Dishonor

Dishonoring my emotions
Holding them in my mouth
Clenching my jaw against them
Swallowing them deep into me
Where I can't see

You know me best
But sometimes it's like you hardly know me at all
Because I couldn't ever let the needs inside me
Come tumbling out around you
And that's why this will end

When I met you, I thought I could live without myself
But I transformed because you helped heal me
Making me feel safer than I have before
I could embrace what I thought I'd killed when I buried it alive
But now I'm burying myself for you

It feels wrong to do wrong by both of us like this
But I feel such shame and fear
When I think of telling you who's really there
Sleeping next to you in the bed we share
I wish I could control my thoughts and feelings, but life is never fair.

Sifting

Grant me the restful slumber of fresh snow upon the streets
Blurring all senses with cold gentility.

Grant me the peace that only meadows know
Of the inauguration of certainty and faith.

Buoy my spirit through the choppy waves of vulnerability.

Fasten the cloak of hopeful compassion around my shoulders

As I face the cold sleet of anguish and despair.

Warm the bones of my soul with
The flames of companionship and community,

And send me with zealous affection
And earnest fondness into each enterprise I endeavor.

Call Me Frank

You burnt the mercy out of me
With your poisonous energy
And for years you haunted me
Hunting me in the night like an enemy
But now I've died and risen, I'm a zombie.

Life with you was absolute mayhem
And I'd kill you before I'd do it again
You always acted like you had some plan
Until I had the bright idea to time your attention span
And I realized I had to become a self-made man

Checkmate

Who's ready to play?
Because God created this game
And I'm here to win
I've got the vision
I see the pieces lining up
I'm about to sink some ships

Idolatry

I'm not sure if I was almost ready to forgive you,
or if I had just begun to fall back in love
with a facsimile of you I could only meet at night.
But I woke up angry just like every other time.
I would still kill you if I had the chance.

Memory Games

Five years trying to forget what you did to me

But I can't forget so I'm emptying myself 

Of your plentiful poisons instead

I'm just afraid not to feel anything

At all, even anger, when I'm done with this

When I left you, you told me, ironically,

You wanted to marry me

But honestly, I can't think of anything worse

Than being locked in your prison

Until death, probably mine, do we part 

I realized I would never 

Beat you at your own game

I realized, too, that I had already lost

So long before that moment

And I left you

And I will leave you again and again

Dropping memories of you like bread crumbs. 

Wavering

I wouldn't need you
If I knew how to do it all
Perfectly from the start.
Cherish me in all my ways,
In each of my imperfections.
My inadequacy is your opportunity.

Note to Self (Missed Connections)

Maybe I'll find the other people like me
when I get to grad school.
Or who knows.
Maybe I'm one of a kind
and I shouldn't strain my eyes so hard
looking for my duplicate.

On Being Out

Coming out is like
Taking a deep breath after
an exhausting run.

Am I trans

If you are asking
I will just tell you right now
The answer is yes.

Fern Gully

I drove a railroad spike
Into my heart
In order to break the chainsaws
That tried to cut me down.

On Coming Out

So that I may start another year as myself

Swimming

Three years and I've pried probably
nine out of ten of your fingers
from their vice-like grip around my soul.
You used to choke me, physically and spiritually,
but I held my breath.  And now at twenty five,
my breath only ever catches
when I stumble on your memory.

Note to Self (Make Room)

The world has a lot of love to give you.
Keep your heart open and let love flow out.
That will make space for their love to flow in.

Autobiography

Perhaps the only place a soul's life history
     could be told would be in poetry.
To be explicit, to be literal about me
     is to be truthful superficially,
But too much abstraction, telling it metaphorically
     is a story told artificially.

My whole life I've been a writer,
     and as you can see here, also a rhymer.
Poetry and writing allow me to life decipher,
     acting as designer and healing as survivor.
Creating forces me to ascend above transcriber.
     I enlighten, I live, I am wiser.

Note to Self (Stay Dead)

If you want him to be dead
You have to stop resurrecting him.
You hold the power to bring him back or let him rot
So let him rot.

Flour

My problems, cares and worries are
grains of wheat, barley and rye
And I am the grindstone,
Making sweetbread from my troubles.

Kintsugi

There's a beauty in it

In being a survivor

I'm invincible

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum (Wikipedia).

Alice's Haikus

If you had asked me
ten years ago whether I
would be here today,

I would act aloof
and maybe indignant too,
and I'd say, "Never there;"

And yet here I stand,
tending a secret garden,
chasing Caroll's dreams.

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Sorry it's been such slow output.  I went from putting 125% of my energy into school straight into the garden.  It just happens to be 1:23 and I'm buzzed and listening to Kanye West.  So, you can imagine the state I'm in.  But in any case, what I wanted to say in this note is that I'm watching my poetry/style/subject material transform (albeit slowly, but transformation non-the-less).  It's scary and thrilling and mundane all at the same time.
Maybe I'll consider going to sleep now...who knows?  I certainly don't.

Fear Her

Babe, the devil's coming for your soul.
She's got blue eyes and revenge on her mind.
A molotov cocktail to quiet the nerves,
And off to work we go, scythe in tow.