Change

I watch the demons
so I don't have to face them

I try to ease
the reality of this life
it's instability
with soft sounds
and sweet words

But I feel the truth
I feel it deep
it scary
this feeling

this is what being born
must feel like

but I will not turn from it
this time
I will not run

Permission

I must have

I must have asked to be here

because they act as if I did

it seems from the moment

my fusion and division took place

I have been asking to be

I asked the womb to let me go

it took it's time in expanding to set me free

all the while forcefully pressing to get me out

all I needed was space to present myself

all I needed was to feel safe
they said I needed things determined to keep me alive

over what I actually expressed I needed

From the moment 

it was determined I was a girl

My role in this world

was woven into the fabric I never asked to wear

all I needed was cloth to keep me warm

they insisted it describe my function

all I needed was protection from the elements

they insisted it express fragility and instability

As I grew

and gained the ability to think

I asked for the right to be seen
to be heard 

my extensive emotional vocabulary

was interpreted through the filters 

of mental chains and false respectability

I was forced to yield to the emotions of others 

before I could protect myself enough
to demand understanding

all I needed was to be loved and accepted 

they told me I could but with condition

Now I find to move in this world

I must act like a ghost

acting from repetitions and broken experiences

I shift myself into subtle acceptability

but never gaining a way in

all I need is to take my place
to walk in the present life has given me

they tell me I can do it

only according to prescription
only in the way they say is right

I must have 

I must have asked to be here

because it seems as if

I spend my life 

asking for permission to be

Postcard from the Edge

I sit on the sideline taking notes. I listen to the words lavished and withheld. I listen to the receptivity of welcomed advances and variations of approaches. I make side notes which offer explanations why it's not me you're talking to.

I understand the dynamics of conditioning, but it doesn't ease the ache. The longing, to have thick lips arch upward at my coming, could be pulled out of me and used as a cloak. The envy alone makes my gut feel overripe. I would love to spend time under the gaze of your eyes, to be lost in the passion you pour out with ease. I could grow tall and straight in love like that or maybe I am seeing grass painted green.

There was a time, somewhere deep in our DNA, where you  held me up like that. I was as precious to you as the night sky to a sailor. You loved me so much, you created your gods in my image, believing I had to be their ambassador. A mutation of evolutionary necessity must have happened or you listened to someone who wanted to take your place.

I am jealous of how her hair cascades over your face. I fight the pain inside every time you whisper her description in the air. Comparing her to ambrosia and aphrodisiacs while you leave the worst labels to me. It hurts to see my features on her frame, my words fall from her lips, my being imitated. It batters my soul that you lose yourself in her while blaming me because you cannot find your way.
I understand really, it's easier to love someone else's image.

Don't worry though, while I'm out here on the edge, I still think we can make it. I still believe you named the stars in the sky after me. I believe you dream of me, covering you like first hint of warmth after standing in the cold, when you touch her. I still believe it's in your DNA to love me, in spite of the grass being painted green on the other side.

Twist

Stick out your tongue
lick
I don't mean saturate it
take the tip and lean it against it
when you do
exhale
I won't be held accountable
for what comes next

press your lips against it
feel the pulsing
you did that
the sheen on your lips
let me taste it

There's a formula I need to write down
between the feel of your lips
mixed with drippings of pressed pleasure
It's a chemical that makes me
twist it
it makes me

Stick out my tongue
lick
I mean saturate it
take the tip and lean it against it
when I do
exhale
hold me accountable
for what comes next

press my lips against it
feeling the pulsing
you did that
the sheen on my lips
let me taste it

Switch

I told myself to gather together
as many old inner dirty things
I lined them up
I thought allowing them to be beaten
by the cruelty in someone else
would make them give up
It didn't

So I tried to exchange them
for some ideas of ideals
of a future me
evolved from a present me
I can't step into yet

I thought letting myself
gather together some more words
to bind the lazy things would
create a will power made of iron
but the lazy things wilted and died
the ground they occupied fallowed
that's what I get

Again I exchanged them
with an idea of the truth
peeled words away
to take away the meaning
so I could learn again
a full grown tree broke ground in me
I never thought to answer
a full grown chicken came out an egg

Now it's time to switch
to a definition of living
I can live with

Interested

I wonder if you heard his voice, would something shift in you, too. There's something harmonious in it. His face is magnetic, it draws the eyes and they relax there from the strain of searching. I soon found myself brimming, one more laugh or syllable, could send me over in slow moving rivulets.

I tried to devour his ideas. They were sifted through the best minds and, somehow, seemed truly original. 

There's something to the turning of his mind which caused me to fold over in myself. I was trying to dial a woman in myself to meet him. Then figured out, I was already all of her. I stopped dialing.

Somewhere in it, I got to experience his touch. It made me remember those times when I thought I looked damn fine. It came without censorship, all of me was welcomed.  If only I could take back my first touch, though. I remember the symmetry of his shoulders. I remember his kiss on my third eye, it's still blinking in response.  

I just forgot to ask enough questions. Thinking I would run out of me, I forgot to draw out the between essence. The essence between suffered from the twisted words and thoughts bound in their own limits. Reactions, so well worked-out, conditioned by people we both could not unravel our true selves from. 

I couldn't show I was attached, it would be too much. I couldn't show the fear of chipping off his being from mine like nail polish. 

Now, I know what it means to be interested, to be curious and fearless. I know what it means to investigate someone, not for my benefit or enhancement. I can feel the depths of what it means to know someone, wanting to know what the silence between words are saying. The inextinguishable being inside of both of us that we share. I'm interested in knowing who you are, because of him. 

Say Love

You say you love
I ask
have you drained the
lake of tears
you created in ignorance

You say you love
I say
go and recover the secrets
of your geometry
tell me the givens
show me the patterns

You say you love
I see
my inability to conform
to the pictures you create for me
my being's too large
it's busting the seams

I say I love
you hear
and before dawn
you become a misty memory
floating away on the dew
adding to the lake of tears