It isn't that you don't like boys
It's that you only like boys you want to be
David, with his jaw carved out of the side of a cliff
Malcolm, who doesn't have secrets
Just stories he owes no one
Chris, the basketball hero with the tick
Blinks 15 times when he makes a shot
You spend hours blinking in the mirror
Pretending you're a star like him
Mary Laveen, calls you a dyke and
You don't have the language to tell her she's wrong and right
So you just show up to her house
Promising to paint your fingernails red
With what will gush from her busted face if she ever says it again
You're in the 7th grade
You don't even know you want a girlfriend
You still believe too much in the people who believe in Jesus
To even feel that desire through it's hell threat
You just want to kick your desk
On the way to the principal's office
Slouch in detention
Want to cut your hair and spit out
Whatever you don't want in your mouth
Your own name even
Skirting around the truth
You don't yet know
The boys are building their confidence on stolen land
But you do worry the girls
Might be occupied with things you will never understand
Won't ever ever be good at
You take one pretty step
And feel like you're pouring bubbles into your own bloodbath
You don't want a soft death
You want a hard life
That is your life
Your life in the locker room
That doesn't stop demanding you keep your eyes on the floor
Your life at the prom
While you run home in a snowstorm
Chucking your last pair of heels in a snowbank
Realizing you are the only boy
You ever wanted to tear your dress off for
Your life the first Christmas you spend alone
The years you learn to build your family out of scratch
Your life when someone drags you from a restroom by the collar of your coat
Your life everytime airport security screams
"Pink or blue, pink or blue"
Tryna figure out what machine setting to run you through
Choosing your life and how that made you into someone
Who now often finds it easy
To explain your gender by saying
You are happiest on the road
When you're not here or there but in between
That yellow line running down the center of it all like a goddamn sunbeam
Your name is not a song you will sing under your breath
Your pronouns haven't even been invented yet
You're gonna shave your head and drive through Texas
You're gonna kill your own God
So you can fall in love for the first time
They're gonna keep telling you
Your heartbeat is a pre-existing condition
They're gonna keep telling you
You are a crime of nature
And you're gonna look at all your options
And choose conviction
Choose to carve your own heart out of the side of a cliff
Choose to spend your whole life
Telling secrets you owe no one, to everyone
'Til there isn't anyone
Who can insult you by calling you what you are
You holy blinking star
You highway streak of light
Falling over and over
For your hard life, your perfect life
Your sweet and beautiful life