To Aliza Le

 

I remember, sister--

The boys who used to pick at my sexuality like daisies

I felt my heart shrivel alike decaying rose petals

Because I knew that I had nothing straight.

 

Their eyes were worn and hands rugged and

Mind filled with nothing but metal and the means to

Rip me apart limb by limb

Each word they spoke was a dissonant static that

Pierced the thick air like a blade raised

To slice down on my shaking body

Because I was different.

 

I remember asking dad how he felt

How he felt about gay people.

I remember the words so candid

Like crystal fragments of a shattered glass castle

Twinkling with a hope that would soon die

But all the same

Scathing and deadly

“Mental illness”

A plague, he had said

A sickness within a sickness.

I felt like nothing

Because I soon began to realize

The ones who rose me to be the poster child of a parent's dreams

Would never want me,

The true me.

 

Self-acceptance:

A projection in which we believe we are confident in our mind and matter

Confident. A bitter lie that we twist to secure the glass hearts settled within

To hide the insecurity and loneliness and gloom

I never loved myself but I pretended I did to be a confident role model for others

Who were hurting as deeply as a roaring, sorrowful sea

But they never knew that I was just as weak as the collarbones in my chest

That struggled to hold up my hanging head

And even if they didn’t know, I knew

All this time, how could I love someone else

If I didn’t love myself?

 

But you-- no, we

We came from the same tree

Slender, lithe branches intertwining to create poetry and music and art

Who believed in self-freedom and expression

You believed not only in those, though--

You believed in me…

 

I liked boys and you liked ice cream but in the end

Who gives a fuck?

I remember, I felt like nothing

But you made me feel like

I was everything

Everything I could ever be and hoped to be

I was sinking into the ocean of my sin

But you revived me.

 

There would soon be a day in which

Our paths would be rendered asunder

But I would no longer be afraid

Of the pain and misery I had to face

And the rhythmic thunder that accompanied it

Because I am my own sea

And I will swim however I please.

Because I live for you.