I never notice when somebody cuts their hair, I never remember to introduce people, I don’t know how to keep a conversation going when I’m tired and my hands are shaking, but I do always notice the way you shift your eyes away because you think the soil they are made out of is just dirt instead of the flower planter bottoms that glisten with nurturing and nourishment as they help the stars in your eyes continue to grow. I see your fear, pixelated and illuminated, but still so real, still so there - an inevitable demon I am too weak to fight for you - I may not be able to wear the armor of your knight, but I am a poet and a writer and I am hear to tell you that even though I am a burnt out catastrophe; the strength of your spirit causes me to crawl out of my own rubble and find a thousand different ways to tell you “you’re perfect, don’t change, stay close.” I don’t notice a lot of things, but I notice daily that I love you, and I hope that on the days when you’re sinking in a sea of people and you’re out of alcohol and you’re scared of yourself or the world - you know that the thought of you is sunshine when it feels darkest and your hair looks great.

Your mom and I still talk.

You're not allowed to tell me not to settle. After you, everything is settling.

I wished you could have danced with the me I was supposed to be. Maybe then I wouldn't have spent years stepping on your feet.

Love is telling them to go to sleep instead of telling them 'I need you.'

I count the inches between us with careful precision to make sure we never touch. I am afraid to know what would happen if our knees were to accidently knock so I make sure to drink slower than you and count the space between us because I am a carpenter today, and I had a long day at work. I spent my shift building a new person out of the wrecking ball rubble that is now splayed out everywhere because I chose to accept myself. In the morning I wrapped the feminine pieces of me in tattered sections of the old pattern skirts I bought to trick myself into thinking I wanted to be comforted by a man whose calloused hands could only pretend to have as many stories as my creaking knuckles and returned them to sender with a strongly worded letter because I am a carpenter and I know that the foundation they created was too unstable to support anything. The company that sent out the parts had told me that there was nothing faulty with their product, but I had told them that I am not an accident, I am a piece of art, and I deserve to be strong, so I am making sure they pay more attention to their next order. There are 5 point 3 inches between our shoulders. In the afternoon, I collected all the bars that once protected the windows to my soul and crafted them into a playpen for the child inside me. I painted them the colours of rainstorms and my eyes and the shades of lipstick you’ve worn. I think he’s going to like it a lot, and is going to be a lot less scared to know that having a comfort zone doesn't mean your body has to be a prison camp. Our hands our 12 inches apart. At night is when I performed the majority of the construction. I took my entire collection of strengths and patch-worked the pieces into something new. The ability to tie bow ties laid the foundation, tiled with button-up shirts, binders, and sports bras caulked with coffee and poetry and decorated with a mosaic of 4 AMs with friends who have spent the last year calling me handsome instead of beautiful, furnished with eyeliner, lipstick, glitter, and snakeskin boots. The way my pain has become my art and the dances my heart has done every time somebody has said they understand carved out the doorway and finally I was a finished product. Our feet are 2.3 inches apart and I adjust so they are 6.5. I am a carpenter and I was up all night building my body into a home and I am too tired to be able to judge if you’d be okay with me sharpening the dull curve of my jaw with needles and time into something so sharp and lethal people wouldn't dare to question me lest I press it up against theirs and ask them why it’s their problem anyway. I am a carpenter and my specialty is my body, not your heart so I make sure there are 14.6 inches between our feet, 13 inches between our hips, 6.5 inches between our chests, 18.2 inches between our lips and a lifetime between our could have beens so I don’t have to ask you if what’s comfortable for you will line up with what’s comfortable for me, because I have been under construction for too long to reconsider my rebuilding.

At 2AM on 07/31/14

At 2AM on 07/29/14