Category: Uncategorized

It’s a tall order, asking me to describe myself.

It’s the kind of question that plagues me at night,
that slithers in the backrooms of my mind,
until I give you a non-committal smile
and fill the silence with mindless jargon
I’ve gotten from personality websites.

I’ve always been a person who is seen best through others’ eyes.

I don’t have a sense of self strong enough to put into words.
Think of me as graffiti or a Pinterest board that’s half-finished,
On a fixation you no longer recall, abandoned in the depths of your inbox,
Until you scroll and scroll to find that unread email you’ve missed,
and you stumble into the disjointed parts of a life
that once used to be yours.

I think there’s been a me in every household.
every friend group.
every family.

Yet I’ve never once met someone who knew how it feels,
To look in the mirror at something you want to burn off your skin.
To stare for hours at your face, trying to find an inkling of yourself
hidden away beneath the revolting skin, and then trying to gauge
whether people can see the desperation in your eyes as easily as you do.
To cower in photos, or pull funny faces, because you know
that no matter how hard you try, you’ll never like what’s staring back at you
from the mirror.

I’ve always been a person who is seen best through others’ eyes.

I feel like a parody of myself,
whenever I see myself on video.
like a cartoon in a semi-real existence
pulling antics for an audience that has long since stopped watching.
Subliminally begging them to like me.
Begging them to keep watching.

I feel like I’m a cynic in my bones,
while my blood longs for laughter and sunsets
and my heart begs me to hold on to the dredges of sympathy
it has painstakingly collected over the years.
And my brain, oh, my brain
it keeled over from madness far before I ever did,
buried in the pamphlets of personalities I adopted
still searching for the one that fits like skin.

Skin.
Whose skin am I wearing?
Are those sun-speckled arms mine?
Is my body mine to command?
Is the creature in the mirror me?
Or is it just the constant for the variables
that constitute my personality?

I carry pieces of everyone I’ve ever known.
My opinions are the equivalent of a parrot
screaming from the rooftops
about what it overheard in philosophy,
hoping that somebody will give it a cracker
and an enclosure in the museum,
so it doesn’t fizzle out of memory.

I’m a folk song that nobody quite knows the words to,
so they make up their own.
There’s as much to me as they assign.
Nothing more, nothing less.

As I said, I’m best seen through others’ eyes.

They see the parts of me I don’t like to see in myself.
The parts that prove I am more than the creature in the mirror.
They see the joy in my eyes when I’m with children.
They see my wonder on nostalgic summer afternoons.
They see the happiness I hide from myself.

I am the eyes that see me.
I am the people I surround myself with.

I am the sum-average of everybody I’ve ever met.
a paradox of identities, a folk song sung in parts.
graffiti scrawled on the graphite, unfinished, fading
yet still irrevocably mine.

me. myself. I.

I Wish I Could Help You
a thousand miles away
I am listening for your heartbeat
making sure that
thump thump thump
is still pounding
just as strong and fast
as it once beat for me.
I worry about your brain
dripping and melting
breaking and burning.
I worry about your body,
creaking and cracking,
your skin the color of a daffodil
but not as sweet.
these simple things
growing from the earth,
nourishment in one form,
poison in another,
they entrance us
we can’t resist the long dance with death,
waltzing to a hazy melody
until it kills us.

I want to catch minnows
in the tender trap of my palms.
I want to make a river
of my body, warmed trepidation—
clumsy reverence, a wisher
and a walker of ponds.
I want the minnows to feel safe
in my river body, and I want
to be the minnows
weaving and waiting,
and safe in my river body.
I want to hold myself like this river
holds me— like cloudy agate,
aggregate hidden
in the darkest parts of the bed.
Welcome to my riverbed body.
Welcome to my bone home.
I will love you like I love
these minnows—
like a fear embodied, burned
bright and bold by a golden sun.
I will love you like the sun grows
right between your eyes,
and you will be me
embodied again.
And again, we will multiply—
all gall and veined anthem,
and we will be the minnows still.

Her body continues to change
Attitude and emotions shift frequently
Childhood slowly coming to an end
Inching away from parents attachment
Causing random arguments
Stresses about high school
Drama is a recurring event in her life
She wants to fit in with her peers
Toxic friendships come and go
She knows who the good ones are
Doesn’t want to find love
She’s scared to get attached
Looking in the mirror
Not happy with the image she sees
She just wants to change
Hides away from the bad things in life

The void left,
My mind came.
Darkness hung thick from the cross,
Bringing the room some new sights.
I smelled the box’s contour,
Tasted what rotted inside.
A mirror slept within its womb;
Black roses lay under his hands.
Silk covered the warmth of the wood—
In it, my soul was confined.

The moon left,
a crowd came.

Right through my limbs, I could see
faces of no one around.
They wept not a tear as they grieved,
polished some words for their mouths.
“I’m sorry he no longer breathes
but to higher places he’s bound.”
They kissed the body on his lips,
avoided the death in their thoughts.

The church left
the skies came.

We stood at the edge of a cliff
a hole where I wouldn’t be found
I struggled to get myself free
a corpse that could not let me out
the priest sang a prayer for me
he brought the casket to the ground
they buried me under the dirt
worms judge if im even allowed

my mind left
the void came

A lack of bitterness with the world set aflame,
Our eyebrows no longer bumped together in scowl.
The fire was still captivating,
But I was sick and tired of being your blame.
My hands have been emptied,
No need to bat your wings and growl.
A firm-minded heart,
Will always be the one envied.

Don’t come to me and plead,
“Let’s be a lyrical mention”
I’d rather sing a song of your kindled misery
I want to see your brandished fist in need.
Maybe we’ll walk away from the fire
But it still holds our attention
Broken bronze buildings besmirched
Something you and I both admire.

Our dreams are only meant to be dreamt,
We exist between torture and desire
Dreams will always be the one envied,
Something you and I don’t admire.

She tries.
Tries to lose weight, be normal,
To forget her past is poisoning her brain.

She yearns.
Yearns for the years she let pass by without a second thought,
The times she was happiest, for the people she took for granted.

She slips.
Slips from a healthy and sustainable self,
She slips back into the darkness calling for her.

She cries.
Cries for the light, from the pain,
For a world where nuclear warfare and bigotry aren’t the norm.

She hides.
Hides from the world, those she loves,
She even hides from herself.

She quits.
Quits hiding, slipping, crying, yearning,
Trying.

She is no longer in the dark.
She is going toward the light.

because i am trans, i can’t desire
can’t open the softness of my vulnerability to you,
tell you why misgendering stings and slurs
fill me with the rage of a thousand suns—
can’t be anything but a debate topic
exercise in civil discourse, can i occupy public space

just so you can be intellectually stimulated
because i am trans, write a fucking essay about me
pros and cons of my existence—
care more about the sanctity of the public restroom
than this cast-off body, this broken

utopia. i’m not even athletic, but you don’t know that
politicizing my every motion, if trans people shouldn’t participate in sports
maybe debating you should be
redefined as a sport, with its endless
scorekeeping over objects that only have meaning
when a dudebro says so. because i am trans

i become an AI for you
there is a list of your “transgender questions” in my inbox
and i cannot ignore it, knowing that if you go unanswered
your assumptions become laws and edicts—all i can do
is nod and smile and privately wonder
if you identify as an annoyance

She grew used to the roof falling
the silent talking
and not knowing when the warning signs would end.

Her body grew accustomed to the feeling of danger
the rush of the blood in her veins
the rapid heart beating in her chest
and the fear permanently etched in her eyes.

Her mind raced so fast that no single thought could settle in
and her body lived through the worst of it
trying its best to not be affected by the war.

And when her mind came back
her body told her that everything was fine

the house was burning-
the people bleeding out-
and the siren still blaring

but she couldn’t hear it anymore

She couldn’t see the rubble-

she just saw a house

She didn’t realize that she was bleeding
because she grew used to the feeling of being cut

She was stuck
between the panic and the eerie calm that followed.

She adapted to the world around her,
she did the best she could,
and in doing so, she changed.
always looking for shelter
always expecting the worst

She was always prepared for a tsunami to crash onto her landlocked state
so that she would never be caught off guard when it did (if it did)

But that tsunami isn’t coming
and she never prepared for any other disaster.