“I said to the sun, ‘Tell me about the big bang.’ The sun said, ‘it hurts to become.”

“The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables.Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a dayI would be grounded, rooted.Said my head would not keep flying awayto where the darkness lives. The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight.Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do.I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling.You will find a good man soon.” The first psycho therapist told me to spendthree hours each day sitting in a dark closetwith my eyes closed and ears plugged.I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinkingabout how gay it was to be sitting in the closet. The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth.Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happinesswhen they care more about what they givethan what they get. The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.” The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help meforget what the trauma said. The trauma said, “Don’t write these poems.Nobody wants to hear you cryabout the grief inside your bones.” But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi jumpedfrom the George Washington Bridgeinto the Hudson River convincedhe was entirely alone.” My bones said, “Write the poems.”

“The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems.Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.”

“A doctor once told me I feel too much. I said, so does god. that’s why you can see the grand canyon from the moon.”

“I can guarantee a haircut will never tell you anything about someone's gender, who they love, or how they fuck.”

“Cause I don't wanna be a witness to this life,I want to be charged and convicted,ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yesbecause my heart is a parachute that has never opened in timeand I wanna fuck up that pattern,leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,'cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few secondsknows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go”

“Lately I've been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and how I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be. And when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.”