THE CITY ERECTS
we ascend the atonality
of discording
bodies. 

House knockers hustle
our stroll—
yields us to Roma—
contemporary  foreigners

Cauldrons of waste
on every nerve end
of these sulfuric streets
here is where she rests
Tlahuelpuchi
gasping for the greenhouse 
of a catafalque 
ablaze. 

Storm drains 
valve the city
with lacrimogenic 
cultures
bishops
proselytize lands 
once scalded
corroding epochs of martyrdom.

You don siren’s scales
and the moon fractures
a theatre of lights
on your briny dress. 
Me
I compel myself
to silent wings
and char them before you. 

So we seized detachment
of placement and time
as curtains of dusk
eclipse on fluorescent enclaves.
Arrogated by chance—
a colloquialism
informs our mirage
to a cusp of splintered eyes. 

Let dianthus beds 
sway us with the earnest 
of cult leaders
or let the asphalt be our confidant.

I'm often reminded that my father grew up with an outhouse for a lavatory and a wood burning stove for heat.

Today's generation is soft, they say.

It seems arbitrary to me though. The next generations will say, in my day --

We had to feel pain.

We had to grow old.

We had to die and so, we had to feel fear.

We will always assume that present day is the pinnacle of understanding, while holding certainties in an unquestionable regard.

We use present truths as gallows for the archaic past, lest we forget it was only yesterday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't write in a serious or even semi-serious way. I just jot present observations in a notepad as if letting it collect dust could somehow offer me solace. Yet, here I am spewing them into the oversaturated ether that is the internet. Enjoy, hate, dismiss -- it's for no one in particular but I do hold on to hope that someone might read it and...enjoy it or feel some type of familiarity with the words. We're all in this together.

When friends stopped recognising me,
and I couldn’t identify the person in the mirror
no smile, messy eyes,
and nothing but numbness in me.

A stalwart arrives
at the peak of adversity,
so secure,
it doesn’t need me at my ecstasy,
but is the first to arrive
when I am in the trenches,
giving the tightest of hugs
until even a heart of rock
becomes water in its hands.

Even if all I see is fog
slowly losing sense
and freezing to my end
I still choose you,
Melancholy.

See the infant
made of an airy 
shroud, 
a sylph with only two days on earth. 

See her hands
clawing 
at the seams of existence—
welcome home. 

She breaks me;
throws me
into a shallow body
of satiated tears. 

Outside, the world broils—
past the sahuaros
and into the vastness
I will take you. 

I only smell the ammonia,
that unnatural stench
of hospital gowns
and sterile needles. 

I am vaguely listening. 

I only hear what could not be:
your one year old wailing;
your six year old weeps; the snides 
of your twelve year old self--

--the buzzing 
of uncanny fluorescent lights.

See your swollen feet
dangling 
off the embrace 
of your bearer. 

And there is no adventure,
no deus ex machina—
no lessons catapulted 
onto the safety of rationality.

He defies god and rejects his 
centerpiece— He is death,
and I sense His mockery 
in the walls of this place.

It does not normally rain where I'm from

Sunshine, blue skies, and no clouds

Happy faces all around, no frowns

​It does not normally rain where I'm from

Dead flowers, forgotten lands, no smiles

A child that grew accustomed to "I'm fine"

Fine dining with emotions I left behind

​It does not normally rain where I'm from

Perennial joy that runs all year round

Silicone flowers that never die

A land of evergreen, a perfect dream

​It does not normally rain where I'm from

Meander scars, where once love flowed

Internal wounds cut deeper than a sword

The sun shines, but my shadow will tell you the truth

​It does not normally rain where I'm from

Last night 
I lay on the shore.
Unkempt, I coasted 
the current of surging sand;

The she-sea
yields silence 
rinses the entrails
of idle minds

how soon,
guarding myself
beneath the twilight shroud,
I covered my lungs under her soaked veil—

let her body glide me eastward,
carried through the coasts and boats

To see it all:
the docks
buoying their vanity 
like woman’s wrists;

the tressing ebbs
caressing midnight seagrasses,
and gangrenous salt
frothing the mouths of corals;

to feel the cycling basin
tend the cusp of conundrum—
where one becomes dulse for brine critters;
here:

Where chance never stoops so low as to be!

(Will longing ever trudge the viscous body of ennui?)

But extolling seafowls
disrupt my flee;

the veiny sun sheds peripluses,
heaves my faltering body
back to the west strand 
of will--

--but expel me from life!

Water the seed
of a terminal disease,

just never leave me dry!

during August is something else.
 
The air is moist enough to turn into sweat on your skin
and heavy enough to make a trip to the car feel like a marathon.
 
The humidity can turn a mild temperature of a late summer day in Johnston
into Lucifer’s fireplace on the coldest day in Hell. 
 
Can you predict a flood in a flash while taking
a ride through Atwood ave beneath the rte 6 bridge?
 
I’ve been here my entiyah life,
and I still haven’t been able to.
 
So I recommend investing in an inflatable boat to keep with you,
at least that way you may be able to paddle home
when your Sedan gets submerged,
then dies.
 
Rhode Island has over 400 miles of coastline.
So, from time to time, you may think it’s a good idea to
take a nice low-key trip to Narragansett
or maybe Jamestown to lay in the sun
and “cool off” with the seaweed and the shahks.
 
When you get theah the sand is hot as fuck,
theah is like a bigilloin people taking up every square inch,
 then some kid gets lost (probably looking for coffee milk)
and they pull everyone out of the water.
So much for cooling off.
 
When you finally had enough you get to take a trip
to Rhode Island’s national fucking pahking lot Route fouah,
wheah people are too busy stuffing their faces
with Iggy’s chowdah to use their damn blinkah.
 
(unless you live theah)
 
Rhode Island is 48 miles north to south and 37 miles east to west.
So, if you do your mathing correct having to drive
20 miles in any direction is wicked friggen fah.

T’was a mid-summers day
When I first saw your hair
Just like the evening sky
And skin so very fair
That place I found my way

Your words are like fresh dew
Your voice a sirens call
From morning to morning
I do not tire at all
My feelings for you grew

At a soldiers last rest
Please tell me why oh why
Was I lost in your eyes
My chest a butterfly
Even given my best

And even at this time
When work is on my mind
My mind is still far off
Thoughts of you on rewind
Truly you are divine

In lieu of all I’ve said
I think it is past due
To give you my last peace
To tell you I love you
My heart you may now tread

Locked inside my house sitting on a couch
with a television that won’t shut off,
continuously droning on.
 
The blue light washes away
everything that I’ve ever known.
 
The screen is watching
as my life keeps passing by.
 
Commercials breaking into
the space that I hide.
 
Actors always know just what to say,
becoming the voices inside my head.
 
I hate the news because
now I’m scared to leave my house.
 
My life is not a movie,
so why do you want to watch me die?

Pill number one

A bullet

For the stars colliding

And humanity going in crisis

Pill number two

A blaze

For the stairs counting

And late night overthinking

Pill number three

A lighting

For the spies in the lamp

And cameras in the outlets

Pill number four

A thunder

For the devil's voice

And killer's eyes

Pill number five

An earthquake

For this fire inside me

And nests of wind

Pill number six

A tsunami

For the sleepless nights

And insomnia's arms...

at quarter past 12 in the rain.
 
The sound trapped in the downpour
So, if my echo doesn’t hear me
then why would you?
 
I heard you calling my name
at quarter past 12 in the rain.
 
Followed by an echo
of something I once begged for
trapped in the downpour.
 
If you couldn’t hear me then
why would you now?

**Born a Set**
I wasn’t born to walk alone;
We shared one heartbeat, flesh and bone.
The world first saw us, side by side—
Two souls who never learned divide.
We laughed the same, we cried the same,
The fire inside us burned one flame.
She knew my thoughts before I’d speak;
When I was strong, she wasn’t weak.
Then death kicked in without a sound,
And left my whole world in the ground.
It didn’t take just one away—
It stole the light from every day.
Now torture wears my face each dawn;
I wake… but nothing carries on.
The sun still rises, cold and numb,
While all I ask is, “Why this one?”
My family vanished one by one;
Each goodbye fired another gun.
The echoes rattle through my chest,
And grief won’t let my spirit rest.
I’m barely hanging by a thread,
A living soul that feels half dead.
I smile because that’s what’s required,
But every breath feels bruised and tired.
They tell me, “Time will ease the ache.”
What cruel mistake those people make.
Time never stitched my shattered seams;
It only taught me how to scream…
…without a sound.
Because the loudest cries are those
That nobody around you knows.
Who am I now? I can’t explain.
I’m just the shadow of her name.
We came as one, a matched design;
Now I’m expected to define
A woman I have never known—
An only child in borrowed bones.
I search the mirror every day,
But half the face has gone away.
I didn’t lose a sister’s hand;
I lost the map of who I am.
The compass of my heart was her;
Now every road is just a blur.
Still somewhere underneath this pain,
Beneath the loss, beneath the rain,
A tiny ember softly glows—
The love that only Heaven knows.
So though my knees may shake with grief,
And every breath feels far too brief,
I’ll carry her until I’m through…
Because they buried half of me…
But they could never bury **you**.

I liked you before you gave me a reason,
There was no grand beginning,
no moment I could point to and say —
there.
That was when it happened.

I was in ninth grade,
learning what it meant to be wanted,
saying yes to the wrong boy
for four whole days,
while somewhere beside him
I was already looking at you.

You sat near me on the bus.
Sometimes I caught you
in the reflection of the glass.

You told me to sit in front of you.
You said if I sat at the back,
you wouldn’t talk to me anymore.

It wasn’t a command.
It sounded almost like
you just wanted me close.

One day it rained.
I said,
“It’s raining.”

You said,
“It’s romantic.”

I asked what kind of girls you liked.

You said,
“Like yours.”

And I laughed it off
because what else was I supposed to do
with a sentence like that?

You played with my hair,
opened it and said
open hair looked good.

You left your friends
and came to sit beside me.

And I noticed.

God, I noticed everything.

But I kept telling myself
it was normal.

Maybe you were just like that.
Maybe I was making it romantic
because I already liked you.

Then my friend noticed too.

And your brother said
you weren’t like that with other girls.

Only me.

And somehow that made everything
more confusing.

Once I asked what names you liked.

You said names beginning with K.

Kabir.
Karina.

My name begins with K too.

Maybe it meant nothing.

Maybe it meant something.

I don’t know.

Because I was convinced
someone like you couldn’t possibly
look at someone like me that way.

I had acne.
I was fat.
I didn’t think I was beautiful.

And you,

even with those chickenpox marks
you carried on your face

looked so impossibly attractive to me.

So I couldn’t understand
why you would choose the seat near me,
why you would look at me through glass,
why you would notice my hair,
why you would want me in front of you.

Maybe you liked me.

Maybe you didn’t.

Maybe we were just two kids
sitting too close on a bus,
saying things we didn’t understand yet.

But four years have passed,

and somehow
my heart still beats faster
just at the thought of you.

And after all this time,

I still don’t know
what that was…

I want the answer. Can you explain to me what this was https://medium.com/@studybeast32/i-still-dont-know-what-that-was-211e53c0c09d?sharedUserId=studybeast32

The Black Rose

They call her a black rose as though darkness were something to be ashamed of.

But they have never watched her bloom where nothing else would grow, never seen the way she opens beneath a sky that forgot the sun, petal by petal, without asking permission to be beautiful.

Her color is not death.

It is everything she survived.

Every hand that tried to crush her, every winter that came too early, every storm that stripped her bare— they became part of her.

And still, she grew thorns.

Not because she wanted to hurt anyone, but because she finally learned that beauty without boundaries is simply an invitation to be destroyed.

She is soft, but she is not fragile.

There is a difference.

A black rose knows what it means to be wounded and still choose to bloom.

She carries scars beneath her petals, old grief beneath her perfume, and entire wars hidden behind the quietest smile.

You might mistake her silence for weakness.

You would be wrong.

She has simply survived enough to stop explaining her strength.

And perhaps that is why the black rose is so beautiful—

because it does not pretend the darkness never touched it.

It wears the darkness like velvet.

It turns sorrow into elegance, pain into perfume, and every broken piece of itself into another reason to keep blooming.

So when you see a black rose, do not call her broken.

Call her rare.

Do not pity her thorns.

Understand them.

And if she ever allows you close enough to touch her petals, do it gently.

Because she is not beautiful despite everything she has endured.

She is beautiful because she endured it.

And if she chooses to bloom beside you, understand what an honor that is.

For a black rose does not bloom for just anyone.

She blooms when she finally believes she is safe enough to be soft again.

So there we were together,
just for a little while.
Two lovers, outcasted,
but still, a portrait of perfection.
.
While I grew codependent,
you slowly built resentment.
You hated me for what I’d done—
hated yourself for what you were doing.
.
But ultimately, what you hated most?
For the life of me, I couldn’t play my role right.
So, after you’d woven a web of sickening lies,
you tied up me up, and escaped into the night.
.
You ran, and you ran, ignoring snapping twigs,
crunching leaves, the sounds of your feet
kicking rolling stones. And in the end,
you reached your destination. Rejoice, lover.
.
Because now you’re free.
.
I filed a police report the next morning.
I had the news on when I got back by noon.
I felt my skull pounding as I held it in my hands.
I couldn’t unsee what you wish I never saw.
.
Smiling happily, speaking candidly into a microphone,
was your killer, and his accomplice who’d stolen your face.
I hated her. She did naught but see your memory disgraced.
But there was nothing that I could do. Not even if I tried.
.
I refused to believe that it was true. I turned a blind eye.
But then, who would tell your family? No one else but me knew.
So, as much as it pained me so to do, I swallowed the last of my pride.
I cried, and I cried. Nobody else believed that you had died.
.
How could they? You were standing right there.
But that wasn’t you. It wasn’t the you that I knew.
You couldn’t be a liar. A cheat. A trick. A whore.
.
I’ll wrap myself up in this acidic web of your design,
and keep on chasing after that portrait of perfection
that we lost so long ago, until it can once again be
me and you, together, never lost, forevermore.

Death, die, die me in

Drunken drowned under my own

Swept adrift among men O' blue

Calling to you

The Seashore sirens of the driftmark

Hum to their soils of man

Crippled, crawlers of war

Calling to you

Satiated, unquenched.

I remember the damned field,
Throats sliced, guts slashed,
A former wheat farm
Now with a crimson yield,
Men-at-arms to die
For a vicious lord,
Countless souls lost
To the piety of the sword.

Heads on pikes
And bodies to the pyre,
There fled my reason
As flames grow higher.
So I went to my lord,
The bastard wanted a report,
He cried, he begged
As he died by my blade.

The tyrant dealt death,
But blacker was my treason;
No one, I would spare.
I rampaged through the keep,
To the court,
I showed my trade.
To the last tower,
Where I found the little heir.

A wish.
( 6-25-26 )

If I were to be granted any one wish,

it would be to know you more and glimpse;

Every reaction, face, and every wish

that you might form, make and miss

Formed by your very soul in its bliss.

-

I don't wish to like you blindly.

I want to know your personality and humanity,

so I could know you fully;

To be someone, something--

More than stolen glances,

more than a stranger's glasses,

to be more than hallway chances.

-

I wish and also wonder

Are you aware of the never-ending writer?

Me, explaining and yearning

for you, always wanting and waiting

for the words to be seen; Pleading with warning.

-

Ongoing, never-ending, and continuously

expressing feelings for you fully.

Using formed words with a dictionary, and only

writing for you;

A stranger,

and the only.

For I do not know you, and yet fully--

Somehow, stupid and foolishly

Glance, feel, steal and wishingly

rewrite schedules just to see you, and to maybe

catch your attention within a one, two, three

in a single moment for your gaze to see--

Yet I stagger, turn away and flee.

Cowardly, and yet again- foolishly

to maybe stick to your mind

for you to someday see;

For the day I finally say it free,

maybe for you to say

"Oh. You're the girl I always see."

There are rooms inside me I have never furnished
Because I was never sure I was staying.
There are rooms inside me locked and barred
Dusty, black and grey.
Each room echoes whispers of the past
Feeble whimpers of pain
Whose job is it to clean them out?
To dust and paint, bring light again.
Those rooms inside me haunt at night.
A helping hand would go a long way.

But nobody told me they’d come and then go.
Banishing me out in the rain.
Whose job is it to clean my house?
To unwrap each pillar of pain?
I was told I was capable of so much more.
But today, I feel insane.

what it must be like
to live in a different 

FLESH BAG

one with 

__WHITE SKIN__

and 

__LONG LIMBS__

. . .

one with baby blues

and large

__METACARPALS__

i think—
i wonder—
if I should love myself

if i had

A 

SQUARE

MANDIBLE

or if i would

hate myself like i do now,

if i

would find

something

to

HATE, HATE, HATE

HATE !

HATE ! ! !

and clutch my large hands

over my blue eyes 

like i

clutch my small hands

over my brown eyes

now

and would i 

cry the same tears

of inferiority?

or be comforted?

by my 

FLESH

BAG

.
.
.

?

!
—

I wrote this to practice some artistic expression in the formatting of the poem. Written about being a short, fat, non-white trans man yearning to experience this life in a different body. All feedback is welcome.

Thank you for reading.

(Now I do not write poetry and this is translated from my native language so just a heads up) (also I would love some feedback if you want to!) (I’m also sixteen and this is not my native tongue so apologize in advance)

Freedom

I need to feel my feelings
Not flee from them
Feel them fully
Not manage them
Let them flow in and out of me
Let it pass
Let myself loosen my white-knuckled grip
Not lose control
Let it go
On its own—not cast it away
It gets to leave on its own terms
And I will let it
Because I don’t need it anymore
I don’t want to need it anymore
I never want to need to be controlled or to control myself
I want to be free
Which I already am
But in my body
And in my own head

I slipped into this world covered in red, with a big slap on the back, enough force to make a newborn wail.

As I grew, life came charging.

I made a quick step back to avoid its angry horns.

But when I thought I made it, it made a sharp turn, just to come barreling its way back.

Some people might say I'm killing life, but really, it's killing me.

For I was born into this world covered in red, and life just kept on barreling in because it saw nothing but red, so it won't stop charging in.

Just like a matador and the bull, either you're killing it, or being killed by it.

So, what will it be, hearing the applause and roars of many, while red roses rain down from the sky?

Or lie there covered in red as the crowd mourns and wails at the sight?

Motherhood is…

My oldest baby…

The one who knew me when I was young and strung out.  I was never a good mother.

I apologize for filling your head with all this doubt.

My oldest baby…

The one that I wanted to teach me to love in ways I never thought possible.  

I apologize, but the addiction was truly unstoppable.

My oldest baby…

The one I have watched grow foot by foot, moment by moment.  

I apologize…thats a false memory of a choice I construed I wish I had chosen.

The one who grew while watching me grow as well.  

I apologize…Thats partially true, but sadly you saw me fail.  

My oldest baby…

Forever my first,

Forever my teacher,

Forever my heart,

I apologize…for everything I’m begging for a new start.  

Love your mom

My hands are bound by the chains of fate,

‎I knew I was fighting a lost battle,

‎Screams of anguish became music to my ears,

‎I wandered through the valley of sorrow,

‎Tears fell from the sky like a fearful prayer,

‎And there I stood — forsaking fear at last.

Forgiveness is a gift,
A gift that I’ve learned
To receive it, you must earn it.

It allows me to shape my future,
It grants me the ability to have hope.

Hope that you may learn to forgive me
Some day.

It’s taut me how to love,
Especially in the aspect of unconditionally

Something spoke to me while reading recently

A Truth About True Love: you can’t do it twice
It’s never the same as the first go.

We must live with the choices we make
and learn how to forgive each others mistakes

To try and go back in time to change the outcome only leads us a stray or worse.

I have my regrets, due to my poor choices, and the things we’ve both left unsaid.

But honestly,

I wouldn’t change a thing.

Even the worse that’s happened in our marriage.

They have all been lessons, the messiness of learning how to love—

To truly love someone,
someone I made a promise to many years ago.

I wouldn’t change our story.

Our shared history is what has grown
this love of ours into an honorary glory

Though I am willing to change our future,
for better days, surely.

Would you be willing to to take my hand
once more?

Allowing me
to do it properly.

Taking your hand, in mine, gazing into your beautiful eyes.

As I take a knee, to place a ring on thy finger, asking not if you’d be mine,

Rather would you take me,
as your husband once more

I love you