My sun: setting more beautifully than any sky in sunny California,
though I haven’t seen one in so **** long.
I’m starved for your attention, won’t you shine on me a little brighter, babe?
I know you miss the waves when you’re up north; I know you shiver in September
and that it’s too soon, that you should still be able to show off those tan lines but
if you stay here with me I’ll love you like I’m the moon. Let’s not make our love
something that they can only see occasionally. Let's outlast the summer.

1.)

I came home from a marching band event, (I'd call it a football game, but in that little tent on the sidelines, the whole football team gathered and watched their 69-0  loss.) I barely ate and went to sleep.

2.)

I scrolled through Pinterest and saved dank depression memes.

3.)

My unofficial girlfriend called me a GIRL and I've died inside.

4.)

I didn't complete that assignment, I just sat there filthy, unshowered, and called it depression, instead of calling my therapist.

While I likely have no rhythm
and tend to trip over my feet
that would hold back a dance.

While I have debilitating anxiety
that highlights others’ stares
I may still give it a chance.

No, see, the reason I won’t dance
has way more to do with my body
and the fact that I’m trans.

As I move through the world
I feel the weight of my identity
in both physical and mental distress.

Of course everyone has baggage
that doesn’t stop them from jiving
but not everyone has to carry it on their chest.

Dancing requires movement of my entire frame
but the person I see in my head
isn’t the one that light reflects.

How can I move without highlighting
the feminine figure my clothes conceal?

How can I jive
while hiding how my chest wiggles?

Can they tell?
Girl?
Guy?
What do they see?

The questions anchor my body to the ground
So I cannot move.
I cannot dance.

Neither girl nor male… So what am I? Am I the so-called perv aiming to invade the wrong bathroom? Am I a heretic aiming to impose my wickedness onto the world? Am I the clocking stares they give me? How about the result of a broken home or a broken heart? Does my mere existence force you to reevaluate your identity? When all I'm trying to do is figure out mine. Neither girl nor male… So you tell me where I am to relieve my bowels. Or am I to stitch them shut for your comfort? While I'm at it, shall I stitch my eyes shut as to not burden you with running mascara; which further assaults my "feminine façade"? I'm sorry to burden you with my fake *****, of which a second of labor (turning your head) would relieve you of your distress. I'm sorry you'd rather slave away starring and clocking them. Clocking me. I am sorry that I was born male yet refuse to live up to such expectations. I am sorry that despite my best efforts I cannot pass for how I feel. Believe me—for the life of me—I am trying. As punishment for lack of natural *******, I stretch my skin to form a pleasing cleavage. As punishment for having the wrong body type, I wear a cage around my abdomen two sizes too small that cuts into my rib cage dare I seek the comforts of sitting down. As punishment for being born with a male anatomy, I crunch my disheveled sack of nerve endings between my chaffing thighs. Dare my body have the audacity to ***** itself for any reason I bend the muscle, in such a way never intended, between my legs just to have one less aesthetic reminder as to what I am not. Your clocking stares painfully remind me that I may never be seen as how I see myself. But ****** do I try. Until I do, I am condemned to be neither male nor… female.