Sometimes I would like to be a hero-
Clean-handed, showing up,
averting eyes while all the villains
fall on their own swords.
(After I stare morbidly
while my beloved bargaining chips cry.)
Sometimes I would like to be a hero-
Clean-handed, showing up,
averting eyes while all the villains
fall on their own swords.
(After I stare morbidly
while my beloved bargaining chips cry.)
I hung the skeleton on the outside of the closet.
Funnily enough, the skeleton looked like me.
I love you with
all the relaxation
in my shoulders
as your lats
Cedar and birch drift beneath stone arch,
carrying you, carrying me, like the aliens we are
through black hole into universe unknown.
They’ll spit the word “fashion”,
as though what they’re trying to vomit out
isn’t un-silenced, honest expression.
They’ll tell you how to dress, as though
they’re not saying how to feel.
They’ll condemn all impermanence,
as though phases aren’t actually stages
If I love you and you love me,
we both I Love You, even as
we flip each other’s pronouns ’round,
The first time I screamed,
I stopped when I felt guilty.
The sixteenth time, I stopped
when I felt like I’d gone mad.
The hundredth time, I screamed ’til I felt
I’d shown myself to be too insane to come back from it,
old words, new ways
different chapter, same change
always some cents short
mosaic around irises,
glowing between eyelashes
green, gold, yellow, and brown,
like fresh leaves on autumn ground
each glance I give:
my heart’s footprints
A.
What makes a monster?
Whether having hooves or claws?
Or the mere look in their eyes?
The story’s been told. Heroes know
what becomes of monsters.
Nobody wants to believe
that humans are monstrous.
B.
When you sink your teeth into my soul,
my emotions
haunt me like ghosts-
Wounds alive,
invisible
to those who don’t believe
in magic,
on a loop,
tangible,