lgbtqia – Silenticel

you find the ingredients
to lose yourself
in the kitchen cabinets.
in twelve hours with coconut oil,
a chopstick and a fork,
you unkink your hair and
lose a piece of yourself in
the air that blows between the doorways
of the only home you’ve ever known.

you’re down a limb, and you can
feel its phantom
brushing up against your body,
trapped
within these same walls.

you shut the door quickly
when you leave so
that it cannot escape.
it has to stay inside.
you want to visit sometime
soon.

phantom limb // a.s.m

you’re too young to be hiding
in the closet
full of clothes your
mother bought you.

you’re too young to
hate yourself so much
that you dream of hiding
in there forever, just so you
never again have to wear a dress
on Easter.

you’re too old
to be living as anything but
what paints your stomach lining.
project it in color on city walls.
scream it drunkenly off of rooftops
to the whole world, a reminder:

your tiny planet will
never stop spinning as long as you
continue to push it.

your life is too short to be squeezing yourself into clothes that don’t fit who you are // a.s.m

there are places
i cannot look at myself
even when i am alone;
please don’t
touch me there.

please love my naked soul,
please do not force
my layers off, do not force
my clothing off
before i am ready because
this body is the only thing that
i’ve ever been able to call my own
and i am not ready to
give that up yet; i’m not quite
ready to let you in.

i am learning how to grow
my own boundaries from
the dust that has finally
settled, and this body is
the only vehicle i can drive.
i am not quite ready to
share it yet.

i know you see beauty,
but the mirror paints stories of
pain and struggle and learning and
growing and scars and
bleeding
that only i see, and you can never
own that.

i don’t want to belong to
anyone but myself.

i cannot sell my body and
you cannot buy it.
i am scared to share something
i have only just learned to
love and care for because
with just a touch
you have the power to
break it.

my body is the only thing i’ve never had to share with everyone and i cannot find it within myself to let go // a.s.m