I wish I knew why I stay here,
knowing that I should've quit
a long time ago, should've
thrown that ***** towel in
and taken off for someplace else.

And yet, maybe I've drawn the line
here, maybe gotten sick of packing
up and moving on whenever the urge
takes me to be a nomad again.

In the same vein though,
God what a good feeling it is
to just pack up an take off into
the sunset or sunrise, depending,
either way it's the freedom of
starting over that I know I'm addicted to.

So many times I've needed to just
collect whomever I'm in love with
at the time and burn off into the
night with nothing but a hope to
act as navigator toward the future.

I find it quite ironic that certain things
have now become certain taboos here,
especially since trangenderism is a
fact of human experience that existed
many long years before our current
conception of gender roles and morality.

It simply astounds me at our capacity
for hatred and fear seemingly powered
by those who are so different in outlook
and attraction and orientation......
yet those outside of my own ******
preference are in fact those who've
visited the least judgement upon me?

I feel like an alien descended from some
other planet simply flabbergasted at the
unrelenting tide of supposed social norms
you people ****** upon each other full
of such self righteous indignation.

So many divisions and separations,
more than any sane person would be able
to keep track of honestly, and all the while
the real heart of the problem falls by the wayside.

Aren't we all looking for the kind of Love
that puts our nightmares to shame by looking
into our eyes the next morning and whispering
that it's not real, it's just a bad dream?

How are any of us mere humans different in that?
And more to the point, why are we so adept at
pointing fingers at our supposed differences,
how skilled at saying "Yes, it's their fault that my
own life is less than I want it to be, it's those ****/
******/blacks/hispanics/whites/asians/straights/
republicans/democrats/hippies/fascists/christians/
muslims/etc's fault?

Why are we so terrible at looking inward,
so unskilled at throwing that eye of judgement
upon ourselves when in fact, not one of us has
anyone to blame for the life we've chosen
save ourselves.

Some few things you should know about me
if ever I manage to capture your love.

To me, there is no such thing as casual ***
nor casual relationships, nor casual love.

It may not seem like that on the surface,
I may be able to act the part of what society
has told you to expect of a man...boy...thing.

But in truth I sit awake writing about everything
that touches me so deeply that it hurts.

Things that make me happy come with a price
called guilt, and that guilt drives me to abandon.

Stupid reasons and stupid logic born from
things done and almost done that I watched
so detached from myself that I couldn't believe it was real.

If you love me, don't ever tell me
don't do that to yourself.

Another soul gone elsewhere
life taken by their own hand
perhaps a kindness they showed
themselves at last to depart these
erstwhile longing shores.

I won't do his memory disservice
by attempting any sweeping ode
nor pretend that I knew him better
than some few others in my life.

But I will pray for him, though
prayer is not something I often do
nor believe in as a certain substitute
for actual action in the direction of suffering.

Had I known how deep the extant
of said suffering I would have done
more though that is indeed the paradox
that we as humans share: namely, we don't
know anything, really, about the people
we see every single day, unless we ask.

Never again will I not ask how someone is,
never will I turn a blind eye to that shuffling
gait or those hunched shoulders nor will
I ever forget that my own pain never has
been and never will be an excuse to not
be a reasonable human being.

Good-bye and Godspeed Andrew.
Put in a good word for me please
to whoever it is that runs wherever it
is that you have gone. And please know
that it wasn't indifference that kept
me from asking after you, merely ignorance.

Ain't it what it mean when a girl
tell you she like you an all she
really mean is she wan you to **** her?

Is that what I'm really scared of?

Am I writing garbage, still awake
at 5:23 in the ****** morning,
worried about what kind of a man I am?

Do I wake up and go to work,
with this secret fear that
all my beliefs and all my hopes
amount to jack ****** ****?

You bet your *** I do,
because I was taught and accepted
a long time ago that love
has jack **** to do with who you
are, and everything to do
with how well you ****.

What may be marked as times full of
hate and inequity, of racial scorn and
social injustice, of a seeming end to
the world of green and good things,
perhaps a falling away of what each of
us hold dear in our hearts.

I honestly don't think that this
division is what will determine who
we are as people, I don't think that
the color of our skin or our political
beliefs or standpoint on religion
is what really has any bearing in
the long run on what we choose.

We all want to be accepted yes?
We all want a safe place to raise
a family and we all want to be able to
be able to provide for them?

Whatever the composition of our family,
however it is that we find loved ones,
should it not be that we are able to do
so in peace, in acceptance?

I was taught that it isn't where we
come from or what we appear to be,
but rather, the quality of who we are
that determines who we are as people.

And maybe I'm wrong, maybe I do
live in a nation that was "born of genocide
and slavery", but even if that is the truth,
I believe in the idea of who we are.

I believe in a place that may not exist,
a place where all are welcome, peoples
of all backgrounds and all colors and
all faiths, a place where it doesn't matter
who your father was, but who you are.

How many?
How many dreams have died?
How many hopes have withered?
How many loves have faded?

How many futures have been shortened?
How many voices have been silenced?
How many friends have been lost?

How many shall have left us wanting?
How many shall have left us needing?
How many shall have left us empty?

Too many.