#kappwrites

like air from my lungs.

now they pile inside me,

You recount tales like storybook rhymes and I catch my hangnail on my thumb and I am....not.

I am not who you know or have known because you do not see my truth. You see me as you made me but your lenses are shades of rose and I -- I am black and white.

Not the kind that fits into your strict requirements, black and white and swirls of gray. I am gay. I am queer. I am he and she and they.

They, because I am both he and she. Two sides of the same coin and I am the ridges in between.

am tired

in my bones

and in my soul

and in the darkest parts

& when i kiss your cheek

in the pale moonlight

i can taste the energy

ruins, haunted.

ghosts run up my spine,

make a windchime

of my ribcage.

do you remember?

heat stuck to the trees

around us, fireflies dashing by

and you and i stood our ground.

you were a wildfire, i oxygen to the flame.

you burned me away a little at a time.

they say if you toss in a lobster

then raise the temperature slowly

the earth quaked, explosions thundering

in my chest, every night playing in front

of my eyes. freedom tastes like gun-metal

and smoke, my eyes burn with tears and

fears grip my heart like a vise. i am a shadow

puppet, a no one in the centuries that lie

ahead, and yet -

i think of our first independence day.

the way i slid my hand into yours and

ran you along the closed-off streets

of a small town that didn't like our kind.

i kissed you under the rainbow exploding

above and you pulled away, tears in your eyes.

we weren't free, then.

and now in the backyard of a house in

our shared name i watch the dazzle overhead.

but with each explosion i'm reminded of

grenade launchers and pepper spray

and the same way you couldn't breathe then,

they can't breathe now.

and i can't help but hear sounds of war

instead of fireworks.

and i wonder if freedom is even a thing,

or if it's only a dream we're forever meant

you clung to me like a shadow

on the longest day,

i loved you as if you were an extension

of myself.

time inverted us.

now, we repel each other,

transported to opposite poles and i--

i don't even know who you are.

how your sweet face and open heart

has become a quiet chasm breaks me in two.

do you even love me?

how could you, when you're against me?

i wish i knew, but the faux smile on your face

is drawn in marker and there's a darkness

in your eyes i can't swallow and

i cannot risk it all