#write after

Pebble is a child of wonder

Stopping to watch inchworms cross sidewalks

Wishing on birthday candles

Working hard to earn sticker stars

Beacon is a woman of hope

Signalling to ships that have lost their way

Catching the sunlight on her face 

Keeping it clutched tight in her palms

Earnest is a young man of great intensity

Telling the truth rather than saving face

Investing himself in trivial matters

Experiencing every emotion harder than he thought possible

October is a creature of Autumn

Eating pumpkin pie and candy corn

Crunching fallen leaves beneath its feet

Collecting acorns and pine cones

Nobody is a person of absence

Melting into meadows; becoming the flowers

Letting the water hold them, move their body with its ripples

Being the atoms that are briefly person-shaped instead of the person

Patrocles is a lover of tragedy

Staying beside, until he cannot stomach it any longer

Dying first, dressed in his best friend's armor

Dooming the one he loves through his love

Eurydice is a ghost of forgiveness

Leaving her husband behind

Crossing the meadow; crossing the river

Smiling at him when he loses her for good

Larceny is a teen of the punk variety

Rebelling for any good reason

Dyeing to seem cool

Hanging out with vermin: rats, raccoons and possums

Ronan is a [razor/raiser] of dreams

Racing through the streets

Cutting like broken glass

Holding his dreams gently in his hands

Dante is a teacher of his best friend

Showing him how to swim

Bringing out his bravery

Letting him love him at his own pace

Comet is a native of the water 

Mimicking the heavens with streaming fins

Living happiest in large, still ponds

Looking up at a ceiling of lily pads

Precipitation is a keeper of clouds

Feeling alive on overcast days

Holding out every year for a monsoon

Greeting the rain with arms outstretched

Grace is an astronaut of circumstance

Making first contact with his best friend

Saving the stars 

Trans people often hear:

"Archeologists will know

you're actually a [girl/boy]

when they dig up your bones"

There are many possible responses to this

Including but not limited to:

"I plan to be cremated

There will be no bones as evidence"

"I don't care what an archeologist thinks

In hundreds of years

I want you to know me now"

And "Archeologists actually care about

The full context of a burial

And I have no intention

Of being buried stealth

"They will see my name/s on my headstone

They will see the quote i chose

To represent my life

"They will know

i am part of a long history

of queer individuals

"And compared to the ugliness

Of sexing a body by the width of its pelvis

Isn't it beautiful to think

The meadow of our love

changes with the seasons.

Spring has come again.

The once distant sun returns,

beaming across your face,

and nurturing the buds.

The rains thaw from sleet

to warm April showers

that make the ground soft

and the air smell sweet

with new beginnings.

Maybe it was foolish

to spend winter camped

in a meadow with no fire,

but i think it was worth it

to see the first sunrise

I already wrote a poem 

about my dear friend:

the neutron star

that lives in my heart,

so I suppose it is time

to write about the supernova

When I saw Oppenheimer 

I connected with the depiction 

of the atom bomb

the blinding white

the silence ringing in my ears

it all felt familiar

"So you experienced domestic violence"

my therapist says, in our intake session

I clarify that I was never abused,

I never even witnessed it

I could just hear yelling in another room

and I did my best to tune it out

But there are moments 

still ringing in my memory

where the crowd disintegrates

and my home is consumed

by the fire of a dying star

leaving behind only

I find it difficult to note the passage of time.

I tell myself at 9 AM, with bacon in the oven,

I have 5 hours until my therapy appointment.

I don't remember until she texts me to delay.

Then it's 5:30 and I haven't eaten in 8 hours,

so I take out my leftover pho from my fridge,

the one where so many cucumbers have rot.

I reheat it for a minute and half and its cold,

so 2 more, the broth is warm, the meat is not.

Another 2, it's hot to touch but ready to eat.

I listen to 2 albums, meaning to write 2 poems

but I have 41 hours of music already overdue

So I put on that playlist, the one meant to track

the moons, the seasons, the years, what I like,

how time changes me, when music changes me,

it is mostly another thing that takes up my time

I wonder what it would be like to feel every minute,

to know when an hour has passed, to hold a week,

in your head, and know how long it is. to know how

long a task will take before you start. it's not meant

My mother tells the story of my birth

and how she had a vision

of all the women that came before her

and all the women that would come after me

with the two of us at its centermost point

me in her arms 

just barely no longer a part of her

The story now comes with qualifications

now that I don't want "my own" children

now that I take testosterone

it's only now that its gone that I miss it

it was presumptuous but 

it was also magical

I still don't want "my own" children

I still take testosterone

but I'm beginning to think

maybe that doesn't

not make me a woman

maybe several things can be true

"Expectations are evil"

I declared at fifteen

And I stand by that decree

But I was reflecting someone else's phrase

And what I meant wasn't what I said

I really meant to condemn wanting things

My therapist acknowledges

That the parts of myself that hurt me

Were the ones that helped me survive

So, thank you to the preteen who learned

She wouldn't get the things she wanted

And saved me from the grief of dwelling

You are relieved from your post

I am ready to want something

Though I am not sure yet what I want

It's a Pandora's box moment for me

Facing my secret stash of desires

Fit to burst

Perhaps my box too