someone came out to me recently, asked me to use
his correct pronouns when we’re alone,
but says whenever i’m over at his home,
‘please could you switch back to the wrong ones? i don’t
want my parents to know who i am.’ so every time i sit at their table
for mashed potatoes and peas, i listen to a father asking
his son how her day was and i hear him start to think that he’s alone
and i watch every wrong word they say strike like an axe into
the trunk of a young sapling who’s just
starting to grow into his own.
i know they don’t know better, but it’s hard not
to hate them when i am cen
epilogue before the prequel and that is symboli-- by chromeantennae, literature
Literature
epilogue before the prequel and that is symboli--
symbolism or symbolic
we look for the signs
to justify the li(v)es
epilogue
death grips tight-lipped
and knuckles white
eyelids low like sunsets
when the sons set
and the caskets are filled
to the brim until
white wine is spilled
and clouds dissipate
disparate
under the roof
of ephemeral
and proof
that love is not eternal
but internal
desperate
desperate
desperate
dead spirits
fall slower
and bodies
die calmer
than a suicide bomber
prequel
rubicon shadow blistering
blustering until tumor tremor status
on the abdomen
of line-breaking insurgence
reaches rebellious ribs
When you leave me for the last and final time,
you say you will call soon. We will talk tomorrow,
you are sure. We are fundamentally still the same people
who could never have imagined a life without the other.
When you leave me for the final time,
all I do is hug you again, hard,
because this is the precise moment I learn
that you cannot wish something into
existence simply by wanting it enough.
You will not call me. I will not visit you.
Something between us has changed with the distance,
something that refuses to stretch and instead
breaks across the country leaving grooves in the earth,
deep and heartbreakingly, dangerously beautiful.
oh my god, i tell my friend after class, i want
to spend the rest of my life making him laugh.
she rolls her eyes and says that i shouldn’t
say that because i’m so young and i have no idea
how long my life will be and i tell her that that’s
the point.
that i may die tomorrow, but i want to be able to call you
up at two a.m. and read you my shitty poems and
pretend that i didn’t imagine the way
you twirl your pencil around your fingers as i wrote them.
i want to be able to pick out your heartbeat in a crowded
room because i’ve spent so long with my head against
your chest that your pulse is imprinted into my eard
read this when you're so angry you shake by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
read this when you're so angry you shake
little drops of oil make rainbows on wet concrete
and i don’t know how beautiful you find that,
but sometimes you gotta learn that
the littlest things are the prettiest,
like the shape of your fingernails and the crinkles
you get at the corner of your eyes when you laugh and
when you grow old and i know i said “grow old”
like it’s a temporary thing, but that’s because it is.
you can think it’s forever but it’s really
a split second because you don’t matter, not when
the universe is still growing and speeding through a nothingness
we can’t even fathom, not when color doesn’t exis
i read about serial killers not saints by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
i read about serial killers not saints
she says, “what are humans made out of,
if not emotions and quirks and mistakes?”
i think to myself that humans are made
out of sinew and bone and tissue and if god hasn’t
found a way to love us bloodily and morbidly
then he will never be able to look past any
of our self-taught imperfections.
but i say none of this, just nod and smile,
and wonder what it means that to her,
all that i am is a series of mistakes stacked
on top of each other. my entire body is a past
i cannot outrun no matter how many times
i move away and forget my name and who i used
to be.
she tries to take away my body, but i have fought
for sixteen yea
Expect them to be flawed,
a field of wild flowered-
imperfections, sticky
metaphors
& an inability
to speak.
Love them anyway.
Know that when they look at you
they are noticing the little things.
Your smile,
the sound of your voice,
the laugh lines—
bruises.
Know