moonchild

may dawns on me like first light.

i put my two palms together,

rosary in hand

i feel you between my fingers; i feel you when i imagine what it could have been like.

a moon shaped pool fills itself in the hollow where once lied my heart

and i swore to you that i never had one for you, yet

yet you're the only thing that ties me back to me today

in this lie i whisper to myself in the night, in the mornings,

i think of you and i imagine dark brown hair, the colour purple, i imagine pallor and black and what then i believed was inauthentic but now i yearn for because what i feel today is so far strayed from who i am

when will i come back to me

when can you come back to me

when can i die?

when can i stop contradicting myself and lying to myself and pretending to live life in the mold they want me to,

i am so tired of trying to dip my toe into the right pools, of trying to steer every thought of mine to cookie-cutter conversations

the day has worn me so much so that i barely have the energy to form a thought

this is what they do— they throw these things at you, constant stuff, constant noise, constant newness

newness can be so beautiful; oh, my authenticity was so, so beautiful when it didn't matter what they wanted

but now they want me to fit into the mold. now they want me to relinquish thought. to relinquish masculinity. to relinquish deep conversation, to relinquish political talk, to relinquish meaning, god, no, no, get me out, it claws, it scratches the walls of my stomach, i am screaming to get out

i am not depressed, get that word out of your mouth, i am awake and there is nothing as painful

i am being coerced into a life i don't want

i am being pushed to the edge, with every person i know telling me, begging me, whispering to me to jump in, to let go of who i am

this blade i constantly have in my hands might just go in my chest to make it stop

it is only in death that they will be quiet. that they will let me talk; that i will be able to write one million letters of every thought i've ever had, and you will watch, you will all regret, most importantly you will think, all i've ever wanted is for people to think

for meaning

in a hospital bed; i am in a hospital bed, oxygen tube tied to the nostrils, a twitch of the finger signalling that i am still alive

in a building, in a city of buildings full of people unconscious in hospital beds, all kept alive by the same machine

we are all asleep in hospital beds

waiting for when i will give myself to you