Something on the inside
that I can’t wear
a secret
like a draft thrown in the fire
a secret voice, a monologue
in this silver sphere
this bird’s eye-view
looking down at my life and those swimming in it
I’d spin and dance with them if I could
feel them if I could
free them if I could
make them trade the blood running down their hands
for blood flushing up their cheeks.
But.
These reverse growing pains
phantom form with phantom pain
the track becomes a sphere
scrapes my legs, my feet
bloodied on the asphalt of adolescence
to be young, always looked at and never heard
my Chin cut on the sharpness of a straight story
to be queer, always looked at and never heard.
Fingers dragging on the road
give me a pencil, a paper
bring me something to carve
to form
to take and change
bring me justice
I have wild horses
unbloomed roses
brand new white shoes
begging to be taken out of the box
the closet
to be caked in mud and mess and breaths … and time.
Once such a sharp, conniving thing
until I wore it and made it mine
let it take me like a soft unbreakable current
like it did in the days when I was younger
before I was perhaps graced
perhaps burdened
with the predicament of a writer
becoming wise but not old.