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Illustration by F Newsmagazine

To me,

It is this demand,

This want,

To be worshipped unspiritually

To be yearned for

And written about

In the way that I yearn for

And write about

To be thought of as beautiful

In the way that she’s beautiful.

To not be called a princess

But to be secretly thought of as one

To have to be worried

That I will only ever be seen

As a prize to be won.

The medieval romantic dysphoric past presence

Of the knight who wishes to be jousted for.

A soldier who wishes to be the picture

Under another infantries helmut.

To be the flower picked for a girl and to be the girl who receives the flower,

Not the girl who picks it.

To be the rose written of at the end of johnny Cash’s song.

“And give my love, give my love”

To me.

I write this from the bathtub,

Of which I do not quite fit inside

My left leg sticks out

To make room

For the rest of my body to confide

In

This plaster white casket of conformation

Makes me loath to be cleaned.

To me:

It is this discomfort with you

With my truest, rawest, abjection,

That I define our reality.

Although we want nothing more,

Than to be kissed,

A frog,

And made into something beautiful

That you could love

And be proud to love

And she could love

And be proud to love

But we are to be nothing more,

When we are kissed,

A frog.

And it is in this frustration.

This swamp, this hairy water,

This stew of ourself.

The vitriolic despair

Of the tight, white, casket.

Full of hot water

Which boils us alive,

That I am reminded I’m a part of something

; To me

It is this insatiable need to be seen as something that I am not

And never will be

And to be loved in such a contrite way

And to be witnessed under the light of a sun which does not burn for me,

On a planet which is not mine,

In a system which I’ll never see,

And to be lit up and basked under

Like an arrangement of light and shadows

From the cracks of sunrise onto a natural cavernous formation

Which sheds colors against a mountain side

And inspires awe and celebration

In a solstice like occurrence

Simply for it’s placement

and presence,

And it’s size,

and it’s inherent majesty,

And it’s being there,

Just

it’s being there,

That I know I am,

And connect most to,

The girl I want to be.