Knox Hurley Poems About Identity
The Three of Them
The moment i realized all my friends didn't want to be my friend
They wanted to be my lover
One, two, the three of them
Only my friend for the sake of seeking more from me
Unable to be satisfied with my presence they wanted a title
An object
Someone on their arm
Because the greatest prize to be won was me
A competition between the three of them
Who would get me first
Who would win and get to show me off like a trophy.
The moment I realized all my friends wanted me
Was when I had kissed all of them
Let all of them experience the touch of my lips
One was a joke
Two was a mistake
Three was real.
Realer than I had ever wanted it to be.
Like fire on my skin his touch was infuriating as much as it was loved
He had won me.
Why was I chosen as a trophy among the people I called my friends?
Where were you when i was in pain
When i was in the dark
At rock bottom
Ready to be unalive.
You were busy planning your next pickup line
Desperate to call me a lover.
A letter from my reflection
Who is that?
The boy looking at me from the other side of the glass
His eyes sunken
Weighed down with coal filled bags
Why is there no light coming from his eyes
His movement lifeless and routine
Like breathing
Like walking
Unlike eating
Not like smiling
I mimic his movements as he analize every inch of my skin
he stares at my abdomen twisting from side to side for a better angle
he stares at my chest, saying “what such boy would display breasts?”
Hes mocking me now with his judgemental gaze
He pokes and prods at his skin knowing i'll copy him
Stretching the meat of his thighs i follow his movements
Pinching the skin of his waist as if it will disappear
Flattening the bags on his chest to make it easier to look at my disgusting form
Who is this boy beyond the glass who hates me so?
What is it with his disdain of my body
It has done nothing to him
What is it? Who are you? Where did you come from?
The hatred he feels inside comes from..
He hopes that if he stares long enough that i'll disappear
But i cannot disappear if i am here to mimic him
I cannot leave when i am bound to this body
The form who wishes upon stars he doesnt wake up to look at me again
just stop looking at me
He starves me of any nutrients in hopes it will make me disappear
But cries when I tell him he's hurting me
He says he wants people to plant flowers on my grave
But knows he will cry as he watches them blossom
Knowing i was buried too soon
I tell him I am hurting
I tell him I am becoming smaller
He wanted smaller so why is he so upset?
He says he no longer wants me to be smaller.
If he is scared of me being smaller then why won't he allow me to be stronger?
I gaze at him through the mirror
I speak to him
“I know I have hurt you,
I have broken you down, reduced you to nothing.
But if you release me from your torture,
I promise to rise once more.”
How to write a love poem
How to write a love poem.
Fall in love.
Fall for the goodnight texts,
The good morning messages,
The idea of a future,
The trips planned,
The long gazes,
The soft touches of chapped lips,
The holding of hands.
Don't fall in love.
For the boy who called you his everything,
For the girl who called you the most beautiful person in the world,
For the person who told you that they couldn't live without you,
For the late night calls,
The hugs that feel to last a lifetime.
Fall for the idea of love.
Fall for the heroes in stories,
The characters who are so in love that-
They spend all their time together,
They fall asleep cradled together,
Talk endlessly when they are supposed to be sleeping,
Save each other against all odds,
The Morticia and Gomez Adams of couples.
To write a love poem the only idea of love you must have-
Is your own perception of it.
Seventh
Halloween dancing the smell of
Concession stand pretzels and popcorn fill my senses,
My halloween costume mad
As a hatter. The day we met was as
beautiful as it was tragic.
What was added to the conversation
That made us so attached?
The year of us,
The year I am unable to forget,
The germ my soap refuses to clean.
No matter the time passed
Fate ingrained it into my brain
Like it was meant to be with me
My whole life span. The reason unknown.
My mother hated you,
I had to change your name in my phone
So many times, your number became an instinct.
A memorization that I still have never forgotten. Even
Now reciting it is moving a muscle,
Is reading a page. How many times
Did I have to hide your existence?
Middle school means nothing.
When our story was supposed to end,
The first time,
It felt like all of a life had passed
before fate pushed up back
Again. And again. And again
We fell. Back into the same old
Beautiful tragedy.
Eighth grade means nothing.
It was Christmas time the second time.
The boy who he destroyed me,
Mentally, emotionally, physically,
Had melted away from my life. And once gone
Of course you return.
Meddling back into all the
Surfaces of my life. Again.
You always come during
Heartbreak, fixing the pieces
Back with chewed up gun and scotch
Tape, with your candy words
And empty promises I believed without so much
As a hesitation.
“Why do you never pay attention to the rumors?”
My reply is immediate, firm
“Because I see the good in you that no one else does.”
I would say this.
I would believe this.
Our time together was precious to me. Delicate
Like a small flower. I wanted it to never
End. Lasting from sun set into the late hours
of the early morning next day.
And I fell in love with you
once again,
Then you would fade away,
Waiting for the gum to dry up
And the scotch to lose it’s hold.
Our time meant…
You found me next in
a time where I was happy.
Did you predict the disaster
That was about to befall?
Everyday I think of you. A
Memory, an afterthought, a craving.
More and more as the days go
Forward and my heart gets sadder
And my mind more destructive.
Euphoria has yet to stick to the gum
In my cracks, and you have yet
To give me the slightest euphoria.
Is this the end of our tale?
I sit and I imagine
The writer putting down his pen,
Letting his story find its ending.
A story of two people. Two people
Whose cross roads have finally split.
Seventh grade meant
the world.
Eleventh grade meant
A close.
I look you in the eyes,
“What do you think my life
Would be, if I believed the rumors?”
The Boys In Photos
I compare my body to others regularly.
I compare it not to the skinny girls in ads but to the muscular people who have abs,
guys who have flat chests and no breasts,
people who can look completely androgynous.
People who do not need to worry about other looking at
them and only seeing a girl.
I compare myself to the boys
who do not cry at night from the lumps on their chests racking up
numbers on the scale,
to the girls who have flat stomachs,
to the androgynous people who look nothing
less than an ambiguous question mark,
to the nonbinary people who do not look in the
mirror and see a girl staring back at them.
I am unable to look at myself without seeing
the girl everyone views me as.
In order to combat this I punish my body
for something I am in no control of,
Walking feels like a chore and a workout.
My hair is so thin that it refuses to hold on any longer,
my period completely given up on me,
blood no longer rushes from my body. Maybe
this is the sign of a dead body.
I do not realize that I am weakening until it is hard to keep my eyes open,
I find myself starting to drift off during class
unable to stay awake
even though I had already slept for ten hours.
I need to rely on the effects of caffeine to get me through the day, shocking my system into
alertness, I can feel my heart palpitating
and it sickens me.
Everyday is set on schedule
nothing is every unplanned because when
the schedule gets messed up so too does my
masculinity.
No eating out its too many carbs,
no ordering food, its too high in sodium,
no sorry i can't eat that i will gain… a pound?
Two pounds?
Nothing.
I know I am further damaging my body
but how will I look at myself if I am not skinny.
I ask myself if I knew the answer to keeping myself
small without the need to punish the body I am in
Would I do it?
Or would I continue to starve,
to restrict,
to kill myself
for a body that I deem perfect?
For a body that I can finally love
because I can only love myself if
I look like the boys in photos.