I

I am no woman.

I am a mosaic that is all that is a man

A patchwork, a web of complexity

That baffles everyone except me.

For I know I am no woman.

I know I am no anomaly

But Icarus reincarnate

Destined to fly away until I melt into my sun,

That warm, burning rock…

A steady, melting thing that is their heart.

And I think about them.

No, not about them, the collective,

But them, that one person, that one deity

That shrines and statues could not capture

Could not honor.

But only I will feel that rapture

Of their presence

Though, I know I am no woman.

I

I burn,

In my seat in Spanish class

Fading fast, I let out some subtle scream

Screaming for them to see

The little piece of the world that is me.

Them.

They are beautiful.

Not in a way like society deems it to be

But in a way they will show to only me

To me alone they show their insecurity.

And it’s heartbreaking.

And they know, too, that they COULD love

Me, a little boy, shaking and aching

My soul an abandoned animal for the taking,

And yet, oh and yet, they don’t believe they can.

They know they are a man.

I

I am no woman.

They are a man.

Loving him and loving me

Hurt and heal us simultaneously

A nuclear bomb of passion that threatens

To detonate

With each passing glance.

He feels there is no chance that

he will survive.

Guilt and sin hot on his mind

Pressed their forcibly by some branding tool

By a god that claims to love all accept the loving fools.

Him

That God.

That God declares, “If a man lays in love with another man

he shalt be stoned.”

Then, let me be a rock.

And let them, the sun, beat down into me forever,

Breaking and burning me into crystal

For I will never let that missile,

The one that hurts and heals

Builds and breaks

Us every chance it can take,

Detonate, with its tick tick boom,

Assuring our doom through our helpless hearts.

I

I am no woman.

And them?

They are a man.

But if I try, I know we can

Hold each other in our innocent bliss.

For I shall not desist.

I will take that risk.

For Him

For Me

For Them

And everyone else simply to see

That I proclaim

That I declare

That I write, as I do now,

That I shall love however I know how.

And that I

I am not a woman.