Writing

Do the penguins care

about the one with orange beaks, an extra stripe? 

Do the giraffes mind 

that his neck is longer, that she has less spots? 

Because the humans do, 

the bus driver glared at me

like i was a sin to society;

he called me a fag—under his breath,

and i got in my seat like nothing happened. 

There's a party in the penthouse

where people come and go

admission is free and based on nothing

and if you go once, you'll never truly leave.

It's not hard to get in, but you won't be invited

I’m still stuck in the same grade, with the same people, doing the same thing. I’m ready to expand like steam filling a room, like water gushing from a spigot and into a basin. I’m ready to float, or maybe sink.

They won’t teach me how to be a woman— 
But they’ll notice when I’m not. 
Say I should smile more, try harder, 
Be brighter, quieter, 
Less me, more what they forgot. 

One day,

             you will feel pain so excruciating it becomes abstruse. You will feel numb, detached from the world, lost in a void of darkness.