A Lake With Deep Twisted Shadows Dancing In The Shallows That Resemble My Silhouette, Just A Little Bit

a lake with deep twisted shadows dancing in the shallows that resemble my silhouette, just a little bit more in shambles.

crystal clear ice covers the surface and you can't break through.

you can't claim to know my deliberate depths when you've only observed from stones on the shore.

if you picked a god and prayed hard enough then maybe you could sink down to my mud.

and i've talked to the sun but only at confession time when she has the cover of the clouds.

to keep you on the stoney bay.

i want to be shower beautifully so badly. i want to look skinny like how i feel when i look at my wrists. is it sick of me to worship the thinnest part of my body? if i hold them at just the right angle there's barely anything there and i think i'd like myself much more if my entire body was like my wists. i don't want to look bald or hired or unkept when i shower. i want summer skin and post cry lips. i want curled lashes and clear, pearly white eyes. no redness. no sleep deprivation. i want to look like i only ever seep on silk and that i'm a morning person. i want to be clean.

here's the thing. this rage isn't for you. but you have soft skin and kind eyes.

i'm afraid you'll see through me.

and if you keep staring i'm afraid you'll see in me everything my father saw in my mother.

and every part of her he saw in me.

i don't want someone to look at me like that. i don't want you to look at me like that.

i want you to love me without knowing me. i want you to see me without looking.

a list of everything i want and more.

i want to never come back to the house i grew up in after. i want to die in it. i want to be ten. i want to be eleven, six, seven and eight. i want to never feel as helpless as i did as a kid. i want to wear short sleeves in the summertime and not consider the scars. i want water balloon fights and i want to give out halloween candy to the neighborhood kids. i want to never speak to my mother again, and i want to hold her hand in her final moments. i want to be her daughter, i want to be something she is proud to call her own. i want her to never find out where i have moved to, never visit me, never see me, never talk to me. i want to forget my mother, and i want my mum back. i want children. i want to live alone. i want to be a mother. i want to brush my daughter's hair gentler than mine was, and i want her to wear the same onesies my mum kept. i want her to have my mother's last name and her mother's first name as her middle name. i want to provide her with the comfort i felt i had to earn, i want her to never feel like she's on her own beneath my roof. i want her to look out into the night, and be reminded no matter how far she is, i am only a call away. i want to have home videos my son can look back on, i want him to know he is my sun. i want to watch him build his life, and i want him to i am proud of him every single day. i want to carry my child on my shoulders and i want to point to the constellations, naming them all right, i want to lie to them to tell them there is one unnamed and it is theirs to call their own. i want to marry some girl i met in high school who has a boring last name, like Smith or Johnson, or some girl whose heart is far more open than my own i met in college. in some kind of movie way, the way that makes others believe love still exists. i want a girl who loves me like she doesn't know gentle hands still have nails. i want her to remind me i am alive. i want her to love me so harshly and beautifully i have no choice but to become religious, i want her to give me faith i am afraid of. i want her to love me like a dog, so i can know why didn't i leave when it was me. i want a girl who loves me quietly, who is shy when she asks to kiss me. i want a wife. i want a girlfriend. i want to be the love of someone's life. i want to be somebody's someone. i want it to be you i want to move in with my friends and i want to never live a day in life alone again. i want a tiny sunlight house, only one of everything because it's just me and a dog i want a busy schedule, and i want to go out on a wednesday afternoon to the store, or movies i want to be a writer, full-time. i want to be good enough to have burnout. i want to be great or nothing. i want someone to look back at my work fifty, eighty, a hundred and ten years from now and think, "i want to meet you, i want to know how you could understand me without ever knowing me, i want to know if im not alone." i want to be on the other side of the "you saved my life" comments, and messages. i want to understand myself, not for reconstruction but for pure interest. i want to know who i am so that i can fix myself, but also so i don't become my parents.

i want to know myself, so i can know if i am good enough, if the praise is only surface level. i want to be surface level, i want to be mediocre so i have an excuse to give up. i want to go to an art college, i want to be able to pay for it in cash. i want money. i want to be a teacher, high school, or college professor. i want to like loud environments. i want to be an extrovert, i want to like who i am when i am not alone. i want to have a voice that feels like my art, i want a voice that could carry the weight of my heart. i want a body that i can look at and not wonder if everyone i have ever loved only felt pity for me. i want to feel clean, and i miss her sometimes. i want to have said no. i want to be clean, i want to never crave that again, i want to be my biggest enemy. i want to get to myself first, so when other people do at least i already accepted that. i want to not be queer, i want to not be me, i want to be me. i want to be a man, i want to be a woman or something in between. i can't easily explain in casual conversation. i want to be a drag queen, and i want my grandmother to call me her grandson. i want to transition in the country i was raised in, i want my real name next to my poetry. i want my friends and i to grow old in the bodies we have reclaimed as our own. i want a world where a life like mine, may have been only a phase for others is even possible to conside i want to read poetry about transitioning as a person of color, i want to look up to someone who looks like me. i want to meet people in every walk of life who are like me because day to day, i begin to wonder if i'll even get to see this part of me in the mirror in a year. i want to have a life i want to live, i want a world am not horrified to wake up in. when people speak about my life after i am gone, i want them to not hesitate to say i was queer. i don't want them to set it aside, and brush it over, it is not entirely who i am, but it is a fundamental part of my life that i can't separate myself from. i want the ability to control choices made about my body. i want still snow days and i want a world to wake up in. i want to see the modern world to be modern, i want to see change from what we have said to have learned from. i want a future to look towards, and i want a family and the dream i was raised on, that they said they swore for us when we learned the words to the promise in pre-school. i want to live in some place i've never been, i want to go to ivy, get a medical, law, or engineering degree. i want to be an astronaut, astrophysicist, a tarot card reader. i want my fortune read, i want to believe in god, i want heaven to exist. i want to be a doctor, i want to save lives, and truly know i have changed someone's life. i want to never leave my house again, i want to just doordash all the groceries.

i want to delete all my socials and start all over. personal, creative. i want to be famous, selfishly, i want people to see my name in lights, i want to know that i matter, beyond a tiny pool of names i have memorized. i want my words quoted and my verses in anthologies, i want to be remembered. i want my face to be recognizable, i want to be analyzed, and i want to never die. i want someone to not know me personally but feel as if i am a friend, someone who understands. i want the people who knows me personally, to never catch me in a state of vulnerability, i want to be who my mother had fought for me to be able to be. i want to be a teenage girl and someone's beautiful baby boy. i want to rip out my hair and i want curls. i want to be normal, i want to not wake up one day and randomly want to die all over again. i want my months of progress to not feel meaningless every time i get bad again. i want to kill myself and i want to be a success story that tells of all the ugly the beauty conceals. i want to get bad again. i want to get better, so i can write every day again. i want to try everything i can, i want to find something to numb the feeling i can't name. i want to drown myself, and i want to be able to float without giving in to the urge to look down. i want to know what's wrong with me, and i want to still be interesting. i want to die at twenty and i want to see the twenty-second century.

“and i would say i love you, but saying it out loud is hard, So i won't say it at all”

futile devices (doveman remix) by sufjan stevens

the morning leaves the night crawls in. wash my face. swallow my pills. i can't stomach the guilt. these nights are lonely. but it is the price i pay for you to have a better life.

sometimes i think about you. no. all the time. i can't stop hearing your voice on that day i left.