Don't pick a side, it whispers.

I'm a perfect mystery, a perfect fusion.

Wisps of amethyst intertwined with soft breaths of midnight blue.

Never quite one nor the other.

Indigo.

I stole that ring.

I wrote my name under that desk.

I peed myself. In front of everyone.

I looked up the answers for Kumon. I lied about it. I hid that booklet.

I masturbated. I used that brush.

I looked up that porn. Well, not that porn. But porn.

I broke it. His show-and-tell project. But I hit my head because of him. But I blamed myself for him leaving school.

I almost ran away, but I hid instead.

I hyperventilated for show.

I sprained my ankle and hid it from you, but I didn’t tell you it still hurt.

I thought beheading that littlest pet shop toy was fun.

You’ll find toothpicks in the stuffed giraffe.

I never wanted to be a veterinarian for those reasons.

I saw him. Watching the porn. On mute. In the living room. Knowing I was in the next room.

I can’t get it out of my mind when I talk to him now.

I saw that glimpse of your happy tree friends episode. Where he stabs his own feet and skis down that hill.

I threw away the condom in the trash can. I put it in the empty ice cream pint.

I was scared in that bathroom. Couldn’t get out. Wouldn’t lock the door for years.

I remember the pills you put up my ass, and how I didn’t like it.

I stole those plastic vegetables.

I didn’t steal from target. But I checked my pockets when you weren’t looking.

I couldn’t watch commercials for anti-depressants for years. They gave me PTSD. I was twelve.

You’ll find strap-ons in my storage boxes.

I left him. I went back to my seat at the theater. I felt bad.

I never did study AP Chemistry that day. At least I never gave him a blowjob in the bathroom. I should’ve.

I lied. About the sex. But why would I tell? You’ll never know those things about me.

I tied him up. It felt good. No hickeys you said. Too rough. He tied me up.

He was right. The little piggies didn’t build houses out of stone.

I lied to you, but I loved you. I did it because I loved you.

You called me thirty times, but I hid.

I always hide! You know I always hide.

But so much! There’s so much you don’t know!

So much I wish you didn’t.

Forgive me! Forgive me, I didn’t tell you.

Forgive me, I never could.

Forgive me, I never can.

#secrets #thoughts #fiction #poetry

Please help.

It’s been a while since I felt this way, but the feeling’s back now. I look around me, and it’s as if everything has gone gray, and all sound has gone monotone. No, it’s not like I’m underwater. It’s less suffocating, yet just as deafening. It’s like I’m trapped in some world and I want to escape, but I can’t figure out why I can’t escape, and I can’t call out for help, yet I’m crying, I’m sobbing, and all it would take to break this trance would be to take a step out the door, a text on my phone to a loved one, a cry for help, or really even just changing the tab on my computer. Anything. Instead, I’m fixated on my computer screen, listening to words, mindlessly, watching people go about their fictional, imaginary lives. Looking back at my life, but not seeing it. Looking at it, but feeling nothing, perceiving nothing, hearing white noise, hiding my teary eyes from my roommate, even though her focus is on her work and nothing else. God, I wish I could be like her. I wish I could just make myself. I wish I could just pull myself out of this. It sounds so easy. It is so easy! Change the tab, I tell myself. Start the homework. Get out of bed, I tell myself. Go down to the coffee shop. Let your mind take a break. A real break. Not a distraction, not a show, not another meaningless website, no, nothing like that. A change. That’s all I need, I just need a change, a shift of focus! Yes, I might just go back, I might just curl up again, put my headphones on, dissappear. But I might not. And like this, sitting here, doing just that, I’ve imprisoned myself. I know where the key is, but something within me just won’t let me grab it, won’t let me out. Something within me likes being trapped. Likes having no worries and yet having so much to worry about. Likes escaping the world by being imprisoned. Likes the isolation. Like the lack of thought. And there is so much lack of thought! I don’t even know what I’ve thought about today. Can’t name a single train of thought. Can’t see anything. It’s all so blurry, and yet I know it’s blurry because there really hasn’t been anything on my mind. My mind! So often bustling with thoughts and ideas, so often creating and solving and thinking and thinking and thinking. But not now. Not today. Sometimes I do leave this trance, but never fully. I simply peek at what’s around me and see it for what it is, what it really is. But I can’t do it! It’s painful. It’s torture really. I see a glimpse and all I want to do is hide away again, forget again. It makes me too sad. I see what I’m missing. I see how close I am. So I go farther and farther away. You could say I build a wall, sure, but it’s worse than that. I can’t build a wall. I wish I could. I wish I could! No, no, it’s like this wall, but it’s made of gelatin. I can see through it, break through it. Break through it so easily! Yet something doesn’t even let me touch it. I see that wall and I back away. Like I’m scared. And yes, I’m so scared. So scared. But really I’m most scared of myself. Of what’ll happen to me when I’m stuck here, alone, free to escape yet not willing, tricking myself into believing this prison is my escape. It’s clever really, how my mind plays tricks on me. I’m strong now, trying to accuse it, trying to break through, trying to write, trying to somehow cry out for help. But who’s listening? Maybe someone is, maybe someone is out there, maybe they’ll say something, maybe they’ll help. But what about me? I’m not listening! I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! Help me, I say. I don’t care, I say.

But please. Please I do care. Some part of me cares.

Help me. Please, help me.

#thoughts #sad #notfiction

The door slammed shut. I flinch now upon remembering it.

I keep thinking I can hear it, my head turning to the threshold of the room. I think I can feel the air being thrust across the room, an inexplicably strong force. I pretend it is this gust of air that leaves me breathless, that this air has left my eyes dry and in need of the tears which flood them. I try to ignore the dark circles on my blue shirt that grow larger the more I stare at them. And when I start to shiver from the cool fabric now plastered onto my skin I say it’s the weather; I say the cold air has seeped into the room from outside. I simply I pretend that it is not a summer day because I know no warm day should feel this cold.

The room is without light and I am alone, and as I look around I can see that the windows are all in the wrong places and the walls have turned from white to a color indiscernible under the velvet layers of dust. The doorway is too small and the room is without furniture save for the burgundy-red sofa striped with scratches that bleed a pale yellow foam. My bed upon which I had been sitting that day is gone. Instead, I sit on the floor, trying to avoid the dead insects which lie in piles in the every corner of the room. I find myself wishing I was one of them sometimes.

I feel confused, still in a state of shock, but I know where I am. I know that I am not back at my room at home, that I am hiding in the unfinished, forgotten basement of a friend’s house. She snuck me in just yesterday.

                                                                 …

I’m not sure where Robin went. I only hope that I haven’t put him in danger.

I loop back to the train of thought I’ve followed at least eleven times since I first arrived. Robin. He had always been the source of whatever happiness I had, but now when I remember kissing him his lips taste sour. He isn’t to blame, yet my mind has altered how I think of him. I hate myself for turning the precious memories into bittersweet ones. I hate myself for thinking about our time together as a thing of the past, but I can think nothing else when I am incapable of seeing a future. I hate myself for allowing me to love him after knowing I have only caused him pain, because I know how much he’s sacrificed for me. He tolerated the limitations of our situation but now I’ve simply run away.

The silence of the room has not been kind to me. I am in dire need of distraction. Without it, my thoughts morph into shadows that exist without a need for light. I feel them around me always. They observe me, whispering suggestions I would rather not hear. They tell me I can escape, that I can justly punish myself for how I’ve hurt Robin. I tell myself not to listen; they’re selfish thoughts, aren’t they? Robin wouldn’t want this, would he? I don’t know. I can’t differentiate my own truths from my lies; I’ve been forced into a reliance on deception for so long that I have succeeded in deceiving myself.

I find that I am able to hear a distant sound. I think it is wailing at first, as if a crowd of people is shamelessly expressing sadness, as if they are mourning the death of a loved one. But then I hear the rhythmic screech of metal wheels on metal. I let the hum of the train calm me. For the first time in hours, my heartbeat has loosened its fierce grip around my chest. My breath steadies.

                                                                …

Every day the same. Every time I only knew how to respond with silence.

Ages 9-13:

“You have a talent for art, and your father and I are proud of you, but have you considered trying anything a bit less girly?”

“We’re a bit worried about you, your mother and I. We’ve seen you come home with bruises on you face. Son, if people are bullying you, you need to fight back.”

Ages 13-15:

“Ooh honey you have to tell us all about your crushes! Why don’t you ever talk about them with us? Aren’t there some cute girls in your grade?”

“Would you look at that man on the TV! He’s making such a fool of himself. Oh honey he looks just like a girl and I think he’s even wearing makeup! Some of the men these days just need to learn that they’re embarrassing themselves. My God, at least walk like a man!”

Age 16:

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?? You need to explain this to me right now! You can’t look at magazines like this, you hear me? YOU ARE NOT A FAGGOT, and I’m going to make sure you are never like any of those fucking gays out there. They are SICK. You hear me? They are sick!”

Age 17… age 17. My age now. I learned to know better than to be open with my parents a long time ago. I’m distant with them because they have done nothing but shame an important part of who I am. Sometimes it was even the little comments such as the one about the man on TV that stung the most. But all of them hurt me.

There was a time when I was 15 that I had considered telling people I was gay. It scared the shit out of me to even think about saying it out loud, but it didn’t feel right having to hide any longer. I decided I would try to tell my older sister. Having grown up with me, I knew that she wouldn’t doubt me if I told her.

I came to her room one night after school when our parents were out. I remember taking in a breath of air as if I were about to dive deep into the ocean, as if my next opportunity to come up for air would feel eons away. My hand, shaking, formed a fist and knocked on the door three times. I had planned out my confession, and I wanted to keep it short –easier to say. Three words: “I like boys.” With my sister’s every approaching footstep I could feel my face draining of its color. I still hadn’t let out my breath when she opened the door. I think she said “what’s up” to greet me, treating the conversation as casually as any other. I began to bite my lip and shift my weight from one foot to the other. She noticed and placed a hand on my arm in an attempt to calm me. “It’s alright,” she said. “Just tell me what you need to say.”

“I..” I had started to say. She swallowed, and in the silence it was a sound so loud that I could pretend it was my own, the muscles in my throat tensing and choking my words. As the seconds passed, I saw her face change from one of worry to concern. Her eyes had shown me comfort the second before but now they looked at me with a hint of fear and something else. Recognition. I knew she understood what I wanted to say. Nearly a minute passed, or maybe it was mere seconds, but her eyes began to water and her lips trembled slightly as she let out static breaths. Why is she tearing up? This isn’t how the conversation is supposed to go, I thought.

Panicked, I replaced “like boys” with “think I’m depressed.”

I could see her relief. She stopped sniffling nearly immediately, and the edges of her mouth curved upwards. I had told my sister I was depressed and she was beaming. Her smile showed no pity for me. She ended the conversation with “It’ll get better, I promise,” as if saying those words would make up for her lack of sympathy and cure my pain. The one person who I thought would accept me was just relieved by the fact I have depression. Because apparently, anything is better than the shame of having a gay relative.

“I like boys.” Why do those three words still haunt me? Why does knowing I’m gay still not feel right? Why do I even doubt my sexuality when I know it’s true? It was what I was taught. That’s it. I was taught that my thoughts were sinful and perverted, that I was mentally ill. That I had to be masculine and “lacked the courage” to fight other guys when I actually just didn’t see the point of fighting. I was taught that what I felt was wrong.

                                                                 …

There’s a dim light reflecting off the patch of floor beneath the door. I’m not sure how long it’s been there since I fell asleep. I remain quiet, though the voices of human interaction and shuffling of simple movement is nonexistent. My body aches from the mercilessly hard floor, but I’m thankful for the thin blanket that’s protected me from its icy surface. I struggle to remember the last time I ate, but I don’t feel hungry. My friend should be bringing me breakfast soon, though. I can tell it’s early morning; a crimson shadow creeps over my skin.

I begin to wonder when I’ll get out of this basement. It’s not even been a day, but I know I shouldn’t be here much longer. It’s best to keep moving.

The light is still there. About half an hour has passed since I woke up, but I haven’t moved. My foot is frozen in place. My toes curl as an intense pain surges up the arch of my foot; it’s as if someone were trying to rip muscle from bone. I’ve been sitting in one position for too long, but it scares me to even try and move my hand and massage my foot cramp. What’s the worst that could happen if my friend’s parents were to find me here? A call to my own parents would be inevitable. They’ve no doubt let others know of my absence. If not that, then I’d have to explain myself to them, tell them why I was hiding, but no reason, not even the truth, sounds believable enough to me.

Cindy, the friend I keep mentioning, brought me a bowl of Lucky Charms a couple minutes ago. Though the sight of it has awakened my appetite, it’s still sitting in front of me, untouched. There’s a soft hiss as the fish-shaped pieces of whole wheat soak up the milk and begin to drown under their marshmallow companions. The marshmallows follow, leaving an artificial rainbow trail as they become more and more disfigured. It’s as if the milk is acid, working its way through the unfortunate, unlucky charms. The hissing, I realize, must be their screaming. I take it upon myself to end their torture and eat the cereal.

I hear two knocks. The house is empty now. Cindy told me she’d knock on the basement door twice before leaving, and her parents had already left. I guess it’s time to make my move, but I’m suddenly paralyzed. Am I sure I want to do this?

                                                                …

I whisper in his ear.

“I’m about to show you how much I love you,” I say.

My hand combs through his dark locks.

His left hand is pressed firmly up against my chest.

His right arm wraps around my waist and holds me close.

I grab a chocolate from the bowl by the windowsill.

“Hey,” he says, “Give me one.”

I pass it from my lips to his.

We laugh.

…

I gather my belongings –they’re few in number: about thirty dollars I managed to stuff into my pocket, the small pride flag I bought at a yard sale years ago and hid away in the back frame of a painting, and the sweatshirt Robin gave me as I left. To remember him, he said, as if I could ever forget. His smell still lingers in the folds of the sea-green fabric. It’s a mix of lavender and chamomile: his hand soap. I let the scent empower me, excite me, give me the strength to get up the stairs and out of the basement.

I stop by Cindy’s room and leave the money under her pillow; I won’t be needing it any longer. I slip on the sweatshirt despite the summer heat, open the back door, and hop outside.

…

I lay my head on his bare chest.

He leans his head down in an attempt to look at me.

I look up and am met with nothing but chin.

Unsatisfied, I roll over, my hands now on either side of his body, and push myself forward.

Our eyes meet.

We kiss, and I can still taste the chocolate.

I stroke his cheek with the back of my hand and let myself collapse onto him once more.

He takes my hand and lays it on his lips.

I smile.

…

There are puddles on the road. They’re unnatural, holographic –oil. Next to them I see the black burns left behind by rubber tires of cars that stopped too quickly. I follow these tracks. I know where I’m going, but they give me a more interesting route, zigzagging across and off of roads, leaving me wondering about the fates of the cars and people that created them. Could these marks have been their last words?

I hold the pride flag in my hand. Its colors are faded, plastic flag pole snapped in half, and the corner of it bitten through by what was probably a moth. I, however, do not care. It is the symbol that matters to me, not the material thing.

…

“That was nice,” he says, kissing down the side of my neck.

I can’t tell if my heart beats faster or slower now.

His kisses make their way down my chest.

I stroke his back.

I think I hear a thud outside the room.

My parents are out of town all day, so they couldn’t be home.

No, they couldn’t be home.

I brush it off, and guide Robin’s face back up to mine.

I kiss him, and the door opens.

…

I’ve made it to where I want to be. The grass near the tracks is overgrown and thick. I could hide in it and pretend the world around me doesn’t exist, pretend that nothing had ever happened. A thick coating of rust coats the rails the way sand sticks to wet skin. I kneel down and glide my hand across it gently; a copper-colored residue stains the tips of my fingers. The air isn’t thick today, and a breeze blows my overgrown curls into my face. I don’t mind. At least I have no reason to take off the sweatshirt. At a time like this, having Robin with me is my only consolation.

I don’t know when the next train will be here. I don’t have the schedule. It’s alright, though, since I’m in no rush. I’ve decided the best option is to leave my family and friends behind. It’s less painful this way. I know it’s selfish, but it’ll keep Robin out of trouble, I hope. About half a year ago I wrote a goodbye letter to my family in case something like this might happen. It’s tucked away in my desk somewhere. I’m sure they’ll find it.

…

My mother takes one step into the room before her eyes shift their gaze from the floor to me.

She gasps.

It’s breathless; soundless.

Her mouth opens, yet no air leaves her lungs.

For seconds, her body is petrified.

I expect her to come up to me, slap me, yell at me, but her form of punishment is far more potent.

Her head moves from left to right slowly.

She says, in a voice too calm, too soft, “I thought you’d know better.”

…

I hear a train in the distance. In my mind, I distort the sound of the wooden planks shaking under the train’s weight. It sounds like a human whisper now. I convince myself that it’s Robin’s voice. Don’t do it. He tells me. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

…

She doesn’t move any closer.

Maybe I disgust her too much and she simply wants to stay away.

According to her, after all, I have a disease.

“I thought you’d remember what I taught you, that you might listen to me,” she says.

Her voice remains steady.

“Reeve, what you’re choosing to do is sinful.”

“With your acts of homosexuality, you have disgraced our family.”

…

I can see the headlights now.

DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT. Where do the sentences end and where do they begin? I see only a swirl of words now. I can’t understand. What is Robin telling me to do? I’ve stopped hearing the word “don’t,” or he’s stopped saying it. But I can see the other two words clearly: Do it.

…

“Are you proud?” she asks.

Of disgracing you, mother?

Of disgracing myself?

Of being gay?

Of causing you pain?

Of causing everyone nothing but pain?

Of living with this curse that I can’t get rid of?

No, I’m not proud.

But she doesn’t expect me to answer, so I don’t.

…

No! I haven’t done anything wrong. Being gay isn’t wrong.

But that’s not it anymore.

Robin and I would have no future. I gave him the gift of love with the promise of heartbreak.

My parents would want to cure me. I’d be trapped, isolated from the “negative influences” of my friends, supervised mercilessly, sent to a psychologist for “mental issues.” My life would be misery.

I can’t let them do that to me.

…

I don’t speak.

She takes a step back.

…

The train will be here in seconds.

I jump.

…

The door slams shut.

…

Somewhere in my mind I can hear the door again.

Its sound is no different than the one my body makes as the train slams into me.

          I remember this morning all too clearly. Luke was swiveling around in his chair, jamming out to an Adam Lambert song too loud for his asymmetrically placed ears. I could hear every beat of the song even though I stood by the door, nearly ten feet away. His eyes were tightly shut and his mouth alternated between halfway open and not-quite-closed, whispering the lyrics. His eyebrows curved and forehead wrinkled as he conveyed the expression in the song, imagining himself onstage. I could see exactly what he saw, somewhere behind those amber-colored eyes: Adam Lambert with the tips of his hair a shade of silver-blue and intense gold eyeshadow covering his eyelids. Except this time I was looking out of his eyes, looking out into the audience. It was an audience that could feel nothing, that could be hurt by nothing, the lyrics and the passion of Adam’s singing engulfing them in a dream-state-like emotion. I know this was what Luke had hoped for. Being out there with a mic and singing his heart out, showing himself to other people without shame and without fear that they would turn around after taking one look at his disfigured face, a face he had been cursed with since birth. I know he had wished to be, at the very least, normal. But I also know he had wanted to be loved, admired, even revered. Someone that others would look at and think:

          He is beautiful. I wish I could be just like him.

          But my boy knew it could never be. And so I looked at him in silence, a tear rolling down from my right eye, an eye that could never be as beautiful as his. I walked out of the doorway before he could catch me and look at me with a dark peach blush of embarrassment. The last thing I ever wanted was to cause him more pain. I knew that alone, in a room without mirrors, with music obscuring the thoughts of darkness and depression, he could be happy. And so I left, my footsteps light yet growing heavier, my mouth with edges pointed up but eyes looking down. In my mind, he was the most beautiful being I had ever come across. But in his and in the minds of strangers who knew nothing but his appearance, he was a creature no better than a snake. Though he was venomless, others assumed the worst. Each look away, each whisper, each stare a drop of acid upon his skin. A sting, a burn, a scar, a mark. I shielded his eyes; I hugged him tight. Anything to protect him from the judgment of others. Had it been possible, I would have taken his pain as my own; it is a sacrifice any loving mother should be willing to make.

          We had tried everything, yet he constantly wished for more. For better. With surgery after surgery, doctors attempted to reconstruct what he had lost, each new surgery tackling the effects of another of my nights at the bar. They attempted to give him what I stole away; what he never had. His skin is a patchwork quilt, every couple inches a shade darker or lighter than the first, each piece visibly not his own. His eyebrows are nearly nonexistent and his ears curved down into little knobs, smushed into balls of dough as they formed. His face is a face of clay shaped by a child no older than four, features asymmetrical and unnatural, mouth too small and lips too thin. Only his eyes were untouched by the wave of deformity that swept across him as he drowned in amniotic fluid. They are perfect. Shaped like almonds yet big in size, lashes long and irises golden. His eyes are those of a god, but his body is that of an old beggar. They shine in Egyptian glory, the sun reflecting their hue. But people are blind to beauty; their eyes are only drawn to imperfection. And so the doctors reconstruct with their scalpels, tearing away at old flesh and adding new, piecing together a face that will never look normal. They tried to bring hope, but every new cut only brought disappointment. There is nothing more we can do, they said. So we walked away.

          The other night Luke asked me why he has to live. I said, “Because life is beautiful, and the good moments will always outweigh the bad.” I spoke quickly, blurted out words that seemed right before thinking. I thought my silence would only mean uncertainty. In truth, I didn’t know what to tell him. I would have stood there for hours, speechless, trying to form an answer that could apply to him. No answer could. His happiness was dependent on his love for himself, of which there was none. He responded by asking me, “But what if every moment is a bad moment? What if, even if something is good, there’s always something bad there, too?” I shushed him and told him to not worry about it, running from the reality of his words. My child asked me why he had to live because to him, every second of his existence was torture. He thought peace could only come to him with death. He spoke so bluntly; I know I should have been frightened, but he’s asked many times. He used to ask before every surgery, after every look into the mirror, at the end of every day. My child wanted to die, and I didn’t know how to stop him.

          Today I came home to him swimming as he once had as a fetus, tucked deep under fluid he breathed in place of air. Once it had been amniotic, a liquid surrounding him as he grew inside me. Now it was the water of a tub. Both were poison. Mine of alcohol that drenched every inch of his body and stole life from his cells. And today, a poison of death. He lay still at the bottom at the tub, rocks placed on his chest. He could have tossed them off, risen up for air, but death came as no struggle compared to life. Drowning in water was no challenge to him.

          He had already been drowning in the oxygen that kept him alive.

          Though the water took his life today, I had taken it long before. His face was lifeless, but his eyes gleamed more brightly, as if unearthed gold at the bottom of a river. They looked off into a distance unfathomable to the living. I like to think he had found happiness, that the color in his eyes grew brighter and the rare smile on his face came to be from the peace he had finally reached. I picked the rocks off his pale body one by one and lifted him in my arms, no tears coming from my eyes. Though I had protected him all these years, I knew this day would come, I only wish it had come with a warning. I thought I would be ready, but now I see that no mother can prepare for the death of her child.

          He didn’t leave a note; he needed no explanation. I took him outside our small house and laid him on the shriveled-up grass. I grabbed a shovel and proceeded to dig. I dug for hours, never tiring from the work. I didn’t take my eyes off of him. His wet skin was slowly drying in the sun, and it seemed almost as if color was returning to it. But it was only an illusion, cast upon me by the cruel promises of hope and the light of a sun that pretended it did not know darkness. The grave was dug, and I lowered his damp body into the ground. I did not close his eyes; they were all I had left of him. I looked down into the deep hole I had made, too deep for one small body of a teenage boy. So I crawled in with him and held him close to my chest. There, I pleaded to God to take me, to forgive me for what I had caused, to let me join my boy or at least have the death that I deserved. I stayed there until my body ached from hunger and throat burned from thirst, looking at Luke’s unchanging eyes as mine filled with seemingly never-ending tears. I stayed there until my eyes could cry no more.

          Finally, God showed me mercy.

As death came I whispered, “Forgive me, world, for the misery I have caused. Forgive me, Luke.”

I'm scared. 

I have mere minutes of sanity left. My hands turn more bloodless by the second.

I thought tales of zombies were no more than stories, myths as obscured by retellings and legends as the unicorn. But these creatures are no myth. They are such as the narwhal, thought to be unimaginable, denied out of existence, yet real. 

I was so sure they were pure figments of human imagination. How could the dead become un-dead? How could humans logically believe such a thing? How could they infect the living?

But I'll admit it now, I was wrong. I suppose experience is the only thing that could have convinced me as such, and now I have that experience. 

I have seen them before my eyes. Well, one of them anyway. 

I guess I must have been bitten in my sleep.

Because the zombie I saw

was the zombie in the mirror. 

Innocent they call me

But what is that but a name?

A name developed through looks and those factors which I cannot control

A name that has been placed upon me without knowledge of me or my intentions

And so can such a name be true?

But it is not, that I know

For only those at home, those that know nothing of me have labelled me as such

For away from home I am far more expressive of myself

I am blunt and honest

I am myself and my intentions are clear

And those things that catch my attention, I am not afraid to say do so

Whether it be objects or people that interest me

And when my darkest thoughts

My thoughts no one should ever know

Are told

Then it becomes clear that I am far from that word which I have hated

For innocence is what I am not, and only what I look

A look I have tried to change but nevertheless my attempts are failures

And I am called cute once again

For then it becomes clear that I am only inexperienced

Longing for the pleasures I do not have

Longing to be experienced, if by doing so my innocence is clearly undone

And so do I now speak truly of my intentions?

Will anyone else know what I seek?

No it cannot be known, that I know

For my thoughts are far more than what anyone should know of me

And so I'll stick to labels and false names

Until the day comes when people realize they are so mistaken

And when my true self comes to light

Well then, there will be no more innocence suspected

And do I fear others knowing at last what I have inside my mind?

Yes I'll admit I do

For I am ever fearful of judgement

But I'll accept it

For at least I'll be called the wretched word no more.

I cannot see his face

And yet I am drawn to him

His voice smooth

Calm

Though his speech is interrupted by um's and like's and yeah's

I don't care

For his voice draws me to him

And what does he speak of with such a magical voice?

Why, Arctic monkeys he says

And what of me?

I love that group

And suddenly attraction sweeps me

But I have not yet seen his face

Do I dare look back?

...

I look back

He's drop-dead gorgeous

And also definitely gay