I Like The Smell Of Steady Rain The Sound It Makes On Glass Quietly Crashing Against The Window Pane

Sometimes I ruin what I'm trying to say by Making use of Too many Words

Your neck is a canvas For the brush of my lips Wondering if we ever Had a chance at innocence A roguish glance as We walk towards the church My hand tugging you Down the blustering Sidewalk of fluttering Freshly dying leaves

We stroll side by side With familiar ease A lifetime's worth Of rising, setting suns You wear my sweatshirt You smell like me And weave yourself into The fabric of my being Our love was never Just in the leaving

Climb up the steeple Ring the bell with me Summon the flock of sheep Do they know they Worship at our feet? In cold October mornings High above the chapel The two of us are no sin Up here on my knees I'll give you my sermon

I'm both a brother And a sister A chameleon A shapeshifter I was the man I thought you wanted And woman again When you missed her

I've been handsome I've been gorgeous And being both Has been euphoric I've been everything All at once I am both malleable And formless

My voice is soft Fluid and cozy My body smooth And warm and homey When I speak to you I hope you hear My soul is steady And you know me

What are your dreams? They say What do you mean? I say

Don't you have goals? They ask Nope I laugh

How can you not? They say I guess I'm a sloth I play

You must have a job They say Certainly not I say

Contribute to society! They exclaim I have anxiety I explain

So what do you do? They question I write and I muse I tell them

But what about money? They implore I have enough to be free I retort

What makes you this way? They ask why I'm content all my days I reply

Such wasted life They dismay My world is bright I say

She sneaks back into my head Tiptoes her way into the room In the middle of the night For a second I didn't know She was gone But she wakes me with A whisper kiss on my cheek

I'm drowzy and she's Wide awake And with sleep filled eyes I watch her paint the walls Create her masterpieces In all my memories of her

We were just a secret crush We were meaningful glances And brushed fingertips Kisses in empty hallways Deep breaths in frozen rooms

She's still making art here More alive than she ever was More energy than she ever had More awake in my dreams Than she had been before She fell into her deep sleep

I hear her quiet footsteps As she moves between worlds Multiplying every thought Hearing all the words We all should have said

Between everyone she visits Through every broken door She still sings to us And even as a phantom dancer I carry her around She's no secret anymore She made sure of that

When I have swam too far And been lost in my emotion You have been the lighthouse That brought me out of the ocean

When I have flown too high Out of the atmosphere You have brought me back to earth And made me long to be here

I have never ran too far Or trekked alone in the snow The idea that I might miss you Has kept me safe you know

And when I have been too quiet When darkness filled my sky The image of your smiling face Has kept my guarded heart alive

He gathers pennies to spend at the store, Lowering his voice, he looks down at the floor And says, “If I tell you, you won’t love me anymore.”

It’s days like these that we don’t speak As much As we used to, Instead in a language of knees weak And such As lovers do.

He counts the change but hates the word. “So many pennies,” he remarks, “it’s absurd.” He speaks so that his thoughts go unheard.

At the end of the day he has my heart Still, Always, to keep. And I would carry him if he fell apart Until We went to sleep.

We’ve stayed like this for the better part of a year And he worries as the end of December draws near That he might blow away and we won’t be here.

Don't sit with me today It's not a day For togetherness

It is a day for uncertainty For distance For dissonance

This is not poetry It's just me Adding line breaks To a thought

Why does our perception Of gender Change the tone In which we read someone's work?

My woman is stoic My man is soft spoken Anywhere I fall on the spectrum is loud Or terribly quiet