things that were said to me

“I love you

I hate you

You are so good at this

You’re terrible at your job

You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met

You need to work on your life

You always seem to have your life figured out

You’re… a ‘nice’ guy

You don’t know what you’re talking about

Maybe someday you’ll have the whole

'masculinity’ thing figured out

Women must love you

I wish I could be like you

I’m glad I’m not like you

You need to work on your life skills

You seem to have everything figured out

You have a great attitude about everything

You’re so negative, you need to lighten up

Look on the bright side

Stop caring so much

You think too much

You feel way too much

You’re so fucking funny

You’re so fucking weird

I love it when you do that

Could you not, do that, please?

I have no idea what you just said

I totally feel that.”

Anger

I’ve been angry at you

For you so long

I hold my anger for you

Inside myself

Quivering with rage

I become monstrous

I feel worse

I feel less

I wish I felt more,

But when I feel it

I want nothing to do with it

I want nothing to do with it.

I’ve never liked you

And that’s a lie

But I’ve seen you staring

Out my eye

I see you glaring

In my mirror

I see you gasping

Under the waters

Of my breath.

Don’t fucking leave me

Don’t fucking leave me

Every fucking time

I said

Don’t fucking leave

Not this fucking time.

It always comes in twos

My abandonment

And yours

We always abandon me

Together

A team effort

Four legs kicking one.

Couldn’t you have waited

Until I was whole

Until I knew myself

Until I was a person

Who could be left

By you?

Couldn’t you have waited

Until I didn’t need you anymore

Until I didn’t need anything

Couldn’t you have made me better

Before you made me worse?

Couldn’t you have waited

For me to disappear

For me to float away

Into dust

Into nothing

Couldn’t you have desteoyed me

Better?

Drifting

I have drifted

Far from where I used to be

I guess Everyone can probably say that.

Maybe not Everyone.

Maybe just me.

I have drifted

Far from who I used to be.

I don’t mean I’ve grown up

I don’t mean I’ve dealt with anything

That’s built up since childhood

I don’t mean I’ve figured myself out

I don’t mean I’m not worried about it

I don’t mean that,

I just mean

I hope you’re not worried about it.

Because I’m not worried about it.

Honest.

Do you remember before?
Before all this shit?
I remember believing in everything
and everyone-’s ability to relate to one another
I remember thinking everyone was one
I felt as one, too.

I would look around myself and see the world
I would discover, see things, hear things, like things, dislike things,
and love people.
I see faces in the back and front of my mind, they hover all around me, they whisper unknown secrets, I never know what the fuck they’re saying.

There is a maze in the folds of my mind that beckons me further in,
and I fear its exits are more like hallways, paths to another maze,
another labyrinth, a way with power… the power of voodoo…
Who do? You do.

I remember the crazy places I’ve been, momentarily, briefly, in and out.
I don’t really remember them at all, they just exist in my mind, another dimension that I’ll one day return to, infinitely reliving my existence one step at a time.

If not then, now, and if now now, never.

We are not born alone
Neither do we perish
Those of us that love you
Have done so always.
We are not born once,
We all have many births,
Spliced into conscious memory,
Stifled by empirical pains,
Yet lighting the road ahead
Until the road turns to sky.

Bark of the kind tree
Kisses my back
With wrinkled lips,
Examines my vertebrae
With nature’s all seeing eyes
Corrects my stature
Urges me toward comfort.

In the lap of the silent tree
I sink deeper into Earth,
Wrinkled lips press against
My bones- I am skinless,
Grafted into mother
Her curtains fall
Around my shoulders,
My form is her form
Her skin my own.

In the lap of the silent tree,
I beg for reception,
My woes readily pitied
By one who sees me,
I sink down into rich Earth.

Time slips through my fingers,
I wash my hands in the river of time
The waters freeze my fingers
The waters freeze me where I stand,
I am frozen, held by my own hands
My hands which I have lost
In one of nature’s traps…

I fear I will forget her
The unforgettable
The one in the trees
The one in the waves

I thought I would forget her
The one in the air
The one in my skin
But how could I forget her?
Smiling down at me
From her crystalline castle
Drifting in the sky.

Help me, mother
Mother, help me
Help me keep this crown adorned,
Help me brave the winter storms
And desert sands, the bitter dark,
Pale blue sky in rippled flight
It speaks to me all through the night,
I fear to wake yet fear to fall
I haven’t heard your voice at all,
I fear I fail to have the ear
To know when it is that you’re near
I fear I fall away from grace
Until I see your loving face,
Until I see your flowing gown
The trail of light left on the ground,
I find you in the most mundane
The bitter dirt the salty rain,
I see her in the dancing fields
Standing there- seeing how it feels,
Shifting under the full moon light
Changing back to one of the night.