with her own hands, builds me

a watch from the silver

that hasn’t yet grown in my hair.

Beside her I’ve learned

that the only real way

to waste time, to drag

the seconds to the curb,

to fill the landfill

with minutes,

is to let my body

be a time capsule

I forget to put my heart in.

* * *

Don’t forget to put your heart in.

Regret is a time machine to the past.

Worry is a time machine to the future.

Gratitude is a time machine to the present.

No one books my travel for me.

I decide where I want to go.

I decide if I will be a sculptor

carving out time the way that Michelangelo

carved the statue of David

after two other artists gave up

on that same block of marble, citing

its poor quality, its impossible brittleness.

All time is quality time.

Don’t abandon your chisel

believing it’s not.

* * *

No matter how it looks,

you and everyone you know

have hourglass figures.

Each breath, a falling

grain of sand.

To truly live is to see

right through the skin

to the avalanche.

If we never deny

the inevitable end

of the story,

we will write it

more beautiful

while we’re alive.

QUEER YOUTH ARE FIVE TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE BY SUICIDE

means:

You lived five times harder than you should have had to

to still have a body when you graduated high school.

means:

Hate worked five times harder

to make your spirit its wishbone.

means:

When your mother asked what was wrong,

you were five times more likely to believe you’d lose

her if you spoke the truth.

means:

You were told five times more often

you’d go to hell when you died.

means:

Burning for eternity seemed five times

more doable than another day in the school lunchroom.

means:

You were five times more inclined

to triple-padlock your diary.

means:

You were five times more likely

to stop writing your story down.

means:

I write my heart out now.

I graffiti billboards with the page of my diary

the bullies used to start the rumors.

I tie that page to the end of a kite string and run

a crooked line through the straightest mile

of the Bible Belt.

That page is a protest sign.

That page is a bandana washing

the tear gas out of my lover’s eyes.

Queer youth are five time more likely to die by suicide

means:

I sneak into fascist sleepovers

and sharpie my pronouns onto the faces

of senators who voted to criminalize my kisses

when I was nineteen.

I cut the hate out of my mail

and papier-mache Christmas ornaments

for queer couples whose parents

do not want to know their grandchildren.

I hack high school curriculums and delete

every test that does not ask what the P

in Marsha P. Johnson stands for.

I walk through graveyards with a chisel

correcting the names of trans kids

whose families said, No, when asked,