and rotting cat,
you aren't a ******* cat owner;

You still want a ******* dog.

I float between
the realm of
the living and the dying.
I long for
bittersweet discovery,
only to find
my want and my need
split between two worlds.

The world melts
My senses combust
My fingertips tingle

The world sways
I sway
I collapse

I feel numb
Disoriented
Everything goes dark...

A light.
A siren.
A vision of faceless faces.

I am alive.

The smell of disinfectant.
The idle chatter of two nurses.
A buzzing in my ear.

I am alive.

Break, break, break
'til your sanity seeps.

Burn, burn, burn,
'til your mind malfunctions.
Kick, kick, fight, ****.

**** the demon, the demons yourself.
Bully the brain
destroy the mirror,
fight 'til the end,

The end is fighting back.

It isn't easy.
The anxiety of coming out
Is enough to make a stagnant puddle
Become a tidal wave hitting
A bay of doubt.

You may know the person
Will accept you in open arms
But the storm in your heart
Is a tempest of terrifying possibility
That's wears down the walls of your confidence.

Your voice burrows deep in your throat
You know the words, but not their sounds
But you fight the Goliath that is your worries                        
And you force your true existence out.

And they will love you still,
If ever they loved you at all.

I find myself staring
right into the abyss
day after day,
yet sunlight still burns my eyes.

Drifting thoughts in my mind

Calloused memories, forgotten days
The dream of a new tomorrow
The mourning of a past yesterday.

The hope for a new day and the grief of passing time
The pains of the past
The toils of the future.

What have I become?

From Dusk til Dawn,
waiting for the ghosts to leave,
and the sun to rise again,
I ache for morning.

Sitting in the Dusk,
nervous of the dark closing in.
Will I make it to the light?
Or wither like a starved flower?

Sitting in the Dusk, I realize
there's no point in patience.
The Dawn can never lift
the darkness clouding my mind.

Sitting in the Dawn,
I patiently waited for the Dusk to leave;
yet it never did, and I realize
I'm so tired.

Dysphoria is like having to *****.
You're sitting there, weak and trembling;
every movement becomes twisted into a bout of nausea.
You're pale and helpless; held captive by your sickness

Every fiber of your body aches to oust the illness
A vile purgation, stinging and hot against your throat
Waves and waves of sickness pouring out of your body
Until finally, feeble and wavering, you stand.

And the color begins to come back to your face.
A relief of all the gross and disgusting feelings
Allowing you to lay down again and rest
Without your head swimming with blight.

But that is not dysphoria.
There is no purge
There is no relief.
You are hit again and again with this nausea

No hope for an end
With every breath, your stomach churns
With every movement, your body shakes
Your eyes are closed and you bite your lip;
Any action can only serve to entice the disease.

No medication could ever relieve such a force
Of this malady, this fever, this ailment.
Nothing can calm the tides of dysphoria.

Between the Midnights dreary rise and Dusk’s weary awakening,
The early morning encloses the world
with a soft, nebulous blanket of darkness.

Whispers of moonlight bleed through the black
allowing each insomniac creature a glimpse
at the languid world around.

Street lights cut through the dark
and chase away the stars.
Nothing but calm and solitude.

Pitiful are those who awake to the early sun’s start
and not to the Moon’s reign.

A world of fragile things,
where love and dreams and darkness all collide.
Even though this fragile world is tearing apart,
taunted by the shadows, I lie inside myself for hours.

Lost whispers
awaken within me,
like a lullaby,
burning deep inside of me:

"Closing your eyes to disappear,
so afraid to open your eyes.
Safe in the dark, how can you see?
Open your eyes to the light."

She beckons me,
The Goddess of Imaginary Light.
Arms outstretched, awaiting me,
high above the world below,
Shall I give in?

Frozen in my place,
safe inside myself,
I'm still a slave to these dreams.
Why must we fall apart to understand how to fly?
Maybe this time we can leave our broken world behind.

Look past the end, it's a dream.
All just a dream in the end.

The Siren's song swimming into my ears,
sweetly against the harsh instrumental.
The angelic vocals flood all who hear;
a love of a melody so gentle.

Hair long and dark as the lyrics she sings,
eyes a bold green and skin a soft, pale tone.
A Goddess of elegance beauty brings,
whose talent does her no justice alone.

But nurture does as it will always do:
A son born from such grandeur; a Lion.
The immaculate voice is all but through;
A respite of lull sulks from the scion.

The achievements of song left in her wake;
I'll wait evermore, as long as it takes.

On this sacred day,
they await a Savior:
a light for the shadows,
and warmth for the long nights.
Days and days they sit
in the very same holy spot,
praying for the change.
Winter slowly creeps in,
shaking the zealous to their core.
Faith, a fickle candle,
can't stand the gentle breeze.
The wick becomes chilled,
the flame extinguished,
and the weak begin to flee.
Those faithful to the Sun
scorn those who leave the holy site.
Even as the light dies
and the world grows cold,
here they sit patiently.
Unfortunately for them,
darkness still comes to those
loyal to the day.

I knew I didn't fit.
I knew from my expression,
and I knew from theirs.
I knew from the "she, her" and "him, he"
I knew from mirrors,
I knew from signs on bathrooms.

I knew when "woman" couldn't mean "man".
I knew from the stares, the questions;
I knew when they called me "boy",
but soon apologized.
I knew something was different,
I knew something was wrong,
I didn't know it was me.

I knew it would hurt.
I knew it would hurt you.
Your little girl, your one and only,
She isn't dead;
He's still here.

I'm coming undone

All the voices that said no
All the reason in my mind
Collapses with my will

I'm falling apart

Memories
Happy and sad
Blurred in my brain

I'm alone.

It's quiet and it's dark
All that's left
Is my silent breath

I'm already gone.

And with me
My last shred of hope
Disintegrates

I'm gone, I'm gone.

No more tears to be shed
Over a lost tomorrow
and a forgotten yesterday.

I started with a mirror,                                      
with questions of who and why.
But he just stared back at me,
reflecting what I already knew.

I met with a prophet,                                
who gave me a what:
The illusion of God,
and He was the only way.

I searched for a philosopher,
but was met with several.
Each had conflicting whys,
but none a who.

I moved on to science,
and it gave me a how:
It told of creation,
but never the why.

I read some books;
each had their own why,
And each character their own who,
but it was just fiction.

I looked at old photos,
and found an old me.
But I could not see who it was,
or what it all meant.

I turned to self help,
which told how to find who;
But this notion was sold to me,
and I lost more than I gained.

So I went back to my mirror,
and I broke it.

Grieving the death of yesterday,
and the fearful beginning of a new today,

Sits the mourning dove,
perched upon its pine tree palace.

The call of the sorrowful dove;
a soft, songful lament against the dawn's awakening.

Beneath the blue jay's ballad,
countered by the crow's cackle.

The mourning of the fallen, unknown to the world.
The mourning of the lost and forgotten.

Not singing, not chirping;
Just grieving.

She made me think twice
I had written the end
And she tore the pages.
And now I must write it again,
Doubtful of how I wrote it before.

Paranoia in the dark of night

creating shadows into figures

and creatures from stacks of ***** laundry.

It whispers sounds of footsteps into my ears,

feigning the noise of an intruder.

It makes the darkness malleable

morphing it into a monster under my bed

or a boogeyman in my closet.

Maybe I’m paranoid of the dark…

Or perhaps whatever lurks within it.

Under the porch


of someone’s apartment


shrouded in a cloud of


cigarette smoke and a


lingering winter’s breeze lies


twinkling plastic jewels


in the damp dirt

Puppet, puppet,
dance to my whim.
Squirm under string,
and bend to my will.

Puppet, puppet,
hear my call.
Listen only to my word,
and never anything more.

Puppet, puppet,
ever breaking.
Your strings will snap,
and you will fall.

Puppet, puppet,
where have you gone?
Who am I
without my marionette?

Puppeteer, puppeteer,
where did you
get your strings?
who do you dance for?

The rising sun's light reaching for my eyes,
almost blaring against the dawn.
The days just begun and I am already frightened.
The cool winds of morning
The smell of scrambled eggs
The sizzling of bacon.
Fatigue.
Another day.
Just remember to breathe.

My my, what a special little snowflake.

Why did you choose to be this way?

You chose to be different, you chose to rebel.
No binary for me!

You chose the grief, the pain.
You chose this abuse, bruised by
the verbal ferociousness, forged by physical fallacies
To be thrown out of bathrooms
because doing your business in the bathroom is abysmal.
You chose to be derided by decisive discrimination.
You chose to be murdered by misconceptions,
***** by ridiculous requirements.
You chose to be beaten, assaulted.
You chose the words I weave to weaken your will.
You chose the sacred sermons I spit at you.

You chose to be
What I find disgusting, despicable
because you chose to be what you aren't,
but I realize what I really regard you to be.

My my, what a special little bigot.

You think I chose to be this way?

You think
I chose the injuring, injustice,
the jester, the joke
the target, tortured,
This pain, my poison,
the prey, praying,
the sinner of sins so bittersweet,
So I could be "special"?

Special isn't a sacrifice of physical self
Nor the gunshots and gruesome grief
Nor even the crass comfort of a half-assed comrade.
You think I CHOSE this,
and you didn't choose
to spit and spew your sour speeches
to disperse your disgust in discrimination
to integrate your ignorance into my existence.
Or did you not choose
to deal the abuse
by your hand
yourself?

My special little bigot,
You live as you are.

So be it, if I am so "special", the special little snowflake.
Yes, we are the little snowflakes that your palm's presence melts away,
And you're that burning persistence of life
Blocking with your own self our slow, wistful descent,
As if it were futility and not of your own will.

If I am the snowflake, you are the fire.

Cars and gasoline and traffic,
Weddings, birthdays, and funerals,
The days, the months, the years.
Failures, mistakes,
Accomplishments, burden.
Life wears thin
as time gains substance.

Lifespans measured through the good and the bad days,
All a distant memory in the end.

Two voices screaming in my head.
One full of indignant righteousness,
the other begging for its morbid desires.

The rythmic yelling beats against my chest;
every word constricts my breath,
choking any reason in my mind.

Neither voice seems to ring true,
leading me further into a pit of self doubt.
Which one is the liar?

The fear in my heart wells
at the thought of both being truthful.
I fall deeper and deeper into myself.

I try to silence them both, shutting myself down.
but in the end, no matter where I turn,
they're everywhere I try to run.

And here we walk
the invisible road
No land markers tell of the way

Except the pressed earth
of ghostly footprints
All these little troubled things;
We press on further

We walk the road before the dawn
And without a noise to disturb
The lethargic world around

We walk without a stir
and without the notice
of the life nearby.

You wandered through misery and silence
for half your lifetime,
feeling every change in the wind
and the pain of the world around.

You were lost and didn't want to be found.
There was no salvation within;
so you gave up on false idols
of joy and light.

Aching and broken, you closed your eyes.
The world disappeared,
your mind grew louder,
And you gave up.

Or so you thought.

You expected an end
and received a beginning.
I'll wait a lifetime for you to catch up
and meet the new you.

You'll be ok again.

consume
rot
the parasite
and the host
eat, eat
feast on decay
eat, eat, eat
i'll feed you, parasite
eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat
consume me

The sun beating down on my face,
The gentle, warm breeze.
The smell of green plant life,
the stench of fresh mulch.
The cooling drizzle of summer rain,
the essence of wet concrete.

This is what I missed.

Your crown will roll,
your castle will fall;
crumbling,
crumbling.

The towers, the turrets,
the windows, the walls;
tumbling,
tumbling.

The king is dead.
Long live the liar.

Lives shattered from ignorance.
People struck by intolerance.
Livelihoods are judged from love,
and lives are taken by hate.

A love bathed in terror
is not a love we crave.
A love brought from kindness
was brought down by violence

Love slain by arms and a hatred.
A cry for humanity, a cry of sorrow.
It's our reach for freedom,
and we'll never back down.

For a battle not fought,
is a war never won.

Every line,
curved and straight,

every crease and fold;
every hole.

Every bump and bruise,
every lump, and anything smooth;

scars and scratches,
breaks and blemishes.

Every part of my being,
every crack in my soul;

I wish I could wash it all away.

When did our words die?
When a curious "good morning"
became a rigid "good night"?

When speech felt mandatory,
and a hello was whispered,
only to break the quiet?

We no longer felt the weight of our words,
or the breath in our conversation.
Our silence said more than we did.

Our feelings burned out,
Our language died,
And my shouts no longer reached you.

Why did we let our words die?