Patterns/Sentence/Message

The more time I spent around

Gender studies folks the looser I started to see

Gender, the more time I spend around

Computer science folks the stricter I started to see

Everything. Perhaps

The patterns of logic and thinking are useful

In some realms, but not others. I don’t think it’s rational

To be transgender, but I also don’t think it’s rational

To be an anti-vaxxer, or a religious extremist, or

Anything, honestly. If I had my choice

I’d be a limp noodle professionally

Boil me extra hard baby and

You’ll see– I start disintegrating. I am not

Capable of the nuance I was when I was in

A different part of my life, studying different things,

In different social company, with different hormones

Flowing through my veins and yet I am

The exact same in every way, so much that

It hurts me. Perhaps

The pattern I am seeing is that

I don’t fit in the circumstances I am in

Alas– no matter what I do

I am incompatible and it’s starting to feel

Like the pattern is me.

How can it be that

The thing that never changes is the thing

That makes me so frustrated, perhaps

The peer pressure from others

To hate myself until I become

Someone else

Is all consuming, perhaps

I can’t even trust my own instincts. Perhaps

There is no pattern to see, perhaps

I am transitioning, in more than one way

Perhaps this was too much change at once

For anyone, the way

I’ve been saying

Over and over and over again

Until my girlfriend sighs, and stops me before I start again

“Have you ever thought about

Changing your name, changing your gender, changing your career

Moving to a new town, starting all over again?”

Changing your diet, changing your medications, changing

So much everyday you wonder

How it is that anything could feel the same

In a world of constant change and yet

The pain and confusion lingers.–

Have you ever thought about doing all that

Or is just me…?

All the success in the world just makes me reflect on

My losses until I’m a total loser, motivated yet again

To conquer something impossible, and yet

The desire to conquer myself is something

I can’t quit.

The only pattern I see

At the end of the day, is a

Miserable, weak, sad self-loathing son of a bitch.

I’m sure that that’s the problem, but each change I make

Gives me the same error, now

The message I’m receiving

Is starting to feel more like a sentence.