"Manic Depression (A Boy Can Dream)" by Lachie Kairo

So then, you take a toothpick, some tweezers

of course you don’t want to clean your teeth,

you just want to tear yourself apart.

Building this small little heart

made out of consolidated dust,

come on, now, you can do better

you can build yourself from scratch

from the blood that has built up in clots,

every place where you’ve been touched.

I was a boy who thought he could taste colors,

smell his dreams— vanilla and flowers.

I was a boy who put his blood in music—

playing his piano during the night.

I was a boy who crashed like a tornado—

bit the hand that fed him,

the hand bit him back.

Lachie Kairo is a poet in parenthesis. And a queer, middle eastern guy, just trying to make the best out of his life.