Who will walk these wooden streets?

as we punish the innocent, we say, believe the children they become what we couldn’t, that’s why we grieve the children

what wouldn’t we do in the name of protecting the young? just one thing, i think: perceive the children

unbearable, the pain of watching Icarus leap for the sun so we blame the Stranger, saying they’ve come to thieve the children

unity is safety, we preach, and repression is revolution never intending to deceive the children

is it protection to teach that Heaven favours the obedient? at the end of the world, who will receive the children?

does a cage protect a bird? does it sing in praise of the bars? could it be they are not so naïve, the children?

how many prisons must be built before we feel safe? at the end of the day, that’s where we’ll leave the children

my loves, even the strongest fist can’t hold a flame in its grasp freedom comes on bright wings to retrieve the children

There is a woman in the desert. Her hair is wild and her eyes are red. She is screaming, screaming, screaming. Her screams send starbursts of fire rippling through the sand. She does not want anyone to touch her. She is longing deeply to be touched. Her screams turn into sobbing. She falls to her knees.

Everyone has left this woman in the desert because she demanded to be left alone. She frightened them off with her fire. Yet if you should approach this screaming crying burning woman, you will see that she lives in a cage. Her cage is made of bones.

She wants you to walk through the fire. She wants you to travel across the sands to see her. She wants you to listen to her. She wants you to help her take apart this cage. She wants you to sit with her and hear her tell the story of the bones, one at a time. She wants you to help her put the bones back together into the skeleton of the person she could have been. She wants you to help sing flesh and skin back onto them. She wants the body to breathe and laugh and cry and come.

i remember when all the pretty boys were poets

slim-hipped & sharp-boned, with slender hands

fingers like flower petals, faces bright facets

of the glittering gem of gay life in the city

 how i hungered & haunted

lusting after the lives of pretty poets like that

i wanted to wake up, wreathed in the nude

enwrapped in the arms of an enraptured amor

 little girlboy lost, i left that gay garden

so charming & cruel, carefree & callous

to the world of women i went

& budded, i blossomed, bloomed stamen & stem

 & the slim-hipped boys always became something softer

flowers drooped petals & fingers dropped pens

razor bodies grew bellies & bright faces grew beards

from sharp boys swelled sweeter men & who could regret it?

 yet sometimes still, i feel it stirring

that lingering longing for a time long-lost

when all the pretty boys wrote poetry

& all our tiny world was mad for magic

 & i still believed in a lover whose healing hands

(if he’s Bruce during the day and Batman at night

does he even sleep?)

 all the superhero beat-up-bad-guys-i’m-the-biggest-cop

-in-the-world stuff got old a while ago

 in the era of contemporary social justice politics, we know

that Bruce oughta just give up vigilantism

 and donate his billions to the masses

thus reducing poverty, and thus reducing crime

 thereby achieving his mission in vastly greater measure

than he ever could accomplish by beating

 up the Joker a hundred thousand times

but you know, Bruce is a literal detective genius

 i’m pretty sure he’s figured this out

i don’t think he wants to end crime or even violence

 there’s another thing in there that he’s after

and here’s where my curiosity comes in

 because i think i get it

i think i know what Bruce Wayne dreams about

 on the Batplane, between adventures

in that grey space between dark and dawn

 i think he dreams about the sound

of his mother’s pearls hitting the pavement

 the crack of the gunshot, the warmth of blood

the smell of the air the night they died

 i think he dreams about being ready

for the next time, in the next dream

 where he’ll be bigger, stronger, better prepared

every real-life villain a practice run

 for the next time he’s in the alley

and the mugger pulls the gun

 i wanna be Batman’s psychotherapist

i want him in my analyst chair

 i wanna tell him, Bruce, honey, can’t you see?

nothing you do is ever going to bring them back to life

 and then he’ll say, i crave justice

and i’ll say, justice doesn’t change the past

 and he’ll say, the villains need to be punished

and i’ll say, punishing them won’t make you feel safer

 and he’ll say, so what do you want me to do?

and i’ll say, i’m asking you to be brave

Dear trans women: The only way to live as a being cast as irrevocably monstrous is to embrace a monster's power.  The power to inspire awe, horror, unbidden desire.  A monster is a creature made of the truth no one else dares to speak.  A monster is a being beyond fear.

Dear trans women: When they come bearing torches, remember that you are a being born of flame.  And every moment you love yourself is a moment they can never take from you.

Dear trans women: We are the original witches.  The reincarnations of the ones they burned.  Lesser outcasts will turn against you to save themselves; forgive them for they know not what they do.  Never forget that a lineage of monstresses stands behind you, and stand proud.

now isn’t that always the way?

there’s a long line of us girls

canaries glowing like fire amidst

the coal

how do they choose?

that’s what i’d like to know

did iphigenia give off

some sign, a telltale scent

was the girl they call riding hood

born under a red star

that whispered

feed this one to the wolves?

they call us prophets sometimes

after the end, you know

and it’s true

there’s a hint of destiny to it all:

think of dear joan, sword

of the righteous

of poor lilith, barren

and wandering

the barrens alone to make way

for Eve

what do girls like us know of war?

there’s women Eve and then

there’s girls like me

marked for the mouths

of monsters and their mothers

what is it about the woods?

that wants this flesh, i wonder

what makes me a Devil’s Girl?  

could it be that i’m special

or maybe just that

they know i won’t be missed?

they want me to be strong

everyone loves a strong girl

it take a strong girl

to blaze a trail they said

and put a torch in my hand before

pushing me onto the forest path

and what if i’m weak?

i’m not sure it matters since

the outcome will be the same regardless

i wonder how far i’ll get

before he finds me

i wonder what i taste like

i wonder if being swallowed

“I want to kill myself” – Vivek Shraya

i love how much you love my life, how devoted

you are to preserving the flow

of breath through my lungs, the heartbeat

in its cage of bones.  it’s not my happiness

or even my health that you love

so much as my life itself, that one thing

you must preserve above all else

 my life so precious that you are legally obligated

to call the police, consign me

to an institution against my will

should it ever become

apparent that i might not love

my life as much as you

 let me tell you, i have also loved my life

i have breathed that air, squeezed

those heartbeats till the blood ran hot

and sizzling through me

i have held on and on

a mortal woman grasping tight

to the shapeshifting form of her fairy lover

 i have loved my life and it is killing me

 my life is killing me. if only we were allowed

to talk about this honestly, then i think

you’d understand.  this body that men

are not allowed to love

that women are taught to fear, a world

that was built to swallow a girl like me whole

 i had sisters, you know

they fell into that hole in world

and disappeared.  one of them said

i have a right to live

in our final conversation.

the right to live? or to a life we can survive?

no one talks about my sisters anymore

this is another thing we are not allowed

to discuss

 my queer poet friend wrote book called

My Art Is Killing Me

i think it’s significant that this poem

is the first i have written in months

 i made the art, i fought the fight

did the yoga and meditation

went to the protests, had the sex

told my story, sang my songs

i healed people, or tried

their lives were killing them too

 and i watched the people i loved

try to kill each other

i watched the people i tried to heal

slip through my fingers

into the hole in the world

i watched my sisters go mad

and disappear

 don’t ask me to be resilient, don’t ask me

to look for hope in the gloom

to reframe my thoughts

from a strength-based perspective

there’s always hope, i know this

i am strong, i know this

that really isn’t the point

 the point is that i loved my life too

and it’s killing me

and what i’d really like

is for you to hold me and listen

really listen

without fear

without judgement

without shame

without questions

without resistance

without advice

without wise words

without a positive spin

without affirmations

without strategy

without anti-oppressive politics

without a trauma-informed lens

without mental health first aid

without a government waiver

without an agenda

without saving

without god

just listen 

as i tell you

i am dying

i am dying

i keep poison in a pendant

that i wear around my neck

dying isn’t something 

that i want to do today

but i will never let them

may you find

we are the daughters 

of the witches

that they could and did burn

we are the daughters of the witches

that they are still burning

& you know

in my dreams, a woman

keeps whispering: 

keep going

maybe in the next lifetime

to Jesus Christ, fear not

of walking away