May 25, 2024

"Being trans is a gift"

you say, and I agree: it is what it is because it's given

(but never freely).


like how calling you a poet refers to the making you do,

not the having, keeping or losing.


like how we in our fits of poetry

might yearn for the tissue of words 

to weaken, permeated with light it sought to hold, 

and finally give way.


like how those birches were just wood, until

we wandered into them.


How no one quibbled over the placement

of a mushroom, the significance

of an owl pellet, or whether every love needs a name.


the world deals beautifully with exceptions, makes none 

of its own. not even us.



April 15, 2024

the why...

because wrongness needs rightnesss

because I know I can be good

because I need reminding.

because I wanted one thing I couldn't lose

because I needed to let go

because I have nothing — none of us do.

because I was no longer content not to be

because I always have been

because I'm afraid I never will.

because I was ready

because I wasn't

because I was made to.

because 

because 

because 

because I kept your book

and it kept me from giving up

so, thank you

  for everything.

October 23, 2023

I've been waiting to wait for you

Been hoping to hope for you

Missed missing you

Cast sidelong glances at sidelong glances


The mirror dance we stumbled through as though blind

Was a sketch of an idea of an attempt at a prelude

But the second act is much better than the first


Friend, will I catch your eye across a crowded, hushed room,

See it shine with laughter, like radio on our private channel?

Who else has this frequency? Join in! All together, now


In this love of love

Joy that has no beginning

How could I imagine an end?



October 20, 2023

What is a leaf to the tree?

What is the leaf to the leaf? 

What is the leaf to one chloroplast in one cell? 

And what are you and I, God knows, 

In this tree with roots so deep,

trunk so broad, 

canopy so high, 

that we all fit… 

somewhere? 

How can it be,

when the tree 

is nothing to it,

nothing without it, 

that the light loves it, too?



October 03, 2023

Wash my heart in grief, you

whose love comes before love.

Plunge me into shame, soul

of joy. Touch me,

Only to show how untouched I am. See me,

Only so I curl in on myself. Wrung 

with loneliness I drip into the ocean. Fired

with despair, I am a speck of sand flowing into glass. You, 

you cannot be so far that I won't reach for you. And I,

in the dark, don't even need to close my eyes to see your face.