i am tired of the process of coming out slowly to everyone i meet
it’s a painful process, one i’d liken to
the molting of a butterfly,
shedding the self to reveal the brightness of wings,
the truer self,
the fragile self.
because to exist means to be known,
and to be known truly means to
bare my most vulnerable parts to people i
barely know, barely trust,
and i choose, between truth and safety,
tightrope walk the wire of hatred or
acceptance or confused disdain every time i let someone in.
i’m tired.
some days i wish i could smear my colors,
purple and white and black and grey and
rainbow
all of it
across my cheeks like warpaint, let it drip from my eyelashes,
dare the world to un-know me,
unmake me, because here i am as i am and what, exactly, are you going to do about it?
(most days i just don’t have the strength.)
i want to disappear into the crowd,
into obscurity, bend my bones into a field of flowers and dissolve into
the earth where i will never again be perceived
or perhaps up, past wind, past cloud, past where breath still breathes,
where no human could tread,
and never look back and
never be looked upon again
i am all, i am nothing, i am bright and
inescapable and invisible and the sun
and the waves and the
gentle flutter of butterfly wings.