Gravitational

You make me feel like burning houses,
bruised legs from barely-finished basketball games,
all the soccer-ball-concussions that made my teeth feel like they were filled with the opposite of Novocain—
you are a motherfucking explosion of those sparks at the end of a cigarette,
I can never avoid the end, fingertips grazing hot ashes
you used to tell me stories about how I’d wake up at the slightest sound
you’d crawl out of my room so quietly
now it feels like I have to crawl into your life too quietly.

I was not created to be silent-
I think that some days you forget that I have the right to be
splashed paint all over sweatpants, the sweat soaking my shirt after a good run,
microphones dropped and blaring, I am good and whole and constantly recreated,
there is no such thing as whispering
people are not secrets, we were not born to be hidden away like so many piles of dirty socks when your grandparents visit,
no, you do not understand the amount of force with which my identity holds me,
I am not the background noise that the audiologists struggle to delete from hearing aids,
hell, I am not the hearing aid, I am the electricity that powers them,
I am all of the thunderstorms that wake you up at night:

You do not understand the meaning of what it is like to be told to shrink
when there is already no space for you,
you do not understand what it is like to be meant to be the rain but trapped inside a barrel,
there is no such thing as fear of being hurt for you,
the police are your friends and not potential rapists,
and laws bend gravity for you to be able to walk among the stars.

I’ve been trying to tell you,
I belong up there too.

Please let me go with you.