the invisible boy

i. when the witching hour comes

i take refuge in the window: begging to see myself -

+ dreading the dawn.

i've always hated mirrors; twisted, contorting

the reflection of a boy who's never been seen.

i find catharsis in hiding out and dressing down

forgetting that i'm expected to be

ladylike and meek.

ii. it feels selfish

to announce myself this way

as though your perceptions of me

will change when i do.

i am a shell of a man - sleepless in city streets

+ petrified of returning home.

iii. when everyone else has gone to bed

i lay awake to reminisce the ghosts of lifetimes past.

it's lonesome to ponder what i could have been:

a boy who acts as the others,

playful + careless + raised

in a place to wonder -

rather, i am coming to terms with myself

+ terrified you will no longer love me

once you know my worth.

iv. in daylight

i march with others like me -

outgrowing the families that shamed them

paving a place in the world.

we are seen + welcomed with a

sense of pseudo-camaraderie -

but i have spent years fighting for the right

to be myself,

and you cannot be an ally just by saying it's so.

v. when the sun goes down on june

it takes your welcome mats.

life as an invisible boy is lonesome + painful

abandoned by lovers + friends

+ never seen outside of my own head.

i have found myself wandering

to safety from a storm

+ welcomed by specters + sphinxes

vi. when the sun goes down on me

you march loudly through the street

+ i'm the invisible boy you leave in your dust.