i wanna be cool, tall, vulnerable and luscious. i would have it all if i'd only had this much.
someday, i've gotta get boiling
i don’t know how much longer
i can watch the pot boil
i don’t know how many minutes
i can count towards tomorrow
leaving futures on read
lurching toward an anarchy
got too little experience
never enough apology
i’m throwing pebbles
at a fractured, plastic pony
it’s never gonna run
if i keep on where i’m going
if i lied and told you
i was stronger
would you believe me?
and if i’m always watching myself
do i really need you
to join me?
roots
recruitment officer wants my teeth
said “i’m sorry, i don’t know what i mean”
guess i figured one day it would all stop
if i cut off the hand that feeds me
maybe i would starve
but at least i’d be in control of my fate
i don’t wanna die here
but i don’t wanna live here either
atomic bomb abomination
in the wake of prevailing fear
i don’t wanna lie here
but i don’t wanna tell the truth
that i’m angling every branch
despite cutting off the root
my cavities run too deep
and my legs can’t run at all
from the future i was destined for
since i was so small
maybe i’ve been praying for it
maybe i’m the prey
predicate this premonition
and hope that i don’t wake
baby, you're a haunted house
sometimes i get scared that i’ll never be more than this — an empty husk, a host void of its parasite. it’s a thought that keeps my head on a swivel and my eyes open long after they should’ve shut.
it gets better, it always does. it’s been almost a year since i’ve paid any serious mind to anything he’s done. a year since i’ve checked up on him last. i’m nauseated thinking of how long it has taken me to be able to go that year; i used to not be able to go a day without wondering, without finding proof of his actions, just in case anything happened, just in case i was no longer alone. i needed to have constant surveillance wherever i could; this felt absolutely necessary.
i no longer try to tell my story to whomever will listen. i’ve learned the hard way that hearing doesn’t necessitate listening doesn’t necessitate understanding. i used to pry open the wound and bleed and bleed and bleed for anyone who would see, even if their “seeing” was more gawking; even if i was nothing more than a pet-project or a subdued freakshow. because i’d spent the better part of four years screaming and not making a sound, the idea that anyone—anyone—would feel any semblance of care felt sacred. it felt worth it to be heard, even if that wasn’t what was happening.
sometimes i fear that i’m making it all worse in my head than it really is. i will probably never get help for this because the circumstances are far too unimpressively juvenile; when people think of victims, they don’t think of someone like me. i have gnawed him down to the bone, and he will warn everyone he comes into contact with of the feral animal he’d once caged as a beloved pet for the rest of his life. it wasn’t that bad, i was a terrible, terrible child—so why am i stuck?
if it wasn’t that bad i don’t think that i would still be here—stuck inside this overgrown body and hacked-down mind. i don’t think that i’d still be writing like this; maybe i never would’ve started. maybe the circumstances are incomparable to the average catastrophe, maybe this haunted house hasn’t enough ghosts to qualify, but it’s haunted nonetheless.
no boy now / antonym
i tried to be a boy the way a cub tries to be a lion. pinpoint all the parts necessary and hope the frame leans adequately enough to hold them together.
i say i tried because i wasn’t very good at it. edges were soft that should have been rough; voices gentle that should have been tough. i fooled a few folks in my day, but it felt more like trickery than it ever did affirmation.
i could have never been a man, but i was something of a boy. freckles and buzzcuts and smiles and loose t-shirts. played-up aloofness and caring too hard and not crying when necessary and not crying at all.
i think eventually i wanted to be a boy because it was safer. because the alternative was softer, easier, default. i had built and insulated this wall between me and the female gender; one that seemed so daunting it became futile to try to tear down. trying to be a boy was easier because it had become what was expected of me. it was a perfect mask to keep people out; if what they saw was a boy (strong, prideful, good) they would not see the cracks beneath (antonym, antonym, antonym.)
i went back to trying to become a boy when i met him. in some ways, i wanted him to look up to me — see me as a role model. i was the one to soothe him when he needed it, to remind him that there was someone who had been there before. usually, role models are not the ones who get hurt. usually, boys are not the ones who get hurt.
i was a boy when i knew him, but i’m no boy now.
belief died at the door — you were doomed since before
you don't ever really get over it. feeling like you're sinking. like your head is underwater and they're pouring cement over top of the pool. the feeling as though every breath you take brings you only one step closer to drowning, rather than staying afloat. as if everyone around you is a seasoned diver, equipped far better than your broken, battered fins.
you will always feel helpless. a doe struck, stranded, at the side of a road; watching as the cars blur past you. the passerbys will continue to stand starstruck by your pleading eyes and run when they see your mangled legs. you are not pretty, not anymore. they will photograph you only when your body decays; they will display it and ask "how can such a poor creature be left to suffer?"
you may maim yourself; an attempt to match discordant pieces together. you will reopen flesh wounds and turn purple bruises blue. your problems will never be solved by fabricated evidence; you won't do it consciously, not entirely, but that is exactly what you’re doing. you will make yourself worse for no reason other than the fact that bleeding out causes more rupture than internal bleeding.
and it will all be in vain. if you want to ask what ever will make you feel whole again? i haven't a clue, i haven't an answer for you. you can listen to those who think they know; the guidance of which they preach: it will not help you, for they do not know, and they never will.
someday, i've gotta get boiling
february 2026
roots
december 2025
baby, you're a haunted house
october 2025
no boy now / antonym
september 2025
belief died at the door
august 2025
