Waves in Veins (click to play)

And they tell me that I can’t keep the ocean in my ribs,

but I do.

That dangerous things live there

that there have been stories of

barracuda monsters

octopuses with 15 tentacles

whales that will swallow you

and sharks that can’t wait to taste a human.

But despite all of this the manatees and mermaids

are enough to keep the waves in my veins

so I’m swimming.

I got the touch of beautiful women in my shivers

even though I don’t know the meaning of love

I know the feeling of fingers

and that is enough to get me by

For now.

In the wind there are words I have a hard time catching

but I’m trying my best to grab ‘em

and lock ‘em in my pocket

so when I get home I’ll have more poems to write and stories to tell

because

Everyday is a new chance to look at the same things differently.

To stand with no umbrella in the rain

because the rain is just the sky wanting to touch you.

Listen to the birds and crickets chirping away

because everything with sound has a song to sing

and anything that breathes has something to say

So listen.

Just because this thing called reality tells you

you can’t breathe stars

snuggle with clouds

french kiss raindrops

or grow flowers in your hands

You can!

People told me that I couldn’t do a lot of things

and I believed them for a while but I’m doing them now.

I’m practicing hugs and handshakes because that’s what saves people

I never believed that refraining from cursing or saying your prayers

would get you any closer to heaven or any farther from hell

Don’t be afraid to pull the bricks from your feet and skip to your next

location

because the greatest distance is the one still within you

Release the safety you have locked on your ideas

crack the skull of confinement

strap on your wings and fly back towards your dreams

Give the finger to self-reservation

and begin to be the thing that you always wanted to be

but was too afraid to do.

Keep sonnets in your sinews

rest in your lover’s whispers

snuggle with change until it becomes your constant

learn to look at yourself in the mirror at any time of day

and smile finding the definition to beauty

is in your own reflection

Because in the end who is to say what is true?

Who is to tell you who you should love?

Who is to tell you who you should be?

Who is to tell you what is real and what to believe?

When reality was only created to make another category

That would define a certain group of people as crazy.

I know what I feel and

I’m beginning to understand who I am

I’m just a girl.

Who keeps the ocean in my ribs and the waves in my veins

despite all of the terrible things that people say it contains

But I think at the end of the day

We are all just swimming…

—————————————

Gender is a Universe

While squatting down to take a piss I read

gender is a universe and we are all stars.

scribbled on the wall of a bathroom stall

I was so in awe by this that I went home and poured myself a flask

crawled on top the roof to ponder what I had read

I stared with amazement at the vastness of constellations just wonderin’ if God has become an angry drunk

because of the ignorance and intolerance he sees in us?

We like to stereotype, nitpick, criticize, and compare black and white,

judge each other because of hairstyles, and pant size

I guess that’s why everytime I go out at night I always get asked

Are you a dude or a dyke?

And all I wanna say is

Oh hi, dude bra’! Ummm, I don’t know, how ‘bout you ask your girlfriend since she was the one who went down on me last night.

But I refrain and say

Well, I’m a little bit of both and sometimes neither

Give him a hug then walk away while he stands there intrigued still trying to figure me out

and I’m not really offended as much as I am saddened by how it never occurred to this guy

that people’s sexual preference doesn’t diminish the fact that we are still human

It’s an atrocity to me that we still have to be reminded of this

Did you know that it took nearly 400 years after

the first American settlement before

the white man recognized that black people had souls?

And I wonder if it is going to take 400 more before people

quit telling me that they think it’s cute that I kiss girls

As if my lifestyle is some trendy fashion statement

gay ‘till graduation bullshit

curious exhibitionist

I wish my mom would quit telling me

this is a stage I’m going through

and recognize that this is a skin her daughter has finally felt comfortable enough in for me to tell her about girlfriends

‘Cuz from 2nd grade ‘till I was a sophomore in college

I camouflaged my feelings because the state of Mississippi

has it written that love can only exist between a man and a woman

as if a state has the right to dictate who you choose to spend the rest of your life with

But on nights when I’m sleeping next to someone soft

I can’t help but wonder about the ones still struggling in my hometown like

Mikey who had to put a silencer over his heartbeat

because it thumped too loud whenever Andrew was in the room

he was afraid that Calvary would condemn him.

Or Irene who used to dye her hair bright blue to distract

people from staring in dismay at her and Shay’s interlocked fingers

As if homosexuality is a disease instead of just another form of loving

I just hope that when I go out tonight I won’t get asked

How do lesbians do it?

As if heterosexual missionary position is the only type of sex there is

because that would be fucking boring

I think I might just crawl on top my roof and get drunk with God again so he can hear me when I ask him to keep an eye out on

Irene and Mikey or anyone else who is being taught

to be ashamed of themselves for their feelings

because tonight I don’t wanna have to explain myself.

I’m tired of having to explain myself.

I don’t wanna be distinguished as gay, straight, lesbian,

queer, dude, or dyke

just human

because gender really is a universe

and we need to accept that we are all but mere stars

a part of one great galaxy.

———————————–

Amphritrite

Superimpose my reflection in your bones-

Call me a masochist.

Wanna be so deep inside you

I can taste the tremble in your tendons

Marrow to membrane

At 4:30 in the morning

11:00 on a Sunday

Replicating a rapture with the friction in fingers

Compose a sonnet out of rhythmic exhalations

I’ll swallow your singsong then place a mockingbird in my mouth

In hopes that it will fly down my throat so it can croon it back out.

Call me organist.

Evoke a symphony from our shivers

Strum the strings of our bodies like harps

My spine will contain the chorus

Your pelvis the verse

Move against me like the ocean

Girl, with the mermaid hair

Tentacles to tendrils

How we found each other in a shipwreck

Confused by the attraction of our flesh and fins in the shrapnel

We will whisper each other to dream with midnight manifestos—

I will tell you about Mississippi

You can tell me about growing up 1,743 miles underneath the sea

Enthralled by our histories

We will be the thing that people call myth

They will want to dissect us so they can figure out how we fit

Back to belly

Our bodies arched like the moon

Resenting the morning for splitting us in two

You smell of firewood and sea foam

Taste like a pear

Taste like hazel

Feel as delicate as fog

Feel as warm as whiskey

Want to kiss you as soft as a whisper

Want to kiss your elbows and your nose because I meant it when I told you

Every part of you is beautiful

Escape the city with me

Like renegade stallions we’ll outrun the engines

Rename the streets

For there is sapphire in our palms

When we touch we burn peridot

Let us roll ourselves tight and sleep in the canvases

Of Klimt and Magritte

Warm and full we will be

Tentacle to tendril

Marrow to membrane

Practicing the proximity of bodies

For we have both found comfort in loneliness before

But not tonight.

Call me selfish

For wanting to set fire to the maps so you won’t return

To the sea.