I miss the feeling
you know the one
the one with “I love you”
on the tip of my tongue.
I miss the feeling
of magic in their eyes
clearing away my clouds
in the darkest of skies.
I miss the feeling
of first kiss fantasies
and hopeless pining
for their body next to me.
I miss the feeling
of optimism in the air
of holding hands at taco stands
of living with all but one care.
These are the days that I am a clay figure,
Molded by clumsy hands, shaped
With curves where there should be flat
Planes where I exist to create a mask, a
Persona of who I am and who I want to be.
These are the days when I want to avoid
My reflection yet check it to make sure it
Matches what I want to see and
It never does.
These are the days that my reflection
Never matches what I want to see where
My insides twist in disgust and I want to
Crawl inside myself and hide from the
World.
These are the days that my reflection
Never matches what I want to see where
My insides twist in disgust and I want to
Crawl inside myself and hide from the
World.
These are the days when I wake up
And want to have layers upon layers because
The bulk can help make my body a secret.
These are the days where my body is a
Secret that I never want to reveal when
My steps are unsure and my face is set to
Boy-mode.
These are the days that I watch guys and
Imitate them,
Stealing their walks hoping
I’ll steal their identities so I don’t have to
These are the days that my heart fissures
When I am called “her”, when a pronoun
Becomes an insult and
These are the days that I wish my mind
Wasn’t so deadset against my happiness
That I could just feel “girl” that I could
Just pretend it away.
But these
Are the days that I fight hardest to be who I
Am and fight to educate others and
Imagine a day where I won’t be misgendered
Or gendered at all.
But he said he was fine!
Yeah.
It was the only answer
he needed to give
to silence
their ever-growing concerns.
Push.
Sounds create
Your connection
with a fussy infant
Words create
Your connection
with a defiant toddler
Music creates
Your connection
with a rebellious adolescent
Video chats maintain
Your connection
with young adults
Connection as close and secure as
a dental appliance,
a cantilever,
a truss, a beam,
an unbroken cable
between you and them.
A network of shadow
shed
on
the
bottom of
the forest stream
hatch pebbles
tiny fish
insects
A vast
design
an upsurge
of
thou-
sands
a crisscross pattern of
filtered
flow
drifts in the light Stirrings of
air result
in
stilled
loose
leaves, stems cemented to
rocks in the swirling
currents and
steep slant
of
spawning
~ Erasure of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, p 130-1
cotton candy skies
glitter in your eyes
shining through the forest
line
found a way to my heart
tore me apart
in the best way
possible
cotton candy skies
glitter in your eyes
with a smile that burns so bright
that it casts away the night
leaving you and me
side by side
&
hand in hand
we are free from everything
cotton candy skies
glitter in your eyes
you somehow found a way into my heart
and I want you to know
that I know how this’ll go
for cotton candy fades away in the rain
Thrift store
spiky high heels
(purple, sequined):
the nine-year-old says
they make her
feel tall,
beautiful.
He prided himself on being Frank.
It was both his name and his philosophy on life.
Frank believed in being frank.
Especially with his daughters,
He believed to spare the truth was to spoil the child.
So, while his darling girls
Still wore darling curls,
He warned them about the world…
Especially men.
Beware.
Boys only want one thing.
Don’t succumb until you get a ring.
And even then, don’t act like you enjoy it.
Don’t dance.
It draws attention to your hips.
Don’t smoke.
It draws attention to your lips.
Lips give boys bad ideas.
So, don’t speak often either.
Abstain from alcohol.
Except white wine
When you dine,
And then only half a glass…
Or first you’ll lose your head and then your reputation.
He lectured his daughters until the full moon rose,
On everything from communism to wearing seamed hose.
He told them to curb their feminine charm,
For it could only bring them harm.
He told them inhibition was their best friend.
He told them that all that mattered in the end,
Was whether or not they had been good girls.
One daughter heeded every word she heard,
And grew up to be the perfect wife
With the perfect life…
At least, from the outside looking in through her streak-free windows.
She married a man just like dear old dad,
And spent her years begirdled and apron-clad.
Each fall, she won the bake-off with her apple pie.
She never had an orgasm…didn’t even try.
She knitted chastity belts, which she sold at church bazaars.
And always went to bed before the stars…
Came out.
One sunny day in May,
She hung herself in the garage with a vacuum cord.
It snapped her neck, but not her strand of pearls.
From the same admonition,
Her sister found ammunition…
The knowledge needed to use her wile,
To live it up in style.
By sixteen, she’d tried every vice twice…
And mastered most.
Her life was a systematic study of sin,
Spent traveling the world with dangerous men,
Placing bets while drinking absinthe from a silver cup.
She never went to bed until the sun…
Came up.
Her penchant for perversion was spectacular.
Regret was not in her vernacular.
At eighty-two,
She opened a brothel in Peru.
Her red light still burns bright…
Today.
Be careful, Daddies, what you say.
wishing you lived through
a tramatic event or abuse
in order to
justify
your anxiety,
fear,
&/or depression
is a sign of trauma
