I would never become a drag queen
but if I did my name would be
Miranda Hill. A southern diva
that’s one part stupid and one part crazy.
The kind of girl that doesn’t
know who the president is
but will shoot your ass if she
finds you with another woman.
She would rock a sequin mini dress
short enough to get kicked out
of class, hair that tickles Gods feet,
trailer trash glamour, Bud light
in one hand, cigarette in the other
dancing at the bar, life of the party,
gun slinging beauty queen.
all in red fuck me heels never complaining
that her feet hurt. She drives diesel
cause she likes the power between
her legs. She’s been with all the boys
most of the girls, and everything in between.
She doesn’t discriminate when it
comes to pleasing the body.
But I haven’t really thought about it.
She was tall and skinny, lanky really.
Could have been pretty, given the right
clothes, hair, makeup; to be honest
I had to pull out my high school yearbook
to remember what she looked like.
She was not smart, she was
an eighteen year old sophomore.
I always wanted to ask if it hurt
when her body twitched uncontrollably.
She most likely had a mild form of torrents,
but her family could not afford
proper medical treatment so her head
would accidentally bang against the desk.
I remember Spanish class being one
of the few places I actually felt cool in high school.
I sat at my desk trying to conjugate verbs,
looking behind me watching her head convulse,
I mocked what she couldn’t control.
She threw her pen hitting me in the head.
I picked it up, shoved it in my bag
told her she was a retard and mimicked
her shaking body. I remember watching her
hold back tears. I may have humiliated her
but she never let me take her pride.
On the high school popularity scale
I was somewhere towards the bottom,
but she was even lower than me
somehow that gave me the right
to throw stones through her window of self-worth.
And now I write about being a victim of bullying,
my poems are hypocrites, it’s true.
I cried listening to Jamie Nabozny’s story.
Screamed in outrage the day
an 11 year old body was found
dangling from his third-floor railing.
Fell to the floor when I found out
Tyler Clementi’s bully will serve jail time.
I am appalled when I see schools
doing nothing to make sure children are safe.
I remember feeling bad about what I had done,
I will never have the opportunity to apologize
When her car slid under the trailer of the truck
I want to know if her life flashed before her eyes.
I want to know if her last thought was happy.
I want to know if her death was truly an accident,
or if she found a way to leave this world
without writing her loved ones a poem.
When they pulled pieces of her body
from the wreckage; the only way to identify her
was the license plate. Her father was
on the ambulance driving to the crash site
they had to pull his thrashing body from the vehicle.
This is the hardest poem I have ever written,
the thought that I may have hurt
someone so bad they would want to take their life
has been consuming me for weeks.
My chest tightens with shame.
I can feel the tar in my fingertips,
all I want to do is explode.
Go ahead judge me; go ahead break me.
We all have things we regret
and the ones who don’t
are either lying or too blind
to see the ones they stabbed willingly.
We focus on our own pain,
failing to mention the ones
we wrapped in barbed wire
and pushed down a hill.
The ones we shove aside
to make room for shinier skin.
Her face was so mangled, the mortician
sculpted a new one from wax.
They pulled shrapnel from her arms
the day they laid her casket in the ground,
school was canceled, I didn’t attend the service
but watched one by one as people
who treated her worse than I
walked out on their education
like their sins would somehow vanish
and tonight, as I sit in my parents’ house
I wish I had done the same.
The yearning to change
what has already been done
strips my stomach clean.
If she were alive
would I feel remorse?
Would I want to face her?
I heard, she got married.
I heard, she was thinking
about starting her own family.
I heard, she was finally happy.
These thoughts tear through me
as I stand over her grave.
I place white tulips on the stone
whisper, “I am so sorry
for the way I treated you.”
A gentle breeze makes the hair
on my arms stand upright,
I like to think she heard me.
The day my pants were ripped from my body
as my classmates laughed at my exposed skin
was the first time I wanted to die. I walked out
on my education to hold a knife to my wrist
ready to remove my blood. I could see my body
on the kitchen floor a sea of red under the refrigerator.
I could see my mom finding my body wide-eyed
limp, cold and lifeless. I could feel her silent
scream in my bones. Her imagined devastation
forced the knife back where it came from.
The second time I was just legal to drive
the world just beyond the windshield.
But the loneliness; the pain I cannot name
was growing inside me, a plant I kept watering.
I grabbed a mechanical pencil repeatedly
stabbing my wrist hoping I would penetrate skin
tearing tendons and veins. My brothers ran downstairs
to play video games stopping and staring at me.
I ran away to place I could be alone.
I just turned twenty-one the third time.
Everything I had ever felt was held inside,
like a Pepsi can rolling down a rocky hill.
exploding in my lungs, fizzing up my throat
until I was choking on bubbles
and leaving was easier than staying.
I broke down in my dorm rocking
like a broken fetus. My roommate
held my wrists from my mouth,
so I wouldn’t chew them like a dog with shoes.
The next day, the first psychiatrist told me,
I had the lows to be considered bi-polar
but not the highs. For the next year and a half
I ingested a mix of drugs to keep my canines at bay.
The last time I wanted to die
It had been two years since I swallowed a pill
My life had no direction. I wasn’t writing.
I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t laughing.
I was stuck. Another sleepless night.
Staring at the ceiling, praying for sleep
I saw the bed soaking the life from me
my wrist dangling over the edge.
I saw myself as dead because at that point
I might as well have been. I rolled off my pillow
slept on the hardwood floor found another
psychiatrist who brewed a different potion
I have been drinking ever since.
There are no scars where knifes wanted to cut.
I do not wear my attempts to die like a medal
of honor on my wrist. This doesn’t make it
any less real. I know what it feels like to free-fall.
To fantasize about jumping the guard rails
driving engine first into a redwood.
I have felt the cold hand of depression
hold my cheek. I have let the monsters
hold my heart in their mouth. I watched
as the pulse slowed, slobber ran down my arteries.
I have tattoos where scars should be.
Speak – for strength. Write – for sharing my stories.
Even the one’s I have not boxed up.
The ones that are still barking at my door.
Because there is no running away
from holding a knife to your wrist
from stabbing yourself with a mechanical pencil
from chewing your own veins
or seeing yourself as dead.
Today I wrote a list of all my reasons to live.
To marry my someday best friend.
To laugh so hard I fall to the ground.
To see my childs smile.
To finally have abs.
To watch wrinkles of my past iron into my skin.
To scream ‘I am enough’ at the sunset.
To carry the weak across this black tar world.
To run a marathon.
To carve my story on my bones.
To absorb this world in the pours of my lungs.
To motivate a new generation to keep moving forward.
To beam with the moon on the darkest nights.
To blossom like a rose.
To chance everything’s going to work out fine.
To love.
To laugh.
To evolve.
Every day after work I sit on the floor
Leaning forward stretching muscle and tendons
I stand pulling one foot towards my ass
Hold, count to ten, then the other
I place my feet against the wall
My calves tighten; I lock my apartment
Put my headphones in and press play
I have always wanted to be handsome
To be more than what this face allows
To walk into a room and see heads
Turn and jaws drop, the guy with
The chiseled jaw and muscle tearing
Holes in his button down Gucci suit
After seven minutes I have reached
My fist mile, my pace is faster than normal
For the first time in weeks my legs feel good
The music keeps my feet pumping
I will run further, I will push harder
I would give every poem I have written
To have abs of steel instead of the
Cushion that has crept from my stomach
What the fuck does that say about me?
That the way I look is more important than art
That I have sat in my high chair
And let over the people spoon feed me
Their idea of beauty and masculinity
I can wear confidence like a cheap suit
No matter how well it fits the fabric
will always be second rate
Around three miles a bead of sweat
Runs down my cheek, splashes on
The corner of my mouth; it is salty
My shirt is drenched and my mouth thirsty
My pace has increased because it’s the
Only way to silence the voices growing
Louder in my head
I have counted calories, tried the Atkins regime
Drank protein shakes and pumped my
Veins full of steroids been to rehab and back
Let my finger touch the back of my throat
Tasted breakfast twice
Left dinner in the toilet
Pushed lunch around with a fork
Like I actually tasted something
Mile six and my thighs burn with the intensity
Of lava flowing down the mountain side
My ankles are melting, soon my body will erupt
But I can’t stop; I must torture my body until
It resembles more of a machine than a man
Given the chance, yes, I would augment my bones
Like fire turns sand into glass
I want to reflect the sun off my surface
I want skin you can see right through
To the heart that beats like a drum
Or the lungs filling with the gold
In the air and the bones that hold
This rickety being together
Mile nine finally gives into my body’s desire
I feel guilty over my slowed pace
Mile ten I am back home, I unlock the door
Stretch my aching muscles
Drink a glass of water for dinner
Go to bed hungry
Maybe you felt as different as me.
Maybe you had jumping jacks in your brain
that made you say those things.
Maybe your tongue karate chopped your teeth
chipped the enamel until the word faggot
fell from your lips.
In a small rural town in Nebraska
where everyone is straight and white
you were the only person of color
and I was the only homosexual
so tell me why you made my life a living Hell
from preschool till high school graduation
Did you have cannonballs for fists firing at my face
the day you forced my pants to the ground
exposing my 12 year old naked body
to everyone in 6th grade band?
When you laughed at my tears
did it fill the void in your ego?
I can’t be naked in the privacy of my own home,
my body still carries that humiliation
Did you think my life was a hiking trail?
You ran all over, without thought
of killing grass trying to grow into
a wonderful man - leaving my body as dirt.
Did you willingly take the knife
from the kitchen cupboard
simply to carve canyons across my plains?
I have given each bloodstream
a name you called me;
Fag River,
Gay Lake,
Pussy Creek,
they empty into Queer Gulf
where the pain will evaporate
forming hurricanes of depression
devastating my self-worth
triggering the thought
that I will never be good enough.
When you called my brothers
told them you knew where I lived
explained in excruciating detail
how you would smash my face
against the pavement tie my feet
to your bumper and drag me through the streets
until my heart stopped beating.
Do you know the amount of fear I lived in?
I didn’t leave my apartment for three weeks
wore my best running shoes for months.
When I finally walked into the sun
I kept looking over my shoulder
Searching for a face I could recognized
I still search for a face I can recognize in the mirror
scouring for the more confident me
but you took that from me
before I could develop into the man
I thought I would become.
Your bullets have left me
on the side of the road
like a wounded deer
gasping for safe air.
I still hear people saying
High School will be
the best four years of your life
I know for a fact this can’t be true
every year I grow
further away from you
gets better and better
my best is yet to come.
I am a shape shifter
trying not to let my past
get the best of me.
I am not looking for remorse
I have rivers full
I am not looking for pity
I am simply trying to find
answers to questions I will never ask
and no amount of fake apologies
will make me forgive you.
I know hate is a strong word
and there is not a doubt in my mind
when I say I fucking hate you.
You were an idol
steeped in mystic powers
hid by a dark crevice
mountainous abode
wind-scraped
I crossed rivers
deserts
the standard stuff
strung out
how many hours I hiked
to join your cult
What weird rites
in smoke-shrouded shine
charred meat, hecatombs, holocausts
sweet incense also
blood-copper taste on cut tongue
crimson-spat benedictions
flayed skin filled with sanguine promises
I loved you with morbid self-delusion,
dreamt of you as an astral chart
instead of a quirt.
You killed me as all acolytes are sacrificed
love, lust, hate, degeneration
Held me down,
forced hot metal in my mouth.
This morning woke up as a wreck next to him
and even though I might have wanted him to stay,
said that he'd better head home,
I'd be worth next to nothing.
He didn't react and I was torn
between the idea that he would stay and
that I didn't want him to see me useless.
So I repeated what I said in the exact
same words because I started to doubt
whether I really spoke and wasn't
still dreaming.
He sighed, so I knew
I'd spoken at least once.
He asked if he could use my shower,
I said towels are in the cupboard.
And he came back and looked weird
and maybe I still wanted him to stay
and I asked him if he was mad
so I could prolong his presence with a fight.
He said he wasn't and that I needn't worry
he wished me good day and I said Fuck you.
But he didn't get mad, just like
"I don't know how to handle this."
So I said with reproach
that he didn't have to handle,
that he could just ignore it and
it would go away.
Just get the hell out of there
whenever it reared its ugly head
and everything would be allright, still.
It wouldn't bother him.
He looked away and smiled,
but not sure if he should,
so it was only half a smile
and kind of sad.
He gave me a kiss and I think
I said something ugly again,
because he left my room,
but stood in the doorway.
So I said what are you doing
you're in my doorway hoping that
he would come back inside,
But he said 'Yes' and left without words.
(I realize this is golden.)
Then I sent him a text halfway
drugged already that I didn't need
this from him right now
He texted and I did too.
But it was always like
"I don't know how to handle this"
and I got really pissed off
and started to feel like a broken toy again.
my car smelled like mildew or dead animal or something
like that, but not quite the same -
so i cleaned it out.
i threw away everything i could dig off of the
floorboards and out from under the seats.
on the way home, some bastard on a cell phone reading
The Wall Street Journal,
almost side swiped me
so, i spit at his car while flipping the bird.
a dove flew at my window and the neighbor told me
about a peeping tom in our
organic white bread gated community and about some guy who didn't live here
who OD'd on something in someone’s condo over by the burn unit;
she said we should come to the next neighborhood crime watch meeting
so we can meet some neighbors.
i didn’t have the heart to tell her we were moving in a week so,
i thanked her profusely and tried to keep the dog from barking.
driving back into the sun, always heading west
like the compass in me only points one way,
i always come back, even if it gets a little lost.
and, despite all the cleaning,
my car still smells like shit.
it smelled of dirt,
and lilacs,
and cow manure.
And I breathed in deep
the scent of the place where
I had learned that there
were roots beneath the trunks
and leaves; roots that had thrust
their way into the soil, the scent
of which now mingled in and
populated within my nostrils.
it smelled of dirt,
and lilac,
and cow manure.
And I had told him
of vague things,
of half sorts and
I could not sort out why
the things of which I spoke
were not what
they could have been.
it smelled of dirt,
and lilac,
and cow manure.
And if I could have
I would have embraced
every mile which led me there,
and had myself dragged
over the roads
and the fields
and the hills to that home.
it smelled of dirt,
and lilac,
and cow manure.