June 29, 2026

i’m feeling
a
type
of
way
and i don’t necessarily know
what type of way that is
but at least i know why

change
and staying the same

change is
show ending
kip starting a brand new job
[that, granted, is not in france
but still, a big change]
change is
going back to things
circus
friendships
that may have paused
while i was so damn busy
change is
fixing up the house into something i
might want to make [and perhaps film]
physical projects inside
[and make room to have it so that
kip feels at home in our home
as well/still]

and staying the same is
having a mess
as usual
and being too open for my own damn good
and not knowing how to interact in social
[and non-social] situations…
i wish there was an instruction manual for living
[but, let’s be honest, would i follow it?
or would i deem it too ‘societally normative’ and
literally and/or figuratively throw it out the window
or
or
would i want a societal manual just to decide
what is for me and what is not?
and that begs the question
even if i read
and intended
to follow, would i actually be able to
or would i still fall back into
what i know/feel best
which is how i act
and i just am who i am
and that’s all that i can be
and i needn’t be worrying myself so
about all of this?]

and the conclusion of this poem is that
change happens
and sameness happens
and there are no instructions for life because
we are all just who we are
and that is all we [probably] ever will be

and that is ok.

March 2, 2024

locking eyes
trans on trains
but it’s more than
‘i see you, you see me too’
it’s the
‘i might know you
from our silly rectangular social boxes’
and lo and behold,
check the algorithm —
there you are
and there i am, not so much sliding
but stumbling into your dms
saying, ‘let’s be friends’
[and blaming my spouse in the process]
and i’m too nervous about awkward connections
to check the reply
just yet

but i do know you have
replied

and i think that’s enough connection
for this socially anxious
ball of rainbows.

[but now the spouse wants to know…]

March 2, 2023

i stall
and wait
and put off
until it’s been too long
and it would be embarrassing
to point out how long it’s been since we’ve talked
and then i wait just a little bit longer
and maybe, by the time we do
end up talking, it will
simply be a nice
surprise

December 8, 2022

i don’t understand
how to be a person
interacting with other people.

i kind of understand
how to be a person
interacting with one other person,

and i kind of understand
how to be a me
interacting with only myself;

but multiple others???

i either am too loud
or too quiet
or too uncomfortable to do anything else—
so…what does that mean?

does that make me less of a person?
or more?
does it make me an introvert?
does it make me socially anxious?
or simply anxious all the time?
is my perception of myself based on how little others can perceive me?
or is it something else entirely?

or are these all questions
that only i can answer
for myself/
accurately
?