Touch Me Fall

You don't know what to do with days like this,
when you haven't left your house
and then it's dark outside again.
When you speak barely a string of sentences
to another person for hours,
and you stay inside.

Some days there is solace in the being alone;
today is not one of those days.
Running the same playlist on repeat helps,
or at least that's what you tell yourself.
You don't know what you're feeling or why,
and you're afraid to consider it too much.

You don't mean to cry but you do,
and you can't separate the tears of sorrow
from those of anger, and you realize
that you are so much more than that:
gratitude, pain, confusion, healing,
love, rage, fear, fury, uncertainty

all find their place within your cracks.

It may not be as bad as you think,
but that doesn't stop you from crying over it.

They Won't Have Me

I remember back then.

A phone in pieces on the floor,

silently begging to be acknowledged

but I stubbornly ignore its painful presence.

It's harder than I want it to be. It seems simple at first,

but simple things turn out to be less simple than we thought

Sometimes when I move the wrong way, pain shoots up my spine.

I've had plenty of that pain in my past, but it didn't hurt as much as this;

now the pain is more than I can bear alone, but luckily I don't have to be alone.

When my world fell his chest was the only solid thing to hold onto,

and it was enough for me. Not in spite of it, but because of it.

I walk down halls that smell like elementary school

and I am transported back to days years ago

When college was a probable possibility

and I didn't know what a crush was.

When gay still just meant happy,
and fathers were always right.