"it's like..."naive self destruction"

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Howdy howdy howdy, I’ve collected a lot of poetry since the beginning of college and I’ve decided to put it out there. Not necessarily for critique because I’m embarrassed by 99% of the stuff in here. I’ve grown a lot—I’m a different person and a better writer. I guess I just wanted to share my ~college experience~ thus far with y’all which has involved hook ups, breakups, dysphoria, falling in love, and reflection on all of these things.

Ok bye

Mac

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i found your eyelash on my pillow from where you last laid your head you left early this morning i went back to bed i don't remember saying goodbye but i knew you'd be back i can still feel the outline of your lips on my neck

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Their line bobbed in the water I took the bait And waited.

Hooked, They reeled me in.

I did not fight it.

Their lips find mine.

Can they feel the hook?

It pulls me closer to their body And I give in.

It’s morning now.

And I’m gutted.

My insides decorate their floor, among our clothes.

But they doesn’t need to worry.

There are other fish in the sea.

Flapping fish right side left side Wrong side of the bed Hooked, hurting, eyes are dead I stand up, collect my clothes You don’t look at me I walk home 5

Roses remind them of funerals, they said But I’ve been to enough to know that Nothing looks pretty when it’s around The dead.

There’s something on your mind They said As they crawled into my bed.

I imagined a life Where I wasn’t sick or A thorn in their side, The reason they stayed up at night

There’s something on your mind They said As they crawled into my bed.

They said.

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MY BODY IS NOT MINE. IT BELONGS TO A SOCIETY THAT BINDS ME TO ONE HALF OF A BINARY. DISREGARD WHERE IT SAYS “FEMALE” ON MY BIRTH CIRTIFICATE BECAUSE THOSE DOCTORS HAVE TO BE FULL OF SHIT IF THEY THINK GENDER IS WHAT’S IN BETWEEN MY LEGS. FOR THE RECORD, I ORBIT SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN AND NO, THAT DOESN’T MEAN I’M CONFUSED. I AM NOT A GIRL CAN YOU REALLY SEE ME IN HEELS AND A PROM DRESS AND JUST BECAUSE I BIND MY BREASTS DOES NOT MEAN I WANT TO BE A BOY MY BODY IS NOT YOURS TO POLICE. TURN OFF THOSE FLASHING LIGHTS EVERY TIME I WALK INTO THE ROOM BECAUSE I REFUSE TO DROWN IN MY OWN DYSPHORIA THAT IS MADE WORSE BY YOUR PROBING EYES. DO NOT THINK THAT BEING MYSELF COMES EASY I HAVE TO WEAR A LIFE JACKET JUST TO BE ABLE TO BREATHE IN MY OWN SKIN AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY SKIN. I’M ABOUT AS SCRATCHED AND DENTED AS A USED CAR BUT I RUN JUST FINE THESE DAYS. I AM SORRY IF MY ANDROGYNY OFFENDS YOU. MY BONES MAY NOT BE PINK OR BLUE BUT THEY STILL CARRY ME PLACES. AND I’M GOING PLACES.

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I say, “it’s fine”

She’s colder than the midnight breeze at a drive in movie that I’m not watching

Even though I carry mine with me everywhere I go

Because I’m just trying to figure out how to hold her hand

Introducing them to those who wonder why I walk so slowly

She’s sitting next to me, but her eyes are miles away, lost in the stars of the late may sky

I wear my story on my skin

And I wonder if they too have burnt out millions of years ago

bearing scars of the times I’ve tried to cross out names and erase whole chapters.

The only spark I see is the one she’s using to light her cigarette

She makes notes in my margins and writes her name on the first page

She wears the smoke like a toxic perfume that I could taste on her lips the night she kissed me

Because I am her favorite book and I belong to her.

for the first time.

Even when I belong to someone else

It’s our third date and our palms haven’t yet met

My heart is careful never to stray too far from the bookshelf she built for me

I want to feel her pulse in my hand as our skin shares secrets of the surfaces they’ve touched

I’ve always been one to flirt with disaster So I grab her hand, hoping my touch will be enough to convince the guards that surround her

Because I know her lips don’t kiss and tell.

heart to take a break.

Three years is a long time to know someone without really knowing them

She has them trained to shoot on sight And her hand is cold.

Her lips move only to tell me that she has skeletons in her closet

Colder than the midnight breeze at a drive in movie that I’m not watching because I’m just trying

Whose bones she would rather not dust off just yet

to figure out why her hand is so cold.

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The smell of stale cigarettes reminds me of your fucking car.

When we first met you told me you didn’t smoke and I believed you Even though the back seat of your car was littered with empty packs of newports.

I believed you even after I picked up the habit knowing that Sharing a cigarette would be the closet I’d ever come to kissing you Until 3 years later when I tasted the sad sad empty sad on your lips

Etc etc etc

Piece of fucking trash

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THE DEMON LIVES INSIDE OF ME THE DEMON LIVES INSIDE OF ME AND HE DOESN’T EVEN PAY RENT H’ES BEEN SQUATTING IN A CAVITY HE CARVED INTO MY CHEST FOR THE PAST SEVEN YEARS EACH YEAR IT GETS DEEPER TOO FAR FOR ME TO REACH IN AND GRAB HIM TO DEEP FOR ANY THERAPIST TO SEEE HE’S BUILT ROOMS TO HOUSE HIS FRIENDS NAMED ANXIETY AND DYSPHORIA THE DEMON DOESN’T MIND WHEN I’M COVERED IN MY OWN BLOOD AND VOMIT AND LAUGHS EACH TIME I TRY TO SILENCE HIM WITH A WHITE PILL I LAUGH TOO BECAUSE I AM A MERE VESSEL FOR HIM LIVING UNTIL HE TAKES CONTROL OF THE REIGNS ANDWHERE AM I I ALWAYS END UP ON THE FUCKNIG FLOOR THE LAST HOUR IS A BLUR AND I’M LAYING NAKED AND BLEEDING MY STOMACH REECNTLY EMPTIED AND MY BREATHES COMING IN SHORT DESPERATE GASPS I AM DESPERATE FOR RELIEF THE DEMON CRAWLS INTO MY SKULL AND BANGS HIS ANGRY FIST DYSPHORIA CLAWS AT MY CHEST FROM THE INSIDE AND ANXIETY SETTLES IN MY LUNGS DESPERATE, DESPERATE FORWHERE AM I I ALWAYS END UP ON THE FUCKING GROUND THE LAST HOUR IS A BLUR AND I AM LAYING IN THE MIDDLE OF A ROAD THE FOG IN MY HEAD THICKER THAN THE MIDNIGHT AIR MY KNEES SKINNED AND BLOODY RELIEF, RELIEF DESPERATE FOR“ARE YOU OKAY?” THEY ASK ME “NO,” I SAY “DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE WITH HIM.”

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I want to know what you’re thinking And what you’re thinking when you promise you’re not thinking at all Maybe I’m nosy, but I never want you to waste your beautiful breath on someone who doesn’t care I will listen, even when you don’t want to speak--We say the most in silence anyway They say that silence is golden, but ours is walking hand in hand through the East Village at night, dodging piles of garbage Every breath you share with the mid-october air is a fucking paragraph that I desperately want to myself.

You paint my cheeks a rose color with those watercolors of yours every time I feel your breath on my neck.

I’ve used my body as a canvas before I wear shame and regret as a second skin But you peel back my layers of trauma, making clean and even strokes with your paintbrush fingertips And I never want the paint to dry.

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You make me see the beauty in the things I hate Like snow storms, ice, and going to D-hall hung-over on Sunday mornings And speaking of mornings They’re not so bad when I wake up with you sleepy eyed at my side Blessing my cheek with your holy lips Your touch lights lanterns in my chest, exposing all of my abandoned corners You walk right into the chamber of my heart that reads “trauma” and seal my wounds with your breath Every time you exhale I hear songs You don’t need a ukulele when you have working lungs I never want you to waste your time on someone who doesn’t give you light And when it gets dark inside your head I will be your moon Orbiting around your body until the sun comes out again Because you have made my sun come out again

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We kissed goodbye in Penn Station I held you and cried “I love you, I love you” I yelled From my place in the line

Back home, On the phone Sad and faraway Your voice 200 miles south I miss the way Everything I make for you Ends up underneath your bed

In a few more years We’ll get outta here And I’ll buy you that dog Just promise me That you won’t leave— I hate train rides alone.

Everything I make for you Ends up underneath your bed.

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I don’t hear the airplanes anymore but I still look up.

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I walk slower than my friends Trailing ten feet behind and If I pretend I’m warm I don’t feel cold

I’ve learned how to lift things that I can’t carry Jack of all trades and I thought I’d be buried by now

Are you cold?

I think I’m cold now.

Can we go home So you can hold me?

I wake up in different states And shower in sinks Will I be sane today I’m on the brink

I’m not what you wanted I’m not what you wanted

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You held me in your arms like a Twenty-one year old baby; Too late to nurse my wounds Not worth It to save me

Are you my mother Will you be my mom Please call me back I need someone

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When you trash the only gender neutral bathroom at the Stood, you are making life just a little bit harder for me.

It’s a Saturday night and I’m at work It’s a Saturday night and you are drunk It’s a Saturday night and my friends and I just want a safe place to piss.

I can’t settle for the ladies room tonight because my breasts are bound and I look like my little brother.

If I go in there they will stare and I will wonder where all my friends are

I can’t brave the men’s room tonight because my voice is too high And when I say “excuse me” they will know I’m a fraud.

If I go in there they might hurt me and I will wonder where all my friends are

It’s a Saturday night and I’m at work and my friends and I have to pee but you’re drunk and puked all over the toilet seat.

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I

VI

I fall asleep in my binder and wake up coughing and sore.

I put on makeup for an interview.

I get the job.

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VII

My friend offers me some of his T.

I raid my brother’s closet.

He is joking, but it is hard to say no.

My hips are too big for his jeans.

III I get my period and weep.

VIII I get my period for the first time in four months and contemplate suicide.

IV I am corner in my room.

He says, “you’re crazy and gender confused.”

VIIII My fancy Westchester therapist asks for my pronouns.

He’s not wrong, but I’m still scared.

My psychiatrist doesn’t.

V I come out as trans at work and my manager asks if I am going to get “the surgery.” I quit the next day.

X I am tired.

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I love my body When I’m around my trans friends Because they see me.

I undress. They tell Me that I look like a boy— It’s because I am.

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I want to be so small.

There’s a man staring at me on the L I’m sitting across from him but am afraid that I’m in his way.

I’m rushing to catch the 4 train but My movements are slow and heavy I’m not completely sober yet and I can feel the weight of My legs, my chest, my heart and I apologize to the man who shoves me aside because I must have been in his way.

My body feels foreign and sore I got my period back in Brooklyn and Bleed through a tampon in the hour it takes me To get home.

I go home and Wash the blood off my thighs Nothin’ like a good reminder That my body is not mine.

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The worms dried up and You didn’t text me back.

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I spread my legs for you the day after we met Because that’s what friends do And I thought it was about time.

I was a girl then and I remember your body hovering over me and Me over you, with shaking hands and You kissed me even though I Had just puked.

I only regret it Sometimes.

* I spread my legs for you because It’s what we thought we wanted but I hurt you and I cried When I should have been saying sorry For you loving me at a time When I didn’t have a Heart.

I’m still repenting And you don’t know it.

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