I will not feel
remorse when he loves me
better than you-
when he speaks truths
you were too weak to tell.
I will not feel pity
when you have to watch
as he makes love to me
with his eyes,
his words,
his loyalty.
I will not feel regret
from walking away from pain-
to claim joy,
happiness,
and life.
I will not look back
to these days
when shame took
my family captive
and I was forced to
fight my way
out of the past.
I will look for him-
for the future,
for grace,
mercy,
and
love.
hearts are bells singing
shining like the moon
showing it’s face for only me
souls create questions
the world cannot answer
yet we go on searching
minds are machines humming
spewing great dark plumes
clouding the view
bodies are mailable clay
we assume we cannot mold
yet we keep the wheel spinning
1.
Long before, I’d made
my own youthful indescretions: in opaque
beer bottles smashed against concrete,
in dead-end situationships with ill-suited partners.
2.
Five years ago, I was learning
how to live the austere writing life,
lost in a haze of alcohol and smoke
like so many in my cohort. We strived
together in a distant University town,
finessed the language of academy,
and taught the basics of rhetoric
to students, drunk on youth and the city,
its party-school reputation.
3.
I’d made
my own youthful indescretions: in opaque
beer bottles smashed against concrete,
in dead-end situationships with ill-suited partners
5.
We whispered
about our cohort and I persisted, the usual
indescretions. Somehow we survived each other,
made it through (though it felt like balancing
on a spinning barrel over a deep black chasm).
6.
For the first time in years,
I felt seen. The hope was enough
to break my heart, over and over.
7.
Imposter syndrome is a part of me.
Nothing is enough, and I feel
as though I broke the yardstick
and made comparisons,
not preparations.
8.
I’m not hurt by much anymore,
but I do feel hair-trigger nostalgia
in the everyday: when the air
tastes like childhood summers at the lake,
or while imagining my old self still living
inside my body like a Russian nesting doll.
9.
Writing is still the old comfortable blanket.
I open myself to you, oh blank page, oh
unseen reader, easier to meet
than any old friend, any lover.
10.
I don’t know
what this poem is about. I do know
about institutions and how they fail
and succeed us. I feel survivor’s guilt
for those lost and failed, those turned away
from their craft.
11.
Is a vocation
promised? Is time ovular,
like a whole egg? Maybe,
in a parabolic arc, we can become
whole again, like Hawking’s teacup
breaking yet unbreaking.
lodged in a pit like Lazarus
Two friends on a tailgate
In a Taco Bell parking lot
Thinking about their future
The one they want
And the one they don’t want
The fireflies gets lost in the stars
And the stars get lost in the sky
Nights like these
Are the best
The puzzle game of no consequence
on my phone
demands that I enter a name.
I am no longer allowed to enjoy
the anonymity of being myself.
It wants a name.
Which more or less means,
it also wants a gender.
I no longet get to sit here
and simply be in my own skin,
be myself,
enjoy my time outside of the world’s eyes.
Even here in my bedroom,
I have to answer to society.
Who and what are you?
I feel like the transgender child
on The Riches
when Minnie Driver says
school is coming up
and they have to choose a gender
and the child tears up
and Minnie Driver holds the child
and says “Not for me. Never for me.”
This puzzle game could learn a lot from television.
I stare at the screen not wanting to give it
my boy name or my girl name,
too exhausted to come up with
a new third, gender neutral name.
It won’t accept the single letter J.
It’s all fun and games until we start labeling people
and grilling them for their names
and then it grinds to a halt.
Moments ago, I was mostly feeling feminine,
if I had to answer,
blissing out on Taylor Swift
and now I’m being asked to identify myself.
Who am I?
I’m the princess who lay dormant for over twenty years.
I am the one who hopes.
I am the brave one who continues
to dream
of finding a place in this world.
I am every redhead.
I’m the first transgender Disney princess.
How do you fit that into five to twenty characters?
They never seem to have that on a keychain at the souvenir shops.
That is who I am, puzzle game.
A single name can barely contain my multitudes
yet my name is too precious
to give you,
to toss away for the asking,
to share with the unworthy.
I have fought too hard for it.
I won’t play your game tonight.
Ain’t Nothing New (Receipts)
Black horizon fumes–
Nonessential souvenirs
Wedged in seams of death
i drank two grande cups of coffee from starbucks today
a nitro cold brew with sweet cream
and an iced cold brew with vanilla cream
i read poetry with people with a million accents
i sped down backroads
while eating a chocolate covered eclair
and singing till i felt my heart stop
i took pictures of graffiti all over town
i felt life run through my veins
the first thing i did when i got home
is take off all of my clothes
i wonder when i’ll go to sleep tonight
because i have to work tomorrow
