Communicate.

“Image”

Prompt: Write a poem about shoes that makes the reader think of death. Do not mention death in the poem.

My first draft:

You were his favorite pair;
He wiped the dirt and the scuffs,
Always tied your white laces just right,
Put you back in your box
every night before bed.
He traced his finger
along your thin, black line;
Never took Sharpie to
the white rubber on either side,
But he didn’t mind
when that rubber cracked,
Said your frayed edges
Just gave your more character.
You were his favorite pair.
He wore you everyday, everywhere, every weather.
The mud from camping trips
and gouges from bicycle falls
caked on.
He stretched your thin, black rubber
like a Christmas ribbon
on a greying whit package.
Se set you under the coat rack,
placed your box
of important paper and family photographs
on the ground beneath his pillow.
You were his favorite pair.
He sunk himself
into cement soles,
Gingerly wrapped your laces around each other,
Traced his finger
along your tearing seams.
You were his favorite pair.
He put you back
in your box
on he ground
beneath his pillow. 

You can’t pretend that
the sky never noticed you.
Your laugh on the wind

sends me daydreaming,
Your warmth on the horizon
maintains me breathless.

No room for second-
guessing, You’re igniting the
world on fire. Flames

engulf me, Wanting
more of you for me to hold
onto. Flames rising

higher, I feel you.
I’ve just never been so close.
Your scream in my bones

has me shaking skin.
Your icey apologies:
feel more like fire.

I feel your fire.
Never scared of being burnt,
But you’ve forgotten,

And there’s nothing worse
than using your own singed hands
to rise up again,

Nothing worse than a
smile - lie - drawn straight across
the face that burned you.

Have you forgotten?
The way I placed your laughter
to sing on the wind?

You never wanted
it too close. Did you forget?
Stayed quiet, holding

your last little bit
Of flame - of want - within me.
Can’t let you burn out,

So you engulfed me.
And I’m staying quiet still,
Hearing for fire.

And I’ll pretend that
the sky doesn’t notice you,
Doesn’t hear your cries

or feel your pulling.
I will act like your calls are
just coincidence,

Not your firing
committee staying closer
now that I’ve been burnt.

I felt your fire.
It never really burns out,
See smoke billowing

a mile away.
I always feel you close now,
feel you pulling me

closer. Always knew
that my solitary choice
was to feel burning.

Maybe you would have
burned out if I didn’t hold
your flame within me.

But you pretend like
I’m still burning, don’t notice
smiles - truths - I draw

straight across my face,
Look for lies to match the ones
you’re telling yourself.

I move further now,
Pulling back from your fire,
Holding my own close.

I can’t pretend that
the sky doesn’t notice me
when it let me burn.

Hot, but never out,
Engulfed, But not exhausted.
The sky noticed me.

Chick-Fil-A

Honestly? There are way more important things to fighting about than food.
No, actually, scratch that, go ahead and fight about food - about getting people fed, about ending hunger across the globe. Fight about THAT. Fight about healthy food and feeding people the things that make their bodies healthy. Fight about that.

But there are way more important things for the LGBTQ* community to be focused on.
Like the governmental system that allows corporations to give all kinds of money to anti-gay campaigns.

Rough Draft of a on-paper only (non-performance) poem I wrote in a less-than-sober state at 4am

I can’t get close enough to you
I want to feel every inch of your being,
Trace the lines of your mind
Up and down your spine
Feel your smile in the skin of your legs.
I want to wrap your soul
Around me
For safe-keeping-
Both yours and mine.
I want the contours
Of you
Held close in every inch of me.
I want to feel you.
I want to feel you.
I want to feel you.
I want my heart
To flow into yours
As seamlessly
As a river flows into the sea.
I need your warmth
To keep me cool in the summer
And your laughter
To dissipate my fears.
I want to let go
Of everything
That makes me doubt
Because I don’t doubt you.
I never doubt you.
I want to feel you.
I want the shivers of sorrow
To vanish
Into pulses of passion.
I want to pull at you
and tug at you
and shout to the heavens,
so all souls will know
and cherish
how deeply I feel for you.
I want to write your name in the sand,
so that the ocean
may hold it
in the whispers of seagulls
and crash it into beaches,
translating it out
for the hundreds
of billions
of people
that will walk across all the sands of the Earth -
giving them hope
in the fact that
beauty
can stand so solidly,
live so vibrantly.
I want to feel you.
I want to learn
each follicle of hair,
recognize each sigh
and stutter
and scent,
letting you fill me.
I want you closer.
I need you closer.
So much closer.

Feedback?

Re: Androgynish: Thinking about gender and sex.

Response to post: http://androgynish.tumblr.com/post/27626399560/thinking-about-gender-and-sex

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, so I’m glad you opened the door for communication. Some background…

I’ve been out as gender-queer for almost two years (in October). It’s been a process. My gender identity and expression - as well as my sexual orientation, romantic orientation, and sexuality - are extremely fluid. So, sometimes it’s hard to know how I feel or what’s going on. I’ve definitely had my fair share of doubt and wondering if “it really was just a phase” (which is always way scarier than discovering new identities within myself) and going back around and realizing, no, not even, definitely still super queer.

As of now, I identify as a Fluid Poly-romantic Pansexual Gender-Queer FAAB. (If anyone who reads this needs clarification as to what some, any, or all of those mean, feel free to ask. I’ll be happy to explain.)

I started dating my current partner almost 3 months (on the 27th) ago - we’ve been sleeping together the majority of that time. She is a lesbian-identified, cisgender FAAB. I had two partners previous to my current, but all-in-all, my current partner is my first real sexual partner. (My previous experience was limited for a lot of different reasons.) For the most part, I’m the dom in the relationship. (I’ve considered myself vers for a while, but this situation works out well.)
Furthermore, sex has always been an interesting thing for me. I was raised in an environment where it was fine to talk about and have always been totally cool talking about it in a third party sense. But when it comes to me and my sex life? Oh noooo. Nope, not happening. Not so chill to talk about it after the fact, but even less okay to talk about with my partners, and especially in the moment or regarding my preferences sexually. I’m completely open to hear what my partner has to say and to respond and all of that, but I just can’t generally bring myself to talk about what it’s like for me. Sooooo, this is going to be interesting. Maybe typing will be all right.

Lately, the main struggle I have is that… well… sex would just be so much fucking better and cooler and awesome if I had a penis. Like, it isn’t penis envy in the basic sense. I don’t care about it most of the time, but during sex, all I want in an attached penis. And my partner tells me how great it would be, too. And it makes sex hard, especially afterwards. In the moment, I can mostly just forget about and be in what I’m doing because, you know, it’s sex and it’s awesome. But after the fact, or thinking about it now, or whatever, I get upset. I get dysphoric. I get uncomfortable. It’s even made masturbation hard. The thing about all of this is that it’s a pretty new form of dysphoria for me because it really never came up in the past. But it’s relatively prevalent now. And it kind of totally sucks.
Sometimes fantasy is whatever doesn’t do anything and sometimes it does everything. I’ve always had trouble with that internal voice you talked about telling me “no, you don’t have that”, “no, that would even work”, “no, you don’t even have three hands”. Last night was a an everything kind of night and I just went ahead and ignored that voice as much as possible. And, I gotta tell you, it was fucking awesome.
But now, in retrospect, thinking about it literally makes me want to cry. Because I CAN’T experience that with my partner, who I love and adore and enjoy in that way and in many others. I can’t share that with her, even though it would be so fucking perfect for both of us. And it hurts to think about. The scary and maybe best part really does come from exposing that vulnerability to another person and having it be accepted, having it be understood, having it be OKAY. And I can’t genuinely and honestly do that. And it fucking blows.

All-in-all, I think we’re in similar-ish boats. I don’t have any knowledge in how to handle the problems that come with all of this or how to reconcile them or how to work with them or any of that. But know that I totally hear where you’re coming from and I get it. And have experienced it, at least to a bit of an extent.

Okay, so we’ll see how having this blog goes…

My plan is to use this blog almost exclusively for writing purposes

• poetry
• other creative writing
• responses to people
• rants
• thoughts
• conversations I’ve heard
• mostly ways to chat with others
• maybe even sign language videos

Communication is the end goal.