I Feel A Kinship With Birds And Spiders One Eats The Other The Smaller One Is Feared The Larger One Is

The snow fell on the earth Drew its blanket over the ground It brought with it the cold bite And I felt it all around

Winter sang its song of sleep As it darkened the skies But who sings for those animals Who never reopen their eyes?

Frost colored my hands Despite the fire in my heart I mourned in my blues and blacks Watching the life depart

Don't sit with me today It's not a day For togetherness

It is a day for uncertainty For distance For dissonance

All lights are fireworks Since we made permanent July. Whether sunshine Or warm showers My rain, my sky, It's a permanent July.

In these darker days Bloom yellow roses I've grown for you In secret gardens. Still I can't explain just why Each new month is still July.

Your earth is warm, It melts my snow, My rocks and stones Make roads for you. Sit with me, watch all pass by, In our private, permanent July.

What are your dreams? They say What do you mean? I say

Don't you have goals? They ask Nope I laugh

How can you not? They say I guess I'm a sloth I play

You must have a job They say Certainly not I say

Contribute to society! They exclaim I have anxiety I explain

So what do you do? They question I write and I muse I tell them

But what about money? They implore I have enough to be free I retort

What makes you this way? They ask why I'm content all my days I reply

Such wasted life They dismay My world is bright I say

I am sitting at the window The sun is out but it's chilly It's a lazy golden afternoon The neighbor's chickens Have escaped their coop again They're wandering down the street Stopping at bird feeders And pecking at the ground

It occurs to me after minutes Of simply observing the Peculiar way they move their heads That I have no thoughts in my own That I am completely mesmerized By mindlessly fleeing fowl It is a good day for watching And doing nothing else at all

I meander in the forest Forget about the time Linger by fallen branches Stretch out under the pines Rest my head against the trunks And marvel at their vines

Is this a sacred place? Is this proof of the divine? It's where I come to let go What was never really mine Where I can be myself And not have to be defined

The sun sprinkles in a little I can almost see it shine It trickles through the leaves Spreading its golden lines And in the night the moon Keeps me from feeling blind

Maybe this is where our hearts go When they're following the signs When we return to the land Souls unbound and aligned This is where my love lives In all its shapes and kinds

Blackbirds Green t-shirts Cassette tapes Doodles

These ordinary items Were treasures

Road dots Sweatpants Red camera A ring

This was a tangible Happiness

I will be whatever you need to see in me today, My body a canvas open to interpretation. Here I am soft, delicate as silk; There I am sharp, rugged as stone. I am shifting, gliding, reshaping myself, I am swimming through the waters of my gender, Moving from room to room In this house I am calling my body.

But I am twisting in the hallway, Arms and legs spilling through every door; I am too much at once and so never quite enough. Tell me what you want, I will shape myself to fit. Make me compatible with your desire Until I forget the shape of myself entirely.

(In your rejection I’ve flooded our home, Drowning in the rooms where you once wanted me.)

A drop of vanilla escapes The glass vial; It lingers, it lingers, It lingers on the table Before it breaks.

It seeps slowly, then Suddenly into the grooves, Spreading vanilla into The pores of the wood.

Vanilla infuses with The table, into a tiny Stain, into a small Splotch of warmth And subtle hospitality.

Tell me why you ban the books Which tell stories of Two male penguins adopting a child, Books that show disabled kids And gender non conforming kids And black kids whose teachers Forget their names?

Tell me why you ban the books That challenge you Because they are written plainly About plain people Who are different from you?

Tell me why books are taken off shelves For being too explicitly queer When you force children to read Passages from the bible about Rape, genocide, slavery, and a hateful god? Why is your book not banned For depicting in detail such things?

What makes your book the exception? You censor children from truths And teach them a god will hate them Because they are different You teach children to hate themselves Because your book holds no space for them