Today we are going to do something different
Today you will leave your rooms
Today you will go on a journey to healing

Is that purple?
Yes actually, it represents the mind charkha
A journey inside yourself,
Your third eye

This is a meditation exercise
The room on low light,
Music drifting in the background,
Flowers in water,
Sparkle on the ground,
Covering a purple labyrinth

This is where healing truling takes place
Not locked up,
Being yelled at

Sure I was put with the girls,
This is nothing new to me,
The price of safety,
But this place was different,
Different from the last,
They cared,
Not just about making sure I was still alive, but also that I was /alive/

On this purple floor,
Today,
Sparkles on my hands from where I was on the ground
A grand release into a new place
Gleaming
Thinking
Releasing
Healing

One poem a day
That is all you said
Yet on the hospital bed
Doctors running frantically
People crying
Consciousness slipping
Don't close the door
Baker act

Poetry,
That wasn't even a thought

Home now
Everything back
Comfort of my room,
Yet the reminder of all the pain

What is it like to face off with death alone for 8 hours and then taken away in a cold, gray ambulance?

It is an experience that will never go untold
Etched into my soul

That is why one poem a day ceased,
They day I was sent away,
My whole life changing

Do you remember the struggles?
I remember yelling and hiding in a room
and being scared to be alone with him
and feeling lost and unwanted
and wishing it was over
and just wanting to be home
and wanting to be a real family
and I remember reaching for you in the darkness of the night

Thinking it would never change
and I remember it all

Do you remember the struggles?

December 17th 1998 the doctors say "congratulations, it's a girl"
I do not know what I am

5 years old I am at preschool
I ask "why don't they wear dresses?" pointing to the boys I get an answer that boys don't wear dresses
I don't want to wear dresses, can I be a boy?

Elementary school the boys play football and tag at recess, the girls talk about the cute boys, their hair and their outfits.
I want to play football with the boys but I sit alone on the swings watching the boys.
I wish I were a boy

Middle school the girls are wearing bras and the boys are getting deeper voices. My voice doesn't get deeper but my chest grows, I try to push it back but it doesn't work. My sister want to put makeup on me and have me dress in girly clothes.
But I feel like a boy stuck as a girl

Highschool I learn the word transgender. I cry because I'm not alone. I find out about binders and order one. It comes it the mail, I put it on and put on my most masculine clothes. I already have short hair but I put on a beanie. I look like a boy. I feel like a boy.
I am a boy

The name my mother gave me is not mine. Phoenix sounds right for me. A new beginning, a new life. I will make a boy out of this body.

I'm 15 and scared to tell my family. Over the years in my head I know I am a boy but my body tells me differently. I tell my family that I am a boy. I'm scared and they don't say anything about it. Maybe they think if they don't say anything it will go away. But I am a boy

I tell my teachers and they call me he instead of she. I feel like me. Other students call me a girl but can't they see I am a boy

I go to a store and get called sir, they see me as a boy, I look in the mirror and finally see me.

A boy

Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair,
I can't, I cut it all off.
I don't want that glass slipper either
I'd rather have some combat boots.
I don't want to see the world like Jasmine,
I want to see equality.
Ariel wanted legs but
I want the right body.
Beauty and the Beast,
How about beauty and the trans?
True loves kiss won't wake me from this nightmare,
one simple letter will T.
They call me princess
but I am the prince.
I am not the damsel in distress
because I am the knight in shining armor.
Born a princess but becoming a king.
I am a princess without the S's

Laying all alone
Wrapped in a blanket
A blanket is all
All alone
No one to hold me,
But my own two hands
They caress my naked skin
I shiver
And the lonlyness consumes every inch of my flesh

Contradictions fly through the air around me
Should I keep holding out?
What about the wreck of a life I've made for myself here?
Where do I go?
No one is here for me anymore

All alone
Abondond
Neglected
Abused
Thrown out into the gutters of life

Hated
Spat upon
Lost
Forsaken
Left all for dead

She has always been the love of my life
I've waited
I've held out
I've tried to do what's best for her

Yet I've fucken shattered inside
Nothing in me can hold it in anymore
Every last drop is gone

I think its time.I leave this hollow shell

She dances through my mind
Every thought
Every hope
Every glimmer

She is there
Dancing in my mind
An angel if perfection
Though she sees herself as a demon

That may be true,
But aren't they too,
Just fallen angels

Every thought
Every hope
Every glimmer
She is there,
There in my mind

I speak to her
Here in my mind,
Soft lullabies
And loving stories
To the girl who saved my life

Dancing through my mind,
In all her glorious perfection
All the time.
But I don't mind
When she dances through my mind.