28.
This was the first poem I wrote in my 28th year as I began to reflect on life (or lyfe). The poem was written at two different moments. The bold sections were added several weeks after I wrote the initial piece and gained more information on this lyfe event.
28.
I fell out of a five story window
and I don’t know how.
I’ve written this
this sentence
Over
And Over
And Over
Again
And that sentence
Over
And Over
And Over
Again
Eighteen
I was eighteen
a twink emerging
(if you will)
Cut the blonde highlights off my shaggy mop
a mousy brown.
Hair I wouldn't want to be be buried in.
Late night
in November
in Chelsea
Twenty-eight now
Ten years
I was a child.
Sunglasses at night
I Shattered
My leg
My pelvis
My spine
My face
My sitz bones
My coccyx
My right lung
Put a filter in my artery.
Put a pin in my hip.
Like an elderly person.
Put me in a nursing home.
Like an elderly person.
My soul is new.
Nineteen in a nursing home.
Old souls tell old stories.
Papa
Aunt Jen
Oakie
Buzzy
Emma
New stories to a newbie.
Eighteen screws in my leg
Rough estimate.
Three plates
Now two
Two plates
Twelve screws
Rough estimate.
Roughed up.
Roughed up my mind.
Reassembled
with metal bits
I get to be vertical.
Post Traumatic
Amnesia
Post Traumatic
Disorder
Post Traumatic
Existence
Searching for an outlet
To plug in
To tap out
To get in
To get out
To figure out
A way out
To be heard
Sorting through
Ten years later
I fell out a five story window
and I don’t know how.
I fell
Out the window
I crawled
Out the window
I was thrown
Out the window
I accept
I accept I will never know
Every
day
I accept.
But.
I got a name.
I got a face.
Ten years later
and I see his face.
Social Media
got me his face.
Does he look like a guy
who would throw you at a five story window?
He doesn’t look like a guy
who throw someone out a five story window.
London.
6 hours ahead
6 hours behind
10 years behind.
What do I do?
What the fuck
do I do?
I fell
Out of the closet.
The homo
Gay
Cock sucker
Faggot
Closet
my closet.
My Pipi Longstalking
My boy or girl toy at McDonald’s
closet.
This is what happens
to gay boys
who try to find themselves
in Chelsea
The Police say
Don’t investigate
The Police say
The Mafia
The Police say
Manipulated a family’s grief.
and my family accepts
This is what happens to gay boys who try to find themselves in Chelsea.
And I accept
Because I already knew.
Because there is no legal case.
There is no legal evidence.
There is no textbook homophobia.
Documented homophobia.
And my parents
My parents.
My family choses to accept.
Because I was on
life support.
And my parents were trying to find
life support.
My worth is established
at eighteen
And gay
And I understand.
And now-
I crave
I yearn
To hollow
It pounds within
My chest
My throat
My groan
My soul
My being
My metal bits
My story
We all have a story
And this is mine
And I can’t seem to get it out.
I fell out of a five story window
And I can’t get out.
But.
I write this
and I feel better.
I write this
and I fell worse.
I’m writing my way out.
Literally.
The hardest thing to do in this world
is to live in it.
(I once heard)
So.
Lyve in it.
Because
You get to be
A
BASIC
GAY
MILLENNIAL
LIVING
YOUR
BEST
LYFE.
<3