am i allowed to mourn myself?

dxm

and skullcap,

i tell myself

that my drugs of choice aren’t that bad,

that juice and brownies can take the

edge from what they are and make it

okay,

especially compared to my usual favorites

of canyons 1/4 of a centimeter

across, and pediasure in my closet

to keep my punishments from killing me.

i’m terrified

of dying.

 

not that i’m going to quit those things.

 

i scared myself last night,

explaining to brody my plan to

commit living suicide,

to kill every part of myself that feels.

 

but that’s okay, because one day i won’t feel

fear anymore.

only rage.

it won’t be scary anymore

how easy it is to succeed

so quickly. how easy it is

to ice someone out with terse

and distant

anger.

to kill the warmth i always was,

freeze it over and light up

instead the soulless fires of the damned.

 

we decided that we’d burn together,

we’d sit in cemeteries and rot from the inside out.

 

let me pretend it’s healthy

bara boy (excuse me, *man*)

you said that people

often call you feminine, and that you

consider it a compliment,

because you don’t like super masculine guys

and you said that perhaps that’s why

so many of your closest friends are female –

but that you have no girlish giggle.

·

he said

that he “outgrew that phase”

because he likes bara too much,

and asked me why i like feminine guys.

i have never asked him

why he chooses to be masculine,

or why

he now prefers

guys with biceps and hair.

·

i like bara, too, you know,

but also yaoi.

i think that there are many types of beauty,

and so i also enjoy yuri.

he doesn’t understand that.

he thinks it’s binary.

·

i don’t see why

it has to be a question

why my preference

has to fit neatly into

an equation –

sound reasoning + libido

= acceptable attraction

when did i ever make him explain?

·

maybe that’s why he doesn’t “like” you.

not because you’re short, but because

you don’t represent

the embodiment

of krindl the bara goblin, too.

·

so must i also justify

my shaved head and single earring,

and my decidedly unfeminine swagger

in my men’s size six combat boots

and violet lipstick

– or is it only

transfemininity

that is such an affront

to the bounds of his comprehension?

am i a question, too, or only you –

or is it an accusation?

·

incidentally,

for all he tries to prove that it was

just a

phase, i’d still peg him as gay

within a day,

because i guess you can’t

hide your true self

too well,

(and i should know, i’ve

tried)

or pretend that your internalized

phobia(hatred) of being feminized

is fully true.

i just wish he’d

stop acting like the type

who might judge you

for being you.

·

who seems to judge me

for who i am,

too.

charcoal eyes

she drew your eyes

so intense

within the charcoal of your face,

·

but her hands

didn’t smooth away the

worry lines that she has etched

into your skin

– she cracks you like glass.

·

i would hold you like

a picture frame,

and treat the gentle thoughts

behind the pane

like precious heirlooms,

and i would never spill coffee on them,

or leave them unattended near candles.

·

i would treat the

less-than-gentle thoughts

kindly too,

because they are yours.

·

but it’s not right to be envious,

and it’s certainly not

me,

and you

you trust my advice to be

honest, without

bias, invisible agendas or

intentions

that may be less than

charitable

for all i know.

·

you. you trust me.

·

i don’t want to wish this ill

but i cannot wish well to

a candle leaping so close to

a work of art,

·

to a coffee mug

that will only leave

teardrop-stains on your

watercolors

and holes in the paper.

·

so instead i will wish well to you,

and cross my heart that

i never will

ever

paint you with my eyes,

or smear you with charcoal

in her place.

·

and i will cross my heart

to keep my words

uncompromised,

so that i can say

the less-than-rosy things

that are really, really important

– about what happens

when you mix fire

with anything,

but especially paper,

and especially art –

and i will know that there is no agenda.

·

you

you are beautiful,

and you are worth more

than either of us

have

or are.

·

you are worth more than

cracked glass.

wearing moons

under my eyes,

i sigh

and questions tumble

out of my face

–

like galaxies.

survivor’s closet

Justin.

his name was Justin.

his name was Justin and I dreamt about

him last night, dreamt that he

was living upstairs and i had no

choice because my other option was the

street, and because his confusion

and rage held me bound and

silent, confrontation not an option that

tasted like confidence when his mother was

there, too, watching me gag on

his voice. i forced myself to

be the bigger person

and forget his sickness.

–

gunshot eyes, he haunted me even downstairs,

because i was railroaded by guilt into my

survivor’s closet. and the coats and hatboxes

wanted to know why i was still holding

onto what he did and they asked questions

like, ‘shouldn’t you just

move on?’

and confrontation tasted sickly when she

demanded to know why i’d begun

avoiding him.

–

it tasted like rain in the junipers when i

took his sin and my barefeet alone into the

moonlit sagebrush and hid in the trees from

her motherly love.

–

coming out doesn’t feel so brave or bold.

–

his name was Justin.

–

all the nightmares he’s given me, and

this one scares me maybe most of all.

thistledown

maybe one day,

i will use your name,

but not today,

when there is so much at stake.

–

today i am not brave,

and the gaslights you dropped inside of

me fill my mouth until it is mute

like cotton, like the thistledown outside

your house in Shelton.

–

maybe one day

i will stop cowering before her

and the shit she might talk

loudly, over my voice

and the friendship and love that

guilt me into submission.

not today.

–

today,

i am not brave.

forever now

but what if he was,

and what if he is there forever now?

a part of me,

inside of me,

he left himself there just to

fuck with me.

–

i won’t ever fucking know.

–

but now,

he fucking owns me.

–

won’t

ever

fucking

know.

exo-

and i want to cross my arms

like an insect’s legs across my breasts;

and solder my hoodie

to my exposed skin

for the first time in three years.

–

and for the first time in three years,

my body is not

lofted by wings, but rather

a dessicated husk

with its hairs on end.

–

i’m different, because i build the cocoon

and fold my skeletal legs across my thorax

inside of it

and don’t bloom.

–

i was already a butterfly.

now, i am

an exoskeleton

filled with rot.

–

new symptoms bloom on my skin,

lilke bot flies.

–

quit laying your eggs

inside of me.

assailable

this isn’t about revenge, and i’m not out to

prove something.

this is about me, and my journey,

and my sorting through my

maze of scars,

so i don’t use his name.

–

i won’t say this to your face,

because however unassailable i am,

i am afraid most of all that you will still assail me.

but did you

it sickens me to think

that you could have

–no.