I've Missed You Did You Know? I Am Shy To Say So Exposed, Unguarded I Confess I've Been Longing

I search for meaning In places where there are Many conflicting meanings, Where there are too many words And all the words are in Different languages.

Still I try to define Emotions that are multiple Emotions, that are vast And endless, that expand And shrink, and exist In a world outside myself.

I traverse dreams That I create in my mind, Where people relate to me In ways they do not actually Relate to me, where we Are all who we need To be to each other, Where we are vague and I am Lost in the details.

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

I am always drawn to water It is not my sign But I am in love with Cancer Her fluid emotions And I feel her in the Unfurling of waves

I swim in her like A brush mixing paint Like cream poured in coffee Or ink dripped on a page I am flowing Completely immersed in her

She takes me to an island Under her planet moon Soaking in the night Fierce as Diana She will rise up and Snatch me down into the sea

If I can put my hand on a maple branch And feel its frozen bark If my fingers blanch At the remnants of snow Then it must be real, it must be so

But close your eyes, meet me in Rome I have been there Did you know? Or would you not agree? If I have never touched a cypress tree?

Do not cry for the girl Who never became a woman She is still here Inside me, I am her She was not Replaced by a man She still lives in my body And is so free and light Bathing contently in The sunshine of my mind

Cry for those men and women, All those in between, Who had the strength To live openly Physically, Wonderfully visible, Awake for the first time, Cry for those who's lives Were ended simply for Stepping out of their cages

I can't wish you happy birthday Because we are ghosts now Ghosts who do not linger On the same plane of existence

How abruptly we became memories While our lives were still Flourishing and so full How quickly the two of us vanished

I send you messages into the void Into the echo chamber of my heart Bouncing around in the dark I miss you, miss you, miss you

Sometimes I think I can see you Your face unchanged and wild But you are a wild dream That ripples away at my touch

Can you feel me reaching out Now that we live only in my mind? So many years since you disappeared The two of us remain only in me

My dear, are you here? I reach out to you again From the delicate Attachment of my thoughts And you are sensory An actively forming memory

Do we live just once? I can't take the chance Believing we'll live twice Though that hope is nice We can never touch tomorrow And I won't survive on vices

I feel far from you for the first time The first time the oceans have mattered The first time the world has felt large And vast, and endless, and where are you?

When you have been here in my heart And I am searching and scavenging Scouring and raving mad in my uncertainty Like you are around me but not here

Like we rowed in separate little boats Me by the shore, you off on the horizon You were always just out there by the sun But you have drifted into the light, away

I always felt you in my mind but it is quiet I tell you tales that you don't hear You have interests and friends I don't know For the first time you feel like a stranger

He is a kitten Licking my wounds His scratchy Little tongue Warm and wet Against my skin

Maybe for some It is too difficult Too strenuous To even think of Life filled with Softness or beauty

When forests Are always burning And the plague Is ramping up And societies are Divided and violent

Maybe some Will wonder how Anyone can find Hope these days When our earth Is crumbling down

But he rubs his Face against mine Licks my hair And I will not let Any cruelty Touch his world

Let's not tarnish the sky By throwing money at space races While children who wish upon stars Are starving to death in streets While workers are catching the plague Earning a wage that isn't living Just to pay for your contest

Let's not tarnish the sky Please don't tarnish the sky Leave the stars to those who need them Please just let the stars remain