secrets

[paranoid-0-android]

Bein a cash poor crip takes its toll It looks like making do with 2 people on a twin sized mattress in someone’s living room for 5 months. It means no Epsom salt baths no matter how much pain you’re in. It means not knowing where your back and knee braces are or even your cane. It means saving your muscle relaxers for absolute painsomnia emergencies bc if you run out of what’s in your backpack you have to move and dig through heavy boxes to find the prescriptions. It means to get a place of your own to love, you have to pick up 12 extra hours of overtime this week and however many you can manage to get next week. It means contemplating if $40 is doable for a body work appt next week or if you’ll need to pick up more hours and wait til January.

It means disabled body meets Trans body and they both want to kill yourself because you’re struggling in everyday get by and can’t take the extra pressure of hating your existence. Add in relationships, resentment, pain or everyday life to the mix and it feels like a death sentence sitting in your wind pipe. sobbing uncontrollably as your lover snores.

This crip body is losing touch with its ancestor’s power and is aimlessly searching. This crop body is feeling broken.

[paranoid-0-android]

Few things are as consuming as the loneliness between two lovers light years apart in the same room Stars burning out in the cosmic darkness Crustacean shells washed upon shorelines The tides bring them together by sea and by moon But they only sink deeper into the muddy banks of the milky way Returned Recreated New once again, someday. But now, For now they rest. take it easy precious ones.

[paranoid-0-android]

These days I live in between the lime greens and cardboard boxes of a house insulated with grief

Some days as the warm desert wind blows you hear it howling through Bluetooth converters or echoing a Mothers wailing as tears overflow from text boxes in chat messengers

early mornings it is a pitter patter trotting along linoleum Moving from consolation to consolation

Sun spotted hands clenching their chest and massaging knee caps make my heart ache

Midday while making lunch it simply is sometimes The Sound of Silence

Pops of grease Scritches of green scouring pad along kitchen walls Deep sighs frequently To release a little pressure of the pressing pain

The calendar there is still in April 2015 as are the hearts of those surrounding me

A lover lies their tired body next to mine among green and brown and closes their eyes Over the hum of a cobweb strewn fan I hear the soft song of their soul

An aching glow warms my wintry fingertips resting on their chest Resilience rugged like terra cotta sandpaper Yet smooth like melting sunlight over mountain lines

We float among the nopal colored waves and teach one another gentleness Whispering in words from languages no others know

This is not a home but this home lives within me

[paranoid-0-android]

your driver’s license expired 94 days after you did.

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reading babybooks to take me back to simpler times.

not so simple at all.

on which page did you stop caring?

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most days i look at where i am at in my life and i feel like i am drowning.

it makes sense.

we swim in the womb

we learned to breathe air but i am living in fluid once more

the waters of your grief and trauma fill my lungs

you never learned to grow gills

now i must. 

[paranoid-0-android]

Grief is tracing the lettering on a CD album with splintered bits of your sternum.

Sometimes its the hinges of your knuckles rusted closed while red crescent moons leak from your palms.

It is volume up,

just three more notches.

I think the bass has drowned out the crisp smells of incense, summer breezes, and hand me down 80′s tees screaming in your brain.

Lately it is mostly jump scare nightmares that leave you in a sweat and wanting to cry once you finally manage to pry your eyes open.

It’s letting those tears fall when you realize there was never any monsters at all.

Just memories. 

[paranoid-0-android]

Calm your mind precious one. You're safe. You're loved. The life you are living is real.

[paranoid-0-android]

Sometimes cicadas in the 2am desert don't sound much different than bits of gravel scraping the words "fuck love" into the flesh of your calves

[paranoid-0-android]

Raccoon Boy

I carry trash around on my back the way I carry emotions in my heart

Unnecessarily at times

always to capacity

never knowing exactly why or where it will get me.

I shovel wrappers, tea bags, paperwork,

Out of the sack and onto the bed

Making room

You call me racoon boy and laugh with a gleaming smile

how do i unpack you from my heart space?

sitting on a curb

hoping the garbage man never comes.

wrap myself in memories, goals, dream, aspirations,

all the potentials and we could be’s.

i dont want this rummaging to stop.

[paranoid-0-android]

2nd hand grief slips into ur lungs somedays

Im wearing her jacket

Crooked smiles and glasses to stop the tears

I feel you in my chest the last few days.

My lungs are occupied

little breath space.

I have been  

missing a ghost 

[paranoid-0-android]

Dear Them

I wish you knew

how much I wish you knew.

I'll have your love and 'support', whatever that means to you, always

but never your understanding

Never your accountability

Never your thinking twice before suggesting yet again that I just move 400 miles back home and leave college because it seems like

It's too much for me

Or because I need professional help and don't have insurance here but maybe could get some if I just left this place.

I wish you knew I came home and threw my cane at the wall before collapsing to sob on the floor.

That before then I sobbed in the library

In the car

In the parking lot to Macy's in the pouring hail as I smoked my 3rd cigarette that day and guzzled sweet tea between sniffling the dripping snot back into my nose.

(I wish you knew how to be more like my cat. She gets it. )

I wish you knew how deep your words cut with every subtle victim blame

Every guilt trip

Every emotional abuse tactic you have no idea that exists.

I wish you knew how tired i am how exhausting talking about myself is

Every time my being a Trans queer depressed mad crip is my choice and you're not sure why I don't just change my lifestyle if it's so miserable.

Just

Be

Happy.

I wish you knew

that I wish you never knew...

But yesterday you were diagnosed with a chronic lung disease

And you won't get better.

You won't be able to just be happy

You probably can't spend hours doing crafts and sewing and having lunch dates with Kathy

You won't be able to get out of bed some days

You'll need help getting around

You'll need your oxygen tank again

You won't be able to be out of the house for long some days

You'll need someone to do the cooking the cleaning the bills the laundry the- Jesus I know how much that is going to kill you because I've never been more like someone in my life and I can't stand not being able  to

but

We

Are

Not

Able

To.

I wish you knew how revolutionary you are and that this battle is the hardest you'll know but you're just as strong and I will be by your side to help you through this.

I wish you knew it will all work out in the end because you are not alone and you will have people love you and support you even when you feel like you can't make it one second further and nobody gets you. I wish you knew how many times I would have died without those people. I wish you knew how badly I've always wanted you to be one of those people but you can't.

So I will be one for you

And together we can still work through all this.

[paranoid-0-android]

It still takes me too long to finish (poems)

Gently lift the needle and nudge it over

Slowly descend

The record skips

Forward.

-------

Fat and Trans and femme and mad and crip and fucking beautiful

-------

I fucked you so hard on my aunts kitchen table the bottle of tapatio that rested on it slowly shook it's way off and broke on the floor.

I scrub the splattered walls because you couldn't stand.

-------

These crip hips pop and these knees crunch but fuck I love the way you bite your lip as this fat ass bounces on your thick silicone cock.

-------

We haven't made love in...

Well so long I can't remember.

I miss you.

-------

I don't think I want us to change.

I'm afraid.

-------

I forgot I was holy outside of your cunt

Autonomy never made sense

--------

I have a sacred heart.

It pulses in rhythm with my clit.

--------

This crip isnt fucking much these days besides themselves over.

[paranoid-0-android]

younger self prompt

I have thought about what I would say to a younger me for years.

How do you tell bobbing pigtails and coloring books about a crip, mad, traumatized future?

What in this moment is important enough to take back to the overalls and scraped glasses lying on a dirty carpet reading encyclopedias?

I survey the room for answers.

Naked body sprawled beneath laptop; oh how you never knew how much you wouldn't fit into your body.

I wish you knew that slicing into meaty thighs would only reveal tissue and blood, not your truths.

Please be gentle

you will run out of money for tattoos to cover the scars eventually

and they will never cover the pain in your bones

An outline of what once was a lover next to you

Hurting.

Angry.

Distant.

Nobody ever told you that you would fall in love

with replicating your abuse

And fall apart

trying to undo it

Nobody taught you to visibilize and appreciate femme labor. Emotional labor.

You’ll learn.

Sometimes listening to Rihanna songs.

Sometimes watching magic manifest before your eyes.

Sometimes just sobbing.

(You will blossom into someone that cries every single day, and you will learn to honor it eventually)

I want you to know there  is no damn handbook on how to be a good white partner, stop spending hours online trying to find the answers in databases and forums.

You boundless capacity to love and support someone right inside yourself

Your experiences are different but your traumas have bound you in a connection you cannot find anywhere else.

You have bravery to stand up, dismantle, and interrupt what you know is wrong.

Put down the dissertations on race and simply hold the brave warrior body lying cold and alone next to you…

I could tell you about battles with this crip body recovering from trauma

I could tell you you’ll have a silky grey cat one day that has the same squinty eye that you do and that you’re convinced is your familiar.

Your room will be cluttered most days and you will always hate hanging up your laundry.

You’ll need to read up on horoscopes much, much sooner in life because those seem to be a big thing to femme queers and you will have no idea what folks mean when they tell you things like “oh that is so your pisces moon” for years before looking into it all.

Oh, by the way, you ARE queer, and one day you will wrestle with your own idea of what femme means and it will feel okay.

You’ll probably have cried or thought about death in the span of writing this poem.

It all seems relative.

Each time I write this I would have something new to tell you.

So I will just share something new I have learned to tell my current self.

You are worthy. Of love. Of care. Of healing. Of support. Of happiness.

You are able. To manifest this in your life. To live authentically and fully.

So please,

All I want you to know Chey is

you are a sacred being. 

[paranoid-0-android]

seasonal transition

Gender performance

Like femme blossoms.

Wind howling.

My nails today are tulips in the breeze with sunlight glint

I want to stomp through their garden.

Their beauty is appealing from afar

But i have allergies in the Spring

Each time i swallow a Benadryl and wash it down with the word femme

things feel a little better

but  the sight of tulips still make my eyes water and my throat itch.

------------------------------

Styrofoam containers tucked away from trampling feet.

Container for holding

not protecting.

Malleable and fragile.

What needs holding?

Let yourself give space to all your contents

What do you hold inside of you?

Be gentle.

Exist in vulnerability

Your barriers creak and squeak

but that does not mean they are not strong.

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How do you recall the poetry of your dreams?

Translations and transitions

Words echo through realms.

lucha

   lucha

       lucha

I am growing among the stardust

[paranoid-0-android]

You say crazy as a means of gaslighting. A way to shut down and tear apart. Convince me none of its real so you can get your way. But I know its real. Trust me, I wish my crazy weren’t real most days.

Because when I say crazy I mean broken beer bottles raking down your forearm just to create scars.

9, 10 foot tall lanky black shadows crossing the road in front of your car as you drive home from work. Gangly arms swaying slowly at the sides of hunched over body as you do nothing but stare and pray it crosses faster.

I mean not looking in mirrors for days because what you see in them may not be real.  How do I know for sure??

I mean so entrenched in sleep paralysis you and your partner have communicated telepathically in your sleep while something sat on your chest and breathed down your sweaty neck.

There is a magic in madnesses that fit so well together

Unlocking new languages of love, new weapons of protection.

Together in dream worlds dancing between demon claws we find a new way to survive.

My crazy has always been resented, something to hide away. A monster. not anymore. My crazy is not digestible. My crazy is not a quirky Tumblr post. My crazy is not a platform for you to shame and blame and execute abuse. My crazy is power. My crazy is otherworldly. My crazy is not going anywhere and is something I learn to accept with each new day. With a frequent hand on my heart and a soft “its okay sweetheart” my madness and I fall more in love each day.

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You say too young to be sick.

The generations of trauma that rest in these bones beg to differ.

Ancient tattered soul screaming for peace,

These screams resonate through joints and muscles,

Make stomachs queasy and unable to eat for days.

Continually failed escape plans.

My hands are numb and I don’t have enough energy to text you back to argue.

“Yeah I will just check in with a doctor, I’m sure its nothing”

It’s been nothing for almost 2 years now and I’m still too tired to text you back.

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When I say depressed I mean sorry we haven’t talked in two months

Trying to not kill yourself day in and day out is exhausting.

When I say depressed I mean if you fucking tell me one more time to just have a better attitude and “only you choose how each day goes Kid! Just focus on the positive for once!” I may go through with it.

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When you say invisible we mean the same thing.

The way my needs are treated because you can’t see the way my legs feel like they are set on fire

You don’t see when I cry myself to sleep because the painsomnia is too much and you just want some goddamn sleep already its been 6 fucking nights in a row Jesus Christ.

Invisible loved ones wandering the halls of this hospital

Panic attacks in waiting rooms because I dont want to die here too.

It is questions and comments that get only blank stares.

Can we please slow down?

I don’t have insurance to see a doctor.

Can we park closer please?

My healer appointments have been too expensive for 4  months. Maybe next month.

It’s okay that you forgot (again) I know I don’t advocate for myself enough. It’s my fault.

Invisible self loathing internalized until I am consumed inside and out.

Not disabled enough

Not good enough

Can’t do enough.

Not enough.

------------------------------------------

I’m sorry sweetheart.

That’s not your fault.

It’s ableism’s.

------------------------------------------

Your tired eyes and weary voice are worn down from showing me what resilience looks like.

But you never stop.

When you say resilience you show me a way to love myself

You show me the end of the world is not as near as it feels.

You wipe tears away from my cheek, send me a 5am facebook message just to check in, you shoot an in between classes I love you text, leave me a voicemail because you’re driving and cant text back, you spoon me as we fall asleep to cartoons after sobbing for 4 hours.

When I say resilience I tell my body one step at a time that it’s okay,

We’re okay.

I cry in between the syllables but I know

My power and strength are unparalleled

and I WILL survive in a world that wants nothing more for me than to not.

I am resilient and I am revolutionary.

This body is revolutionary.

We will conquer this life.

[paranoid-0-android]

Dandelions dance between labia. I am healing.

[paranoid-0-android]

you once came home from class elated to tell me about your day. our energies and their capabilities are incredible. you tole me water can be manipulated by energy. I learned that ice crystals will shape their beauty under the influence of positivity, or they will grow jagged and ugly under negativity.

so maybe that is why

my fucking rib cage 

is made of 

icicles.

heat escaping through the slits

between my vertebrae.

creaking frozen hips grind down on fragile femurs.

my body is a goddamn tundra. 

[paranoid-0-android]

Andes

I stand in the kitchen and unpack the groceries. Out of its sleet covered jelly fish membrane container I pull out a box of Andes mints.

I'm 6 again with pig tails and small soft hands that gently creep their way into dresser drawers 

 My knuckles are not fractured. My arms are not scarred.

 Delicate

 Frail 

 Soft

I imagine opening the box and placing one to my lips and childhood movies flash through my mind

 "Much too good for"... the damaged. 

What if they don't taste good anymore? 

 What if they taste as bitter and full of regret as wasted time convincing yourself fixing the closet door for the 4th time (that week) because you were shoved into it was love? 

 7 years on a person 5 years on a degree a lifetime on recovery and healing.

 I can't waste these too

 But there are 28 pieces and am unsure if I will ever even make it to 28

I can push that out of my mind and convince myself they must be just as good as they were when nana used to let me sneak INTO her closet to eat as many as I wanted.

But still I cannot shake the heaviness of being trapped in this festive green and red box

Because now I am almost 23 and I've been writing about Sneaking OUT of closets lately and the memories of that are washing away the memories of golden fruits bounding down hallways 

 Ventura rainstorms on a beach 

 Washer and dryer 

 Her smell and smile of a Saint

 Wrinkled hands clasped in front of the 1960s style TV every Sunday 

Thumbing rosaries 

Hail Mary 

My grandmothers name

I am soon reminded that I will have to eat these all on my own- my partner hates mint and chocolate. 

"Toothpaste is not a candy" 

No,

 it's just the easiest way to get someone else's weed and booze stenched saliva out of your mouth 

 As I cry I sneak a swig of the coffee creamer because this nostalgia tastes all too good when you've been trading diner dares filled with French vanillas, hazelnuts, (if we were real lucky a peppermint or cinnamon creme) for Saturday's with alcohol poisoning 

I need to sit 

My joints are screaming and I'm not sure if it's the rain and snow or the nostalgia that's been awakened in them, 

The grief that has slithered its roots between their crevices.

The last few days I've been dreaming of Palm trees and a crisp salty breeze

 Today I'm crying because I'm too angry to do anything else 

Road trips are shortened from 570 miles to trips around town turning in application after application 

Simpler times have been on my mind. 

Now I got mortgages and homes And I got stiffness in the bones 

Now.. I'm almost 23 and I'm not shoving my pockets full of mints I'm simply just eating handfuls of them 

They're as good as I remember. And maybe they really do taste this good,

Or maybe it's the high from them being my after-sex snack

And their flavor mixes so well with my partners wetness still on my lips 

I am almost 23 and I'm not sure if I will ever find comfort in the silver linings of the darkest clouds my life has know.