beard.

when i came home from my trip, you cried and told me you hated my hair. you said you thought i wanted to be a boy. and i won't lie and say that peeing my name into the snow doesn't seem fun, but i told you it was a silly fear. i don't want to be a boy, i said.

i'm doing drag soon. some days i bind because i want to pass, even if i can only fool them before i start talking and the vocal chords i always think are much deeper than they actually are start vibrating. but, i know my chest is under that too-tight ace bandage. i know that my breasts are still in tact and begging me to unwrap them. i know there is nothing between my legs that i wasn't born with. i know that the shape of my body is anything but manly. i know all of this.

i don't want to be a boy.
but, sometimes, i just want to grow a full beard. and i thought you should know.

same change.

you smell different
than you used to
but you still hold
your pencils the same.
we both have changed
and stayed the same.
by change i mean
i have grown into myself
by same i mean
you have grown
into the mold your mother
cast for you.

instead of gathering.

it's sunday and
your feet are cold
wedged under my thigh.

it tingles
and you laugh.

your eyes are blue
so i forget
what i was saying.

i shiver
from the draft
and you leave.

excerpt from the real thing.

i was so there with you,
the pen in your mouth
might as well have been my finger.

i think i'll cut it off
and ship it express mail.
send you little pieces of myself
that you can glue back on me
with your hands
the next time you see the west coast.

mother's day.

on mother's day
i wanted to send you a card
that said
hey,
thanks for always being there
thanks for always supporting me
thanks for always making me feel loved
but i didn't want to lie.
so i got you a blank card
with a girl scout monster selling cookies
and wrote
i'll see you in september
i love you.

explode me.

i am a nebula.
the remnants of a star
that didn't quite make it to the finish line.
you
exploded me
a perfectly healthy, glowing star.
i didn't just burn out.
i didn't just collapse in on myself
and become a black hole.

i know it was you.

one day
i just looked around
and the gravitational pull
that kept everything in order
vanished
and my guts
were all floating out of me
into the great
scary
unknown.

don't get me wrong-
blowing up hurts.
but there's nothing more freeing
than breaking the laws of physics
and letting the particles
of myself
float as they may.

water.

my love is like rain
falling gently, warm
on your shoulders.
my love
is the water against your window
playing the glass like a bongo
at two am
to sing you back to sleep
after a horrible dream.

but sometimes
my love is like the ocean behind the levies.
most of the time
it takes a hurricane to break them.
but when it finally flows
my love floods the whole city
of your thumping heart
and fills all the hidden spaces
that not even you
knew were there.
the spaces between your walls
where your conscience hid your darkest moments
in bundles of clothes from your old life.
and in the spaces behind your eyelids
where water has only ever left,
my love will rush in and put it all back.

columbine memorial.

it makes me sick, i say.

what? asks my friend.

i say, that plaque. it's supposed to be a memorial and his father made it into some self-righteous statement about how a godless, pro-choice public school killed his son. why would he use this platform to talk about abortion? it just makes me sick.

and there's nothing here for the two boys, my friend says.

which two boys? i ask.

the two boys who shot everyone. there's no memorial here for them.

hmm, i hum.

my friend says, i'm just thinking about how their parents must feel. they lose their child and gain the hatred of the entire nation. and then they don't even get a mention for their loss in this memorial.

yeah, i say.

they were victims too, you know? says my friend.

i ask, so that's where it happened, huh?

that's the school, says my friend.

i say, it looks so normal.

my high school teacher knew someone who went to school with one of the kids. that morning when they were walking to the bus he said, i like you. don't come to school today. at lunch he had to run home to get something and that's when the shooting started.

i like you. don't come to school today, i repeat. wow.

yeah. i know. they were victims, too.

queer or denver?

gay, i say. definitely gay. we look at the woman on the cross walk. our traffic light is red.

nope. denver, says my friend.

how do you know? i ask.

i just do.

gumby.

that night
you saw gumby in the clouds
and i saw
lots of fish and
a few dinosaurs.

you said
the black spaces between
all of the hazy white puffs
could be pictures, too.

so we found a horsehead
and a flower.

and i wanted to kiss you
but i didn't.

nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

don't let the bastards grind you down.

the ink under my skin will always be here
resting
waiting
silently reminding me that i can never never give up.

the needle went in
past my epidermis
straight to my dermis
and to a part of my body
that will never rub off.

defeat is only ever in my head.
so i will not claim it.

when i think of that day
yesterday
i will not think of how they slapped us down
and took their chisels to our hearts
and tried to separate our
bodies from our souls.

i will think of holding one another.
and dancing when they watched us
with their hawk eyes
and their walk-by shooting glances.
and standing outside the steeple doors
with candles glowing in plastic cups
singing hymn choruses we knew by heart.
and snuggling close to keep warm
when the night air was crisp.

we don't need their permission to love.
and they don't know
that my skin is the hardest stone in this city.

their backs will break
from grinding away at me
before i ever
ever
change my shape.

cultural heritage two.

the first day
shoes soaked with snow
i imagined we would read stories
of another people
at another time.
nothing of myself would show.

but humanity is
always
relevant.

in the mirror of the text
i saw my figure
from different angles
and in different lights,
less distorted than before
or more
depending on your ideas of distortion.

Icarus showed me the wings
i've been given,
how fragile they are.
i fly too close.
my wax melts
and i wonder why i drown.

right and wrong do not exist.
subjectivity is to blame
for my lack of consideration
and empathy for others.

i will not let Truth kill me.
Jocasta is a lie.
and the only thing i will carve
from my body
when fate is against me
are the demons that yell
"there is no hope."

pig-headed moments
are human moments
as are the times when it seems that
the world is against me.
i am not alone in suffering.
and sometimes the world
is full of doom
so that the sun seems brighter
than ever
when it shines.

i want to be Socrates
incarnate.
i will stop my feet from moving
an inch
until my thoughts align.
i will admit
what i do not understand.

and all i need to start a movement
is move
and stand my ground.
because the powers that be are always men
and powerful women
will always be seen as agitators
and never heroes.
Lysistrata's idea ended the war,
not her husband's.

death is simply
a blip
on my radar,
and the consequences of sounding
my voice
be damned.

there is no life in fear
and i want to live.

humility as buoyancy
so the mirror cannot be for vanity.
it must be to examine every pore
of my skin
for the truth in myself.

but
i know now
that i know nothing.
and uncertainty is a fickle mistress.
she comforts you while
she twists your arm.
my arms are jumbled but
my muscles are relaxed
and it's sort of like a stretch.

the blemishes on
my skin in the mirror
are fading.
my face is coming in to focus.
i think i am starting to see myself
for the first time.