So Hold Me On The Way Down,

in dedication to summer rain and the smell of petrichor

being trans is a bit like

running hands over yourself and thinking

“i cannot wait for there to be a scar there

in the place of something else”

to know that all that will be left is the mark

a tangible reminder of how the creator wronged you

and how you made it right

surrounded by a kaleidoscopic miasma

of dead things and broken dreams

rotting lies and bandages

slathered with nitroglycerin

oh, my love,

let us burn down the world together

and as we stand on the precipice of the ashes,

may we burn down with it

(Nov. 11)

(Nov. 11)

To be loved means to be consumed. To love means to radiate with inexhaustible light. To be loved is to pass away, to love is to endure.

—Rainer Maria

northern lights photographed from space

Vincent Van Gogh's painting details

when you killed me, did god see?

did he look down from his opulence

did he see, in his glory

the death of a child

at the hands of the father

i think he did see

and in my eyes he remembered

when he looked away

at the death of his son

and turned a blind eye to my suffering

the screaming that bounces around the inside of my skull is back to grace me with its presence. guttural and keening and feral.

i take another sip from my soda can and pretend i do not hear it, because to let it out into the world, where it would transform from visceral agony to banal noise, would be worse than enduring it silently. at least this way i can still feel it. at least this way no one else has to.

one of these days,

you will ask me to hold you,

and I will crush you in my hands.

not through any ill intent,

but out of never learning to love

and never learning the art of being gentle