Hello again, I missed you
I was getting ready to break in,
somewhere,
We were planning an intervention,
Haven't seen you in so long.

We were worried about you,
dear,
Glad you're with friends now,
Back with us,
now,
So worried you were drowning,
out in the open,
You claim not to trust the world,
Yet keep falling victim to it -
Stay safe,
dear

I missed your birthday!
I had a present ready for you,
but I think I knew you wouldn't come.
It's been in this box for two months now,
You kept talking about how much you wanted these,
I made them myself.

I made brownies,
to celebrate you coming back,
I mean,
I don't want to make a big deal,
I don't know if I'm embarrassing you,
I hope I'm not

I just missed you

I'm glad you're home.

I wish adults still understood what it was like to be our age because yes, I'm going through phases and relationships and change and I smell disgusting and I am going through depression and I am transgender and discovering what that means and learning what it means to be a person, something that some people never learn. I don't understand why the people who seem to care about me aren't the same people I want to visit constantly. I don't understand the concept of 'blood is thicker than water' when the full phrase is 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb' and why adults use this to their advantage. It's not unhealthy to want to have a social life and go hang out with people all the time. These are the same adults that say I don't get out much and need to hang out with people more often on the occasion that I'm not doing anything. The same adults that have convinced me that I need to go to college and simultaneously have fifty-plus years of experience for a decent paying company to employ me. The same adults who have given me such a crippling anxiety and fear of the unknown that I've cried multiple times over homework thinking that not being able to understand quadratic equations will be my undoing, that there's no way I'm going to college now. I am so terrified to not go to college, yet I find myself unable to think of what exactly I want to do. Rather than letting me figure it out eventually, I am being rushed into roles that I don't even understand yet. I am being scared shitless over things that I don't need to worry about for years. I am being convinced not to legally change my name until after college because otherwise my boomer aunt and uncle won't pay my college funds. It feels like I'm being forced back into the closet, forced into a career that I may or may not enjoy doing for the rest of my life, forced into both solitude and society according to my parent's terms, forced into something I don't understand. This is not consensual. This is far from okay.

I walk through the doors,
Present the child with a tiny badge,
Yellow, white, purple, black.
I watch the smile spread across their face,
As I call them
"Captain; dear; Mx. Eli; child"
Do not tell me that they are not real
Do not tell me that they are confused
You have never known the inner workings
Of the mind of a child,
You dictate their thoughts and dreams and imaginary friends and fathers.
They are not confused
They know their mind
And they know the world they will grow up in
Will be nothing but cruel to them -
Nothing but cruelty to the little lost boys and girls and neithers,
Because if you cannot experience it then it must not be true,
And you must make up lies you imagine your father must have said
From his passive, uncaring position in the clouds,
Watching drama unfold like a game of Sims.
Tell me I'm going to hell. I'll see you there.
And never talk to my sibling like that again.

From cold blankets I hear the drizzle,
The raindrops making tinny clangs on the roof,
My sleep interrupted by forgotten tasks.
I get up.
Ghosts fly outside my bedroom window,
Whispering -
"What have you forgotten? You're awake before the sun again,
You look so cold !"

Scampering down the stairs and scrambling to take
Dampening clothes off the line
In the cold morning air,
Ghosts lay on the table, cats
Slinking around the *** plants,
Completely unhelpful,
Echoing a voice that shouldn't be present,
Be quiet, stay out of my head

I suppose I'm awake now

I sit inside, trying to clear my head of the fog dripping heavily outdoors,
Ghosts stand in the doorway,
Glowing because I forgot to turn off the kitchen light -
"You forgot, you forgot
Now why are you hiding?"
I have to laugh now -
Why would I hide unless I was scared?
I didn't hide,
I tried,
I tried so hard not to hide,
Yet my efforts fell upon blind,
Oblivious and unseeing, unknowing eyes,
That's hardly my fault now, is it?

"You're scared, in this empty house-"
No.
I am alone, but this is my home
Now get out of my mind,
You have no place here.

She has built your memories out of lies,
Screamed at you countless times,
And for every hurt she causes you,
tells you it is your own fault
You were raised to be co-dependant,
and then punished for not being independant
You burn books out of frustration
and shut out the world
because you've been "taught" how much more dangerous it is
than your own cage of a house
This fire she continues to twist around you,
Igniting unprovoked anger,
Because you dared to bend a rule she breaks every day,
Lighting up the trail of gas
and burning your memory away,
She birthed you to be her puppet,
and when you wiped the half-done paint job away
she tortured you into submission,
For all the lies she forces you to listen
Maybe we've solved the puzzle of her constant lies,
but it doesn't matter.
she doesn't matter,
but you do.
And I tell you now,
You won't have to listen to her lies
forever.

What’s the difference? The first time, this time?
Well,
The first time, it was all I could see - her body, pulsing before me,
I was there,
When she fell,
I was alone,
And I had to leave before I knew she’d be okay

This time, I wasn’t right there - I mean, I was close
But all I heard was the crash and then my own voice I think,
Screaming,
No, no, oh my god

Both times, there was the numbness,
The need to do something useful.
The first time, it was staying by her
The second time, it was running, finding the street names,
Standing by the caller & making sure people would come to help them
But I couldn’t help them

Both times, I was scared by how calm I was in the moment -
I didn’t cry,
I didn’t break down.
I was functional, I think,
I could still think

The first time, I was slow, walking home
I had someone to blame,
Convinced myself we had been abandoned & she was there for longer than she could have been,
But I have no way of proving that

The second time.
I feel strange.
I don’t know what I feel.
Walking home was a mess of emotions,
Every car that passes, a challenger approaching,
Engines, roaring, raring, raging, ready, oh I am so ready,
BRING IT ON!
Headlights taunting, flashing,
And hard footsteps, running, stomping,
And finally reaching the front gate, feeling nothing.

And I still don’t know if they’re okay.