Borrowed/Blue, Expressed/Pressed
All of everyone talking about
Sex and gender like it’s something you
Say and do and not something
Perceived, borrowed, inherited,
Expressed, repressed, unique and generic
We all are just blue orbs of egos being
Pressed into societal norms and somehow
It’s our individual responsibility
To distinguish oneself amongst a crowd no matter how
Decidedly dangerous that might be.
Hormones don’t help me express myself they help me be
Perceived differently. I feel the exact same.
Top surgery didn’t help me express myself
A flat chest is not a statement of identity it is simply
A new network of scars, constricting and straining
It’s up to me to stretch the boundaries of how
My changes affect the way I am perceived it is
An unexpected burden, if you ask me, and
I often wonder what
Masculinity is
To the untrained eye, besides
Sexist confinements. I don’t fully understand what people mean
When they say things like
I identify as this, I identify as that–
My self identity is sadly meaningless, I suppose it is the
Driver, the direction, the course I hope to bank on however
Perception is ultimately the beach and
There is a lot of ocean in between, with many storms brewing.
I wonder what it means to identify as a man if you’re treated like a
Thing?
Lately I’ve become so blisteringly aware of my low self esteem I’ve been targeting
Anyone, everything and everyone around me, desperately trying to figure out
Who the culprit is, who is the biggest bully I need
To arrest. I’ve found
So many guilty of the crime and yet none are as guilty as
My own mind. Who is there to blame when the task at hand is
Insultingly enormous. If you only knew the extent of it.
To decide to transition into manhood
This late in life is to know that you might
Never make it, and that that’s somehow fine.
This reasoning makes no sense to me and I see so much
Irrational thought in my own poetry, but the truth is
You can’t control how others perceive you
So often times, in my lived, depressed experience:
Being transgender is some insane bullshit.
Most of society sees sex as a fact not
All the spectrum and all the color and
When you’re used to full spectrum
But everyone else is black and white, you feel
Blind and crazy most of the time.
I think this is why when I see trans people who
Don’t care about how they are perceived
I get angry and I think they’re lying.
Ain’t nobody that bold, not unless it’s your
Privilege, or your job.
Anyway, the south sucks. I need to move up.