selected poems
in my memories, i remember that
in my memories, i remember that
i’m just how i always imagined i was
my body, confusing emptiness for nothingness
and my heart, confusing sympathy for empathy
but either way i’m going to feel something tonight
because i want to lay prone and powerless
and finally feel
and finally feel
and finally
feel —
finally.
that’s between you and your god
cw: child sexual abuse
that’s between you and your god
and me and my
teenage mutant ninja turtles
because what you did to me
i forced them to learn
smashing plastic bodies together
donatello wrestling raphael
leonardo pinning down
both bebop and rocksteady
and me confused
from figuring out
why their cowabunga sneers
suddenly felt so empty to me
and why their frozen faces revealed
a pain that even tearing apart
april o’neil won’t fix
goddamnit, kyrsten goddamn
goddamnit kyrsten, goddamn
purrs my imaginary girlfriend
who i just broke up with again
after the greatest
hate sex
we’ve ever had
and i honestly
have no idea why
my imaginary girlfriend
is so forgiving
my cute little cat girl
her big breasts bouncing breastfully
she’s kinda fucking intolerable
my beautiful, incredible, and exhausting
imaginary girlfriend.
i just put out my yard sign
i just put out my yard sign
and it reads: in this house, we believe… trans women are women. all cops are bastards. john hinckley junior did nothing wrong. kurt cobain was trans. all landlords are liars. devine is still the filthiest person alive. in this house, we say faggot and tranny and we graffiti girldicks on cop cars. and yes, astrology is real, but so are the stars. so, fuck it. long live lesbian poetry. trans men are hot as fuck. free luigi mangione. no one is free until everyone is free. non-binary people don’t owe you androgyny. appalachia is not a graveyard. they didn’t burn witches, they burnt women. libraries are sacred spaces. infinite jest is actually hella eggy. anarchy is a love language. dinosaurs had feathers. invisible disabilities are real. zines are revolutionary. land back, now and forever. pronouns are poetry. disco never died. queer joy is resistance. borders are just scars on stolen land. mutual aid saves lives. free palestine. free congo. free sudan. free haiti. water is life, and corporations shouldn’t own a fucking drop. fuck the supreme court. sign language should be taught in elementary school. drag is for everyone. black lives matter, always and forever. love is a verb, not just a feeling. ramps should be everywhere, not just where they think we belong. sex work is real work. rest is a radical act of rebellion. science is real, but so is magic. consent isn’t sexy, it’s mandatory. queer rage is righteous. in this house, we believe it’s not about the fucking bathrooms. it’s never been about the fucking bathrooms. when they put us against the wall, it won’t be because we used the wrong fucking bathroom. capitalism is a horror beyond comprehension, but even then, it can be defeated. because you are beautiful. and so is the world. and together we can defeat anything. because in this house, we believe that a better world is still possible. because in this house, we believe that a better world is still possible. because in this house, we believe that a better world is still possible.
as long as we fight for it.
the person i used to love
the person i used to love
stashed her condoms in
a 1992 mcwitch bucket
and was always herself
for halloween
every, single, year.
the person i used to love
spoke these sentences
with sudden sinkholes
that always surfaced with
these “scare quote” echoes
and god, she had a amazing laugh
the person i used to love
loved me not a long time ago
and maybe one day
i will love her too
maybe one day
i will love
this girl
i’ve named kyrsten
my nsa agent broke up with me
my nsa agent broke up with me
after nine years of
surveillance together.
i had brought up a new text
document and typed
– how are you today?
my screen flashes three times
which is how they respond
– “good”
i type into my search bar
– do you want to get lunch?
my browser window shakes
side to side, which means
– “no”
i type into a new email
– why not?
my screen flashes
sixteen times, which means
– “i don’t know if
this is working for me”
i bring up a new word document
and type in comic
sans font size 72
– i love you.
my agent takes
control of my cursor
closes the new document
and saves the file as
– im_sorry.docx
and then my computer shuts down
i just want to be
i just want to be
the person
you thought i was
being
when i was
the person
i thought i was
being
the person
i thought i was
we need more
we need more
silly little bois
and big goons
and trans girls
obsessed with
tossing the shark
we need more
gummy bear butches
and transsexual tops
and squishy enbys
with date mates
carrying mushroom purses
we need more
dapper little mascs
with millennial
finger mustaches
and genderflux zucchinis
in checkerboard suspenders
and we need more queers
because we always need more queers.
and yes i celebrate
and yes i celebrate
gay wrongs
and the right
to be forgotten
and yes i celebrate
your growth
and your right
to correct wrongs
and become
a better person
and yeah i guess
i can also tolerate
your need to be
fucking intolerable
if you can tolerate
my need
to serve cunt
and become
fucking ungovernable.
so let’s all sing that nashville song
so let’s all sing that nashville song
in siri’s southern drawl,
of punxsutawney pillbox clouds,
his bent wrists and his broken elbows
the brown hum of a chrome microphone,
the executioner auctioneering,
my cousin, my cousin, he’s hanging there,
caroling in zeus’s stagecraft-beard.
but his itch lipped, the beard didn’t fit.
that boy squealed and swore that he wasn’t him.
and cuthbert stood on them stilts, and shrieked
and then he aspirated agony
because the mannequin wire-pullers
were already tugging at his swollen olive heart.
and i stood guilty, watching, sweating, glistening
feasting on his freshman-fifteen, that jacuzzi baptism,
while the whistling bible-beaters were busy wife-swapping.
i put on my elephant mask, crawling kisses up his wrists,
as ants crawl across his palms, i lean in and lick his ribs.
and dab the broken blood from his china cabinet chest,
and o’ lord he howls that gallows children’s lullaby
these prisoning hills of home
i feel older than you know
my death was decided before i was born
in these prisoning hills called home