man with a skirt

you won’t find me in photos
— if you do
they were taken against my wishes

neither will you find me on the good
— side of right
no matter how righteous my tone

though immature my words may be
— rest assured
they are masking hurt

responding in kind
— only leads to the skirt

around truth
— lifted like a veil
in expectation of kiss

then pulled down
— proof all is a flirt

thought
“of course your time is precious” he responded, leading me to reread what i’d written 100 times, wanting to understand what elicited that response and analyze my reaction to those words, which was anger. was it support, validation, coddling or something else i couldn’t see and why did it piss me off so much?

i know my time is precious but the sentence felt psychologically aimed and seemed to me a corporate game. it felt like he was saying, “you have a nose” and i needed to refrain from replying “no shit”, then i needed to take a break and rethink a few things, leading me to wonder why i have such trouble with using words as a backdrop to cover repulsive acts. i mean, i can make a stage look like the wizard of the oz but if i murder dorothy and decapitate toto with a hatchet knife, do apple trees in the background make the gruesome find more palatable?