welcome to my notebook!

DNI:

t*rfs/transphobes/transmeds/transmisogynists/r*dfems

racists/antisemities/islamophobes/z*onists

pro cop/conservatives/tories

[Images ID: an original poem titled 'clarity on my 27th year'; lineated from left to right. Poem begins:

Not on my birthday, just a Saturday night, my face in the dull overhead light and the bathroom mirror, smudged but crystal clearer than I ever remember my own face being –

a spot sticker nestled on the side of my nose, a stain down the front of my t-shirt, skin irritated red from tears days ago, all of it seems total, complete, wrinkle prophecies in between my brows, the corners of my eyes, the tent over my lips, my hair overgrown over the tops of my ears, bright grey streaks like dagger rain, lips crusted, teeth yellowed from skipping a brushing, and my back hurting from bending over barely making it hard to even wipe,

and in the reflection, it all looks back at me at once, not fragments only seen one piece at a time but complete, me –

I find that I have less questions these days, who I am, what I’m doing with my life, not that I know the answers, just that I make my bed, I lay in it at an okay time (most days) I make my instant noodles, I resist the takeout (most days) and no matter the hanging questions I continue, certain that whatever will be will be (most days) because there’s

me, in the bathroom mirror, smiling through toothpaste foam at myself, just for myself, angling my head, saying in a million and one different ways, hello, this is me, and don’t you love that? and as I spit out, a circular milky glow pierces my peripheral, and I look up above running water to see the moon through my bathroom window – I always forget I can see it here, and here it always is reminding me every time we are here.

[Images ID: an original poem titled 'BEAUTY AIN'T ALL', formatted in a traditional lineated style. poem begins:

Does beauty make you make two coffees every morning, theirs with extra inconvenience to get it just the way they like it? To hear that humdrone of satisfaction, to see the closing of eyes, when it’s just right? Abandonment fear can get you so far, but even that won’t last forever – beauty don’t end but it does shift, and can you take that?

Baby, if by some impossible reality your beauty went missing, I’d still wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life, comb your greys, make your coffee, wash your laundry, pick up your prescriptions, your beauty is mighty but it ain’t all – those early days wouldn’t shift into late ones if beauty was all there was –

So love beyond façade, beyond the layers, bless their triple sneezes, hear the same story a dozen times just for the sake of experiencing them a few extra seconds than the little time we get.

And, baby, how about me? When decades of smiling are etched into my cheeks, engraved stories in a permanent state of retelling, will I still be your baby? Will you still pick up the tab?

[Images ID: an original poem titled 'I got the blues'. The poem is lineated from left to right. Poem begins:

That slow low kind, the background hum that threatens to turn everything to drone, the creeping cold kind crouching in your bones no matter what you do. So please –

I will you please hug me? Love me and leave no room empty for doubt nor lonely fingers to pull at my tendons. Will I please reach for you?

When I next see you I will make up years lost and grab you squeeze you crush you smother you love you wrestle you choke you hold you rub you headbutt you press face to face and feel breath and heat and heartbeat’s immense overboiling with more desire than I can hold.

So, next time, I try to touch but skin goes taut tightens around joint, maybe desire was just a trickery of the light, stay within rope range, it doesn’t twist to burn if I don’t step towards you -

but you step towards me –

you step towards me reach for me clamber onto me hug me wrestle me wiggle with me giggle with me no tautness just lightweightedness rope expanding to circle infinity around us -

I go to bed that night, October cold and creeping in to make the warmth feel right, moths tapping on my window, their whiskers stretched to hungry light –

I go to bed that night, full-bellied and full-loved. Next time I will.

[Images ID: an original poem titled 'Under Loch and Key'. The poem is lineated left to right, except for the last stanza, with indented lines being signalled by a '/'. Two '/' of these symbols indicates the stanza has changed to being lineated from right to left. Poem begins:

He calls you an English rose, but he’s not talking about the thorns, in the stables, below feet and light, the smell of leather knuckles grazed against necks, and everywhere you turn the gates are locked and bolted and your belt is leading the dance, unravelling the slim pickings of the night, the fluorescence cupping the cuffs over your biceps reaching for the / water that once reflected / faces in current that you can’t quite / gather in your / palms before rushing to and from / infinity that you can’t quite see but still / squint at, your eyelid lining up with the horizon’s / knife edge reflection –

// Well? Are you waiting for something to happen?

[Images ID: an original poem in lineated left-to-right format, titled 'Dance With Me'. Poem begins:

In the kitchen in the street under sun under dinner table to café chatter to busker passion with our feet with our hips at the train station at the courthouse until dawn until our lungs give out without care without music on empty stomachs on hiccupping tongues on New Year’s Eve on every other Tuesday when in elation when in grief –

Dance dance with me dance without me dance for me when I can no longer dance on my grave shoeless, rain-soaked into the soil and I will dance thunderstorm to tap in time with your muddy toes

[ID: an original lineated poem titled 'Vows For A Sunday Morning'. Poem begins:

There is not much I can really offer you - myself and all my flinching hands, unfocused eyes that stay on the exit, flashing between adoration and headlights, a heartbeat that quickens into hoofbeats, but -

I offer you my name, all I am, condensed into a single syllable, the tripping hazards I went through to get it, the unearthing of a small, scared thing, a desire to soar yet to return to a home.

I offer you my Sundays, mornings spent flipping pancakes and popping toast, pouring coffee over ice, the day spent on sofas with legs over laps.

I offer you my shoulders, aching and stretching, a steady counterweight to the trebles of life, running a bath, bringing the shopping in, always making the bed after the last one’s out (it will usually be me) a grip when taking care of your every need in every way.

I offer you my words the ones laid neatly on a crisp white page, and the ones catching and tripping and falling onto the carpet, that leave us laughing and knocking teeth.

I offer you my clumsy, in love, in life, in conversation, in intimacy, in carrying the plates and mugs, in ordering the food.

I offer you my ageing, my growing wrinkles, my frown and smile lines, the bags under my eyes, the salt peppering my hair from the ripe old age of 24.

I offer you myself. It is all I have, and I hope you will forgive that. I may not have much in the way of savings, but I have been saving a heart on a sleeve for someone just like you to come along, an unexpected encounter that leads to infinite Sundays, a voice that says Only if you want to, honey and really means it.

Will you have me? Hold me tender? I will have and hold every part of you rugged and smooth, hard and easy, bruised and glowing, if you will let me.

This living, these hands, it’s easy with you.