#the patron saint of asexual poets

[ace-and-ink]

the collar and leash

ties me to you

because you insist that blood never could

orphaned war hound puppy on the side of the road

father’s eyes

mother’s teeth

makes some sort of savage out of me

with a mouth full of blood

they pin me the monster

and knowing nothing else

i tell them they’re right

hands over my mouth

loose fangs in their palms

poise nicely

sit pretty

legs crossed and hands folded

take the food gently like a good little beast

for i am a dangerous thing

or so i’ve spent my life being told

- and who can trust the words

that roll off the tongue of a creature

so i nod and say the same -

so i must be tame and go only where i’m lead

and keep my head down

as there’s little difference between

smiling and baring my teeth

— the nature of predators

[thatone-churro]

just put damocles by medusa on loop for like. an hour. to write this one poem inspired by it. i think i’m crying a bit but. good song. it being my top of 2023 says enough about me i think.

[ace-and-ink]

it rains every sunday up here

or it has since i’ve been here

or it has since i wrote this intro

the universe likes to spite me when i say something with certainty

as it does with this rain

~

i thought this would be my big break

thought i’d finally be free

free to run

free to love

free to cry

but i don’t cry so much anymore

and i feel free

i feel happier than i did

happier than i thought i’d be

~

it’s rained every sunday

and it’s foiled every plan

nowhere to go without getting drenched

nothing to do but laundry

hope you have snacks hidden

and plans to be a dorm rat

~

it’s weird for me to say

“i hope i’m happy there”

knowing what i mean is

“i know i’m cursed to be sullen

but i hope i’m a little brighter then”

i mean to say it sounds odd

to be surprised being happy

and twenty minutes on the phone

reminding me what the missing factor is

~

you can feel the rain coming all week

the clouds creep in by wednesday

and the gloom is tangible by friday

yet you still find yourself curling further beneath blankets

when you wake up to the chill

of the missing morning sun

~

now this world isn’t perfect

i still get glances

i still hear remarks

i’m still scared of the night in some places

and don’t get me wrong

i do love the rain

all cool and gentle and wonderful

but i am alone

~

i am alone

and it is wondrous

so if you need me

i’ll be doing laundry

and huddling up in blankets

because there’s nothing better to do

while enjoying the gentle rhythm

of every sunday’s early rain

— silver rain

[ace-and-ink]

the other day

(i almost called it yesterday)

i wrote a poem after class

called it a warm-up

called it cards

i did everything my professor said i shouldn’t

took advice from my writing professor

who said

“here are a list of writing rules

go break every single one of them”

i’ll take this one slower

because my theatre class got out early

and i got to eat this time

the soda fountain was busted

the cherry coke wasn’t that

we read of those who wrote

with inspiration of art

i’ll never write like

the way orphan made me feel

i hear i song

and i cry

and i steal half their lines

want me to do it again?

i’ll list what i’m listening to

“take it from me

i’m not looking for anybody

i’m sick of car rides

you lied while we lay back to side”

my friend (?????)

[for our audio listeners

if you’re ever out there

there’s a series of question marks

because i don’t know

what i want her to be]

said goodbye to me as she left

and i couldn’t catch her

i had to fix my desk

i sat with a pretty girl today

she reminds me of my old friend

the one i’ve written about before

the one i’ve compared myself to with a dying moth

i wish she’d look at me like she did

she smiled at the end

before fumbling her papers

and i almost relapsed on the spot

i saw a pretty girl in my building

she lives a floor above me

i think about how my elevator sometimes

doesn’t say what floor it was going to

and i always have to double check

i wonder what system it uses

or if it just didn’t want to say it

if it skipped a line on accident

if it just had too much going on at once

i don’t think i can call this a poem

what if i call myself a moth again?

i use dogs too often

my hair looked decent when

i left the bathroom this morning

i saw my reflection when the poem wouldn’t load

and i think i almost lost three years of progress

that girl was from here

in this city i’m familiar yet foreign to

i reread my own poem

and i’ve suddenly never used a metaphor in my life

i talked about rocks

and i wrote about moths

i’ll only be a hit online

- by online i mean i’ll get clicks

from my one online friend -

my roommate always keeps the door open

the same friend from before had her room rekeyed

i don’t know how to make this a poem

my professor would never take this

i keep getting snapchat notifications

of my old teammates from home

celebrating each other’s birthdays

i almost don’t even go home for mine

so should i use a simile?

should i add a metaphor?

i can’t say i agree with holly in that song right now

i can’t drive

but they’ve lied while we laid together

and they’re still going on about getting high

let’s see

what can i say here?

i feel like a fish in a fishbowl

- there’s my vehicle -

i can see everything i want

but i can’t get to any of it

- there’s my tenor -

my writing class made me feel

like i at least have a chance

so far poetry

has made me feel like i’ve been fooling myself

i can’t call this poetry

i can’t say i’m good at all

which isn’t the problem

it’s that i don’t feel like i can be

i’m laying in bed

the brain killer

and now i don’t want to go to geology

which isn’t for another hour

i’ll call this a warm-up

like i do

being the fraud artist i am

saying every piece i don’t like

was a practice sketch

so i don’t have to claim it

hey if i add a period here

can i call this all enjambment?

ah shit nevermind

there it goes

i’ll end it on this

anyway.

— warm-up: tenor

[ace-and-ink]

i don’t like thinking about police dogs

but i still think about when i was in high school

locked out of the field with my teammates

watching them train a dog to attack

i just think there was a better time and a better place

than right outside a middle school

in the middle of the afternoon

with more than a few teenagers within earshot

i don’t like thinking about police dogs

because i hate thinking about the lovely life they could’ve had

that dog was definitely not fully grown

but it definitely wasn’t a puppy

i’m sure it had a snippet of a good life

a snippet of youth

before it was taken away from it

i wonder if their siblings were with them at least

or if they had to say goodbye to them too

i think dogs deserve a good life

full of fun and blind joy and love

with a happy family that loves them

caring for them because they can and they want to

not raising them to raise a tool

they deserve to run around in the park

tongue half-contained in their mouth

chasing their ball

or another dogs tail

surrounded by smiles and laughter

their family calling their name

and turning around mid-chase

to find them smiling so fondly after them

or maybe their life has more

perfectly-placed sun rays

filtering through the windows

warming a perfect patch on the hardwood floor

and they spend their best moments sprawled there

their human sitting nearby

or maybe even curled up beside them

that’s the type of lives i thing dogs should have

i don’t like thinking about police dogs

because i think about how they don’t get that life

and how they were chosen from youth

maybe even from birth

to fill a certain role

to take on a certain job

and they don’t get to have that type of fun

and if they do it’s only a reward

they have to deserve it in a different way

compared to deserving it from the get-go

and i wonder if they ever crave that calm life

or if they even know it exists

so caught up in what they’re told to do

what they’re raised to do

that they never think of the life they could have

the life they’re supposed to have

being part of a family

not being an asset

not being part of an organization

having people that love them for being them

i don’t like thinking about police dogs

because i think about myself too much

because i wonder if those dogs think about the life that had for a moment

if they remember it at all

or if it’s blotted out by their responsibilities now

because i wonder if they miss it at all

or if they like what they have now

if only because it gives them a structure

because i wonder if they know the love they deserve

or if they think wanting it makes them weak, too

because i wonder if they feel at all

and if they don’t if they know they should

or if they try but it’s just too hard, too

because i wonder if they struggle with it

balancing how human they know they should be

with everything demanded of them

pleading in their own brain the mantra

i wanna be soft i wanna be soft i wanna be soft

on endless repeat

or thinking about whatever the dog version of feeling human is

because i wonder if they ever get so caught up in it all

that it becomes the only thing they identify themselves with

and they end up impossibly lost

as soon as they don’t have it anymore, too

i don’t like to think about police dogs

so i tried not to think about the one they were training

outside the field when my coach arrived

and i tried to think about anything else

than the snarls and growls and shouts

as we stretched and ran

and tried not to think too hard

about why police dogs make me so upset

— k-9

[ace-and-ink]

i want to pry your flesh apart

get it stuck under my nails

i wanna be doused in you

soaked to the bone

i want to scrape my teeth with your bones

give me your heart

and if you don’t i’ll rip it out anyway

i want to see the way you pulse

i need to know if your heart throbs

the same way mine does

if it flutters

if it pounds like that

with my name on your mind

if i had paid attention in anatomy

i’d know if your red oil rushes like that

flushing those round cheeks

was for love or loathe

and maybe i could know if

my fascination with the twitch

of your muscles

and forcing your guts to squirm

the way mine feel like they do

is based on the same

do i love the feel of your

veins tangled like twine

or do i enjoy the thrill of cutting my hands

on your splintered ribs

do i want to see you in shreds

or do i want to break down your parts

and learn you inside and out

the scream was lost in your throat forever ago

so only silence slips past your lips

cherry red and blackberry blue all at once

but your fingers curl on impact

and your nails dig into my skin

finally drawing my blood from me

it feels like it takes forever

for it to snake down my arms

droplets of me joining an ocean of you

isn’t that a bond of some sort

bleeding together

till death do us part

but as we draw it from start to end

is it a rival’s binding or something else

and if i say i want to feel

the sharpness your canines

if that means i can show you mine

to nibble on flesh and veins

to gnaw on bone and muscle

what does that make us

— dog bone

[ace-and-ink]

oh, sister red. you weren’t even named

for your namesake, but for the blood

he would shed. do you miss the times

from before we met? when you were just

a speck across this interstellar dance hall

and we were just faceless bodies

that neither of us could name? when all we

could do was stare and dream? we are

the greenest, after all, and you

can tell from the envy we watch you with.

we push past our own little silver

sister, our own recently known flesh

and blood. how could we not

feel guilt, pushing her aside

in our pursuit of you? mysterious, red

maiden of the sky and stars. you

must’ve loved it before we knew you. before we

sent scout after scout, rovers only

there to tell us what we wanted

to know. before we mapped out every one

of your mountains and valleys and your

hot plains and cold poles. before we ran

our hands all over you so much

that they’re stained with the red dust

of your freckles. and we take more

pieces of you home. and more. and more. i don’t

think you can be whole again, but i don’t

want to tell you that honestly. but i can

tell you this: we don’t want

to take you home. we want to

move in. we’re so enamored

with you. we’re so enraptured

by your beauty. we’re so amazed

by the potential you have. that’s what it is,

that’s what i can tell you. it was

wonder, once. but it’s not love. we don’t

explore you because we love you. we are

greedy. we aim to amend

a wrong we have done upon ourselves

with you. if we can leave ourselves

behind in favor a future we can carve

into you, we’ll be content

for all of five centuries.

we see you and we want you

wholly and entirely.

i’m sorry.

— sister red

[ace-and-ink]

deceased is the daughter i used to be

all pure and innocent

adorned in pink and glitter

with skirts and heels she couldn’t walk in

they rest with her at the bottom of the sea

taken by the torrent

the woman of my splitting image

i’ve been with forever

and now will be forever without

and cast away is the man of my image

stripped of his hats and jackets

detailing his masculinity by the hair on his face and under his chin

lost off to some land i don’t remember

to the terror of those who carried and bore me

i carry his heart and spirit in my own

and appeal halfway to the image he once had

i did as i was told

chased who i believed i was supposed to

made myself try to see why

until i found much more fun with his mistress

i enjoyed hearing her laugh

far more than entertaining him

and i thought i’d find fun in crossing that invisible wall

in behaving like the kind i cannot love

knowing i was still like that woman who drowned

and still i don’t find pleasure in straddling it

instead my happiness came from tearing it down

jumping the fence

keeping me from freedom

and enjoying this body i was cursed with

in such a way i was never taught

on either side of the line

i am all the daughters of my father’s house

and all the brothers too

and yet i know not

what i am or who to call me

other than that i am happy

leaving the visage of my sister and brother of blood and body behind

and roaming the world in what was truly mine

— or what you will

[ace-and-ink]

i’m fine with gore but that poem made me want to puke. it might’ve been the body or it might’ve been the boy. how he touched her insides on the outside and never asked. and sure, she let him, but surely he could see that she trusted him and he still made her the villain for hiding the best parts of herself and the way she kept them from his hands. every day i thank something up there that i never let them touch me like that. the way they brag about being touched. and it’s a cool, cool party, i hope i don’t come back again. and i wanna use a big word and make you think i’m a good writer. i wanna paint an image that’s as visceral as a car wreck and make you squirm like it’s your organs being fondled. yet still she doesn’t turn the speaker off. we’re not just sharing our voices anymore. she’s sitting on the corner of her bed and i’m howling. the lyrics are pouring from my throat like the bile they fed to me without feeding me. the wall is a hypothetical that may not have touched me yet but i can see that it might’ve. maybe she doesn’t turn the speaker down and hears my raw chords to hear my bleeding and coughing chest. maybe she turns the speaker up and keeps me from tainting the song any further. all the women in my class cross their legs. all the dudes slouch in their chair and spread their legs. i can look the part, but i can’t hide the queer. call me L. call me A. call me NB. call me Q for short. she nodded along when the sexualization of bisexuals was brought up. i want to sit down in front of her and ask “What are you? What are you? What are you? Is it my place to know? Would i understand if you told me? Do i have a chance with you?” is what i really want to ask. if i could say what i meant would they get it. would it be worth the isolation. drunk boys in ice cream shops. i wrote about them as a warm-up. i’m tired of them. it’s not their job to know right away but that doesn’t mean i can’t be annoyed. i haven’t gone out to get it in a while. she promised she was sober as she pulled a bottle of wine from her purse. tired. that’s what i always am. of having too much time. of not having enough. of certain people. of coughing so close to me. of not having certain people. of the thought of certain people. of never having the balls to man up and ask. just literally tired. no sleep is enough. i wish i knew how to end this poem. poems don’t have neat endings. that was lesson one. it ends when it needs to end. but art’s never really finished. the majority of playwriting is rewriting. so i guess i’ll keep talking. i said three sentences. six words. my heart was beating out of my chest. i’m not allowed to use abstractions, so i hope this is literal enough: i realized my dad was right when he said i needed to be on his anxiety meds “just to take the edge off.” i want to be able to write about someone the way Lucy Dacus does in Home Video. Hang Me Like Jesus still fucks me up. i don’t cry to Damocles anymore but i wrote about it the other day. i like rocks and rock. and rats. and women. i’m half on youtube half in my notes and now my phone is burning up. i tried typing “phone is” and my phone number came up in auto suggestions. how did this poem start again. how did we get here. do we like it here. do we want to stay here. i think i like it here. i’m never sure of anything.

— a practice in line breaks and not making sense

[ace-and-ink]

i write like there’s no tomorrow

or there will be no tomorrow

i do not like to admit

what creates the shadows in my mind

but the situation is either

destroy my reputation

as being stoic and strong and happy

or let my brain destroy itself

under all its weight and sorrow

no one knows my struggle better than my pens

each one i’ve whittled down to their last drops of ink

attempting to catalogue these aches and pains

if they could talk surely they would groan and gripe and cry

so without a doubt

whether they could comprehend

the metaphors they are forced to write or not

they understand the primal exhaustion

the despair at a cellular level

that the pressured mind can conjure

but even so

they seem almost eager to share it

the ink flows so much easier

with my mind nestled in this darkness

i sound like my study

and i sound my best

when i know i’m in danger

it’s as though my brain knows

if it doesn’t redirect itself to something

not even something constructive

it could still be wallowing in that tar

it knows it will die

and i appreciate it

for once being on the same wavelength

as the mind that runs five miles ahead of me at all times

i appreciate slowing down

when we both know we’ll otherwise

be speeding off an icy road in a sharp turn

it sits down with me

says “let’s have a talk”

but it doesn’t make me talk about it

sometimes we do

but most times we don’t

it lets me dance around it

let’s me speak in tongues if i must

it plucks roses with me

trims the thorns with me

we hope to decorate a home with them

and not my final bed

i make it walk the wire with me

make it walk on eggshells with me

and it indulges me with metaphors

it creates art out of agony with me

and it resents pity just as much as i do

but how else are we to share it

without setting it on a silver platter for all else to see?

silver platter, notebook page, online post

it’s all the same in essence

i paint my brain there

to keep it from painting the sidewalks

— silver platter sidewalks

[ace-and-ink]

i don’t think the world likes seeing you so sad

i don’t think she likes seeing that frown on your face

or seeing it flushed so red with tears

but she knows it can’t be helped sometimes

so she sends rain when you’re already sad

not to spread salt on your wounds

but to say that she knows, she understands

she cries with you for comfort

because she’d rather see your cheeks as red as cherries

from you braving the winter chill

and the tears creep from your eyes

when they’re squinted shut from laughter

she doesn’t enjoy watching you destroy yourself

and she doesn’t like that you say she does

please don’t believe such cruel things

she loves you and she cares about you

do not forget that

the world does not want to see you fail

and she’d like to help

and she tries in ways we don’t quite understand

like a squirrel in a half-dying tree high above your head

pelting you with berries that aren’t quite ripe yet

(you have your hat on; she’s sure you’ll be fine)

splattering green and yellow

on the pages of your poetry book

because now, now,

that’s not what you need to do right now, is it?

and you know that, don’t you?

mother earth truly does care for you, i promise

please do not believe that she doesn’t know each hair on your head personally

or that she hasn’t kissed every freckle dotting your skin

or that she doesn’t love every mountain and valley etched on your body

just as much as she loves her own

do not believe her to be cruel

she is only cold when she has to be

when the patterns of time demand she be

then she’ll wrap us in her warmth again

please do not believe she would not weep

for you

should you leave her too soon

she would weep and wail

and cradle your body as closely and gently to the very end

as she did before the beginning

soothing you and comforting you all the way

as she takes you back into her

because you were every bit her child

as every plant and animal

she has nurtured and raised

and she loves you dearly

i promise

— mother earth

[ace-and-ink]

anything shy of perfection is an embarrassment // and impressing is just another necessity // but if i cannot feel special // despite apparently being so special, // and i cannot err // without losing my own respect, // where am i allowed to fall? // when always being told that i am allowed to stop // but never being told that i am allowed to rest, // where am i to lay my head? // slowing down was frowned upon // even though i was walking a path i never wanted to take; // taken by the hand // to follow someone else’s dreams, // to see the sights they wanted to see // in hopes they could live their desires through me. // i never wanted to know those things. // i never wanted anything more than this. // i never wanted to be anything more than innocent. // you say one thing to the wrong person // and no one perceives you correctly again. // and yet she still wonders // why i’m such a mystery; // how she only knew half of what she knew of me // before i dared to let her skim only the surface // of the mind that lurks beneath. // but i never dared to show her // the heart that cries // that whines // that begs; // that begs for release // that begs for relief // that begs for rest; // it begs you to let it rest. // it begs you to let it live, // to let it love // to let it be loved; // but not loved as someone special, // for it no longer understands what that word means; // not as someone who is grieving; // not as someone to be pitied; // not as someone who has suffered; // not as someone who is singing. // it wants to be loved as someone normal. // it wants to be separate from all it has done // and all that has been done to it. // it just wants to be. // it wants to be just as it is. // but it fears // and i fear // that it doesn’t know what it is anymore; // it looks upon itself // and begins to cry // when it can’t describe the figure in the mirror // without relating it to everything it wants to be separated from. // and i never knew // i wanted to be normal // something totally regular // someone who fades into the background so seamlessly // until i realized // that i have never been normal

— normal

[ace-and-ink]

i could see it overhead: the black mold

tarnish on a bleeding plum

sky too rich to be tooth ache. i know

not where i came from, but i know

it grabbed that innocent thing

with a talon’s grip as fierce as my

neglected retainer around my

teeth. the childlike squeals could

only be imprinted on your brain

because the siren squawk of unfair

power craved its way into your ears

instead. but who was more

a monster: the wings, or the speaker,

who could feel neither fury

nor anguish when the little one

was dropped to the hogs? if the earth

didn’t take it back on the way

down or by the impact, then there

was no hope for those juvenile whiskers

to be spared from being speared

by the boar tusks, sharper

than the mountains on the backdrop. i was

filled with nothing, but i was given

a purpose by whatever thing controls me

that i’ll never understand, but

then, so might’ve the bird. maybe

it was as empty a husk as i, and the only

missive it carried was “this creature

needs to die.” a puppet only gets this

clarity after its show ends, when it can see

the puppeteer after he drops the strings

it was strangled with. and so we played

our parts in his show, drawn

to the same eternal center: some eye

of devotion lost to time. the remnants

of a passion, some reverence, now

nothing more than stones retaken

by mother nature. but with no god

left to claim it, it’s become my weapon,

just as it might’ve been for the bird

when it was alive. and it sat

there, brown spot on the emerald

green plains (which is a shitty comparison,

actually; when i think of emeralds, i don’t

think of a color that deep and rich).

though it was squared, engraved

with diamonds, dots, jagged

dashes, made half the home of moss,

the edges were smoothed and it felt right

in my heads and over my head

and i became cain. it went up, then came

down with more fervor than gravity

can justify (but what do i know; i started

crying when my best friend tried to

teach me physics last year). the best

worst part was that i could feel

the crunch through my whole body. the perfect

leaf on the sidewalk under my

feet. cracking stiff knuckles. a glass bottle

against a brick wall. an eggshell

in the palm of my hand. the sound

and the feeling sent a shiver to and through

my toes. and so i swung again. there might’ve

been a third, but by then the only one

that could witness was the old abandoned god.

somehow, that beady, yellow eye could still

stare back at me, and it did. yellow

and black and mimicking the sun. there

it sat, dead, decimated, the symbol of

freedom and ferocity and every war

it picked and lost. i left it there

in a crimson stain. i never thought

to bury it. i put the rock, a remnant

of the shrine, back where it was. it didn’t

match the imprint from its ages of sleep; if nothing

else remains by then, someone will come

by and say “something happened here” and who knows

what they’ll think of it. or maybe the blood

on the rock and the moss will dry

and it will become the new

way of life, the eagle the new patron

of sabotage. the soil already began becoming

the bird’s coffin. i watched the way the earth

was too eager to claim it and i

wondered just how much our dreams define us.

— fly, my friends, i have my death wound

[ace-and-ink]

when you read this i want you

to take a lighter to the bottom corner of the page

and let it eat my thoughts before you

can read them all

i struggle to write realistically

blatantly and honestly

and make it sound poetic

- just ask last notebook i wasted

it’ll tell you why i swore off it too -

i’ve run through about three scripts now

“how’re your poems going?”

“i’m going to a show this friday night and it’s free for us”

“any valentine’s day plans?”

throwing away all the cliches about hearts with those

i think the heart is like a bulb of garlic

small and firm in the palm of your hand

you have to peel back the layers

to get to what you want

and even then

you often have to crush it

to get to the best parts

to add to your little dinner called life

and a lot of people find it gross

when you smile and speak to them

with hints of it still on your breath and in your teeth

i had a dream with you there

then i rolled over and got nauseous

what does that make of this?

on the verge of my teenage years

you’d think i’d have more experience

instead all my works are about hurt

unless i’m fibbing to make something edible

i like getting wrapped up in your words

tangled in tragic romance

or in lines the color of tooth-ache

i’d let you pull my strings too

it wouldn’t take much but i’d let you poise me how you please

by your tongue and pen and face

does that count as a cliche?

i end up falling into those often

almost as much as i fall into this

and by the time you get to this point

my words will be nothing but ashes

or cinders or soot or whatever the right term is

i have faith in my longwindedness

to have stalled the confession long enough

for that’s what all this was

a poem of confession

using every word except the ones i mean

to tell you the one thing i’ve been dying to

and with this ending i hope

those words die too

taken to the wind with the shreds of this sheet

in hopes i can separate my love for you

from me

— slow burn

[ace-and-ink]

since i was a child

before i even understood what it meant to call myself a girl

i was held to a standard i never knew about

to this day i don’t know where it came from or who made it

but if i ever find him (i’m sure they’re a him)

my hands would find his neck

and i’d pass what they would do next

as their “instinct” or “natural order”

but since i was young

before i even knew myself well enough

to know what to call myself

i was told how to look and what to do

i was too young to be teased for having a bit of a tummy

because wasn’t i a child?

weren’t our bodies supposed to be like that?

i was too innocent to be laughed at for the things i said

before i learned to lean into it to prevent the shame, but not the fear

because how could i understand what i was and wasn’t supposed to say?

how was i supposed to know the social stigmata

before i could even spell stigmata?

i had a chest of dress-up things

tucked away in the back of my closet

full of sparkly princess dresses

and glitter-covered plastic heels

with tiaras and crowns

and painful clip-on earrings

because “this is what girls play with”

all the replicas of things from the princess movies

i could never force myself to love

so i used my tooth fairy money

to buy little plastic cars at the dollar store

with wheels that came out of the package sticky on their axle

but then i was always the one out of the loop

playing with toys at my friends’ houses

and no one came to mine

because i never had anything to offer them

that they would truly like

all throughout my youth it seemed

everyone was learning it but me

what to say and what to do

how to look and how to act

in order to be “loved”

my friends became too cruel too quickly

they laughed at me more and more

before i learned to make myself the clown with intention

until eventually they said the real words to my face

i had friends when they needed something

but otherwise i floated

and developed the fear of words behind my back

from faces i knew well

but could not see

the worst thing to happen to youth was the social image

some knew it couldn’t apply to them and that was fine

more knew it couldn’t apply to them and did everything to make it

most knew it couldn’t apply to them and couldn’t make it if they tried

hoodies became girls’ best friends

if diets didn’t

even today the hands of those who’ve lived before me

drag the razor blades over my legs

and under my arms

and across my stomach

my greatest mercy was learning about the l-word

i could finally pin the source of my outcastness on something

i wouldn’t say i ever hated it

but i know it took me time for it to become the home it is to me today

but even then

no one understood it, not where i grew up

so in reality i was ousted further still

some days too nervous to go into the locker room

fearing that my teammates would be scared of me in there

but no one got it better than the women

who used and loved the l-word and the d-word

and i looked up to them more and more

saw myself more and more

i took their looks to my body

i was a walking stereotype

because in my home town

you had to look like you were something

else you were the butt of the joke for other reasons

even worse if you said you were one thing

but never matched the part

i learned that over at least my ten years

even now

when my body and choices are my own

god forbid i add another metal rod through my skin

because then i’ll look like something odd

but i learned about odd from people who used the t-word

and i learned about comfort from those who didn’t use a word at all

i may still act like your token character

but i don’t look like anything in particular anymore

i’m still working on quelling my fear of the voices behind me

but my body is in my own hands and care

and i’ve learned to love her more and more

but not for the reasons the little girl i was might’ve thought

and i keep those other hands far away

from my lip and my chin

i’ll bring the razor there on my own

if only to keep the hair there healthy

— bodily

[ace-and-ink]

hey, did you know that swans mate for life?

that means they’re together forever and always.

they don’t bother looking elsewhere for another

not when they’ve already gone this far.

they’ve already produced a clutch or two to be proud of

they’ve already produced proof of their love

so why would they struggle to find someone else?

that means they stay by each other’s side

staving off another freezing winter together

because don’t mind the cold

it’s just how things are around here.

that means they stay together

no matter what one just saw the other do

because if they’re not careful

it might happen again.

that means they stay together

no matter what one says

no matter what one yells

because the other just doesn’t ever listen

so they have to be loud

until the other gets quiet

and maybe some words are just better to use than others.

that means they stay together

no matter how hard one hits

because if they go

how do they know the next won’t hit harder?

that means they stay together

because one always belongs to the other

they’re theirs

she’s his

so she does what he says

she does what he wants

because she’s his forever.

they stay together

no matter what he called her

and how he corners her

and how hard he hit her

and what he yelled at her

and how he controls her

and what he did to her that night

and-

hey, are you listening to me?

i said that swans mate for life.

— amor aeternus