I saw someone, two grades older than me in the halls with a purple shirt.
He was tall and had a huge grin and a loud laugh.
I heard the boy in the purple shirt had an B in Spanish
And a D in chemistry
And an A in foreplay.
I thought maybe he's had more than one girlfriend in the past few weeks.
At school he tells me he likes my shirt. Then turns around and tells another girl he likes her ***.
I realized then I wanted to be him. Because the girl was probably going to **** him, and not me.
What does he have that I don't.
Chin fuzz, a reverberating voice, broad shoulders, a ****.
That night I did one hundred push ups. That night I cried for one hundred minutes.
And slept for what seemed like one hundred hours.
When my morning comes my chest aches. When my morning comes my chest is still chesty.
When his morning comes his chest is occupied by a girl's head.
When his morning comes he let's go of a morning *** on his purple shirt.
On his purple sheets.
On the girl's purple cheeks.
He remembers someone, she is two grades younger than him.
She is small and has sad lips and a quiet sigh.
She has an F in math, and an F in history, and an F in foreplay.
He told her he liked her shirt, because he really did, because it wasn't purple, because it wasn't his, because it made her look strong. It made her look like a man. He then realized that he liked the color blue better, and liked the way it looked on her.

He writes boy on his leg
Etching the letters the world won't understand
Wishing the felt tip pen could
Break the gravestones on his chest
And fill the valley between his legs

He writes boy on his leg
It's a word kept secret in fear
He's a mustang learning his legs
And the world is a pack of vicious wolves
They don't know what to call him
Only he does

He writes boy on his leg
Takes a picture and sends it to the one he knows understands
The flash against his pale skin stark and bright
Like sleepy eyes against fresh snow

He writes boy on his skin
Because he can't write it anywhere else

I've been painted pink the instant the doctors
Wiped me of red.
I looked like the boys I knew - our differences a
Color palette provided by Mommy and Daddy.
I was their little girl, their princess who wished
Her hair would stop growing,
Lest she be locked in a stone tower.
I didn't mind the dress so much then,
Not when it was the only difference between me
And them.

Magic mirror before me, is wrong all I'll ever be?
I shut my eyes, unable to stand my body bare.
My knight, your skin simply is not right.
I've read the mirror never lies.

Mommy and Daddy are yelling
About my butch haircut.
Our little girl the ****, they say.
I did it myself.
Mommy still buys me dresses,
Daddy tells her to spend the money on
Therapy instead.
Daddy asks about boyfriends,
Mommy tells him I don't have any because I
Hide my *******.
I tell them I'm all wrong.
They agree.
We're talking about two different things.

I don't change for gym anymore.
The girls are secretly relieved I won't be there
To cast a wandering eye in their soft bodies.
I'm relieved I won't be in the wrong locker room.

Mommy and Daddy don't like me
Telling them who I am.
I've finally found my way out of the tower and
The king and queen are upset because their
Princess never made it home, just the knight.
My little girl, Mommy cries.
I follow the point of Daddy's finger to the door
Until I'm on a bus bound for somewhere else.

I shift from Pangea into separate pieces.
Finally I have space to breathe.
Needles, knives, pills bend my body to my will -
It took Michelangelo three years to build David.

Mommy and Daddy believe me to be
A delivery man. They are expecting to sign off
On a television set, yet when they see me
Idle in the doorframe there is a hesitance, a hope.
But most of all there is silence.
Mommy cannot speak, her hand curls like a gasp
Around her mouth.
Daddy begins to cry, his eyes pale and blue.
I am hugged.
They don't say sorry, but I hear then whisper.
My little boy, they say. My little boy.