My art professor sees my final project

laughs and says he’ll leave that for a mental health professional to explain

my name is corrected to “Frankie” on the attendance sheet

he says he will also leave that for a professional to explain, he really said that

Once, I went to a poetry show with my parents

and the feature did a 20 minute set on being genderqueer

the next day at lunch my parents remark on how talented

the woman reading poetry last night was

Girl on the bus turns to me and says

“If you’re dating a guy doesn’t that mean you’re straight?”

& I launch into a metaphor about pull out couches

and how they are still pull out couches whether they are in couch or bed form

(I got that from tumblr)

Take 2: girl on the bus says I must be straight

and I disappear from my seat

vanish into thin air

I follow her home and

throw away all her milk

so that when she wants cereal she realizes sometimes it’s nice to have two ingredients

if I can’t have options then neither can she

I sneak into my art professor’s apartment

and exchange all his shoes for half a size down

now he can know what it’s like to have a something not fit

something nag at the back of your mind

a dull pain that eats at you until you go back to the store

but the store will not take them back bc I have carved my name

(my real name) (by my standards) Frankie

into every sole

I break into my parents home

& my dad comes downstairs with a baseball bat (which is not that different

from the way it often feels in this house)

& does not see me (which is also not unusual)

but today it’s because I am actually invisible

I leave articles on my parents nightstand

titled “queers in your home? it’s more likely than you think”

titled “Santa no longer a man: the real gay agenda”

titled “your daughter actually identifies as a grapefruit and what the fuck are you gonna do about it?”

I go home and throw pages of my poetry into the recycling bin (pages they did not listen to)

maybe it will turn into something solid now

I delete the text messages where I begged them to try & they pretended to understand & now it is like I was never there

I jump into the compost

become a banana peel

yellow is my favorite color but my mother always said it washed me out

I look in the mirror

pale

washed out

down the drain

gone