I want to write a poem that makes my other poems shy.

Make them whisper to each other, ‘just who is that new girl?’ Turn their knowing eyes into awescapes like children eating their first bit of ____(your favorite childhood nostalgia treat goes here)____. I want to talk to our inner children the way we should’ve always been spoken to. our feelings given acres to run andContinue reading “I want to write a poem that makes my other poems shy.”

Instructions Home, after Jasmine Mans.

Break every shame clogged mirror before you begin (that way you have already begun). Turn left at the stoplight across from the small brick elementary school that proved to be reprieve from the kitchen table. Make a fire of the things you used to believe of yourself. 300 ft from where you ate pistachio iceContinue reading “Instructions Home, after Jasmine Mans.”

it’s been a year of years.

time, head down concentrating- lacing their shoes like a fever-dream I trip over sometimes, I look at the people I love and I see cheekbones and eyelashes. smiles brave and worn. In recent weeks I smile at myself in the mirror every single time I step out of the shower. (it’s liberating to unhold aContinue reading “it’s been a year of years.”

I am not the handcuffs on my bed post,

nor what you assume they say about me. I am the steady voice that asks them to be used. not just IN control I am control even when I consensually give it away. I am a sovereign entity, allocating all this power exactly as I see fit, boundless even when bound I am safe. IContinue reading “I am not the handcuffs on my bed post,”

“You know you can’t be walking around looking all cute like that, getting me all worked up like this.”

As it turns out, I can. As it turns out, your being turned on is not an excuse to turn off your brain. This honestly sounds like a personal problem. This is something I don’t have to don’t want to and am not going to help you with ‘cause this is what I damn wellContinue reading ““You know you can’t be walking around looking all cute like that, getting me all worked up like this.””

Perhaps you fell in love with the idea of me.

It was my hair, wasn’t it? it accented your t-shirt at the time or your eye color, or your endless insecurities. you forgot entirely that i am a person entirely- not just a big smile, an aesthetic, some kind of misplaced manic pixie dream girl let loose in the wild for you to discover andContinue reading “Perhaps you fell in love with the idea of me.”

Asked about the greatest fear they have with online dating,

cis-men most often answer that their partner might be fat. Asked about the greatest fear we have with online dating, trans people, non-binary folk, and cis-women most often answer that we might be murdered. It appears that a cis-mans’ greatest fear is someone not living up to their expectations while our greatest fear is notContinue reading “Asked about the greatest fear they have with online dating,”

This is how we human:

I. build homes of others until we realize how this does not serve us. II. construct shaky foundations born out of a lack of survival skills. III. forget to forgive ourselves for not learning the aforementioned survival skills sooner. IV. learn that roofs above our own heads come first. V. forgive and get on withContinue reading “This is how we human:”

So I heard that poets are attention seeking: 

Of freaking course I’m attention seeking. I exist, don’t I? Sometimes I need reminders I exist, don’t I? Look, I’m not mirage nor magician but I sure am real great at disappearing. At moving in minimize- at speaking in silence, in cemetery because I long ago buried my voice every time my mother spoke overContinue reading “So I heard that poets are attention seeking: “