i am not an it.
i am not an object.
i have a pulse.
i have a beating heart.
i am made of stardust.
i am made up of skin and bones.
and you still call me an **it.
your mind can't grasp the idea that
i am a strong woman one day
and a strong male the next.

Hiding behind the walls I made,
I'm not like everyone else,
I hope this thing will just fade.

As I get older it only gets worse,
My momma calls me a princess,
And sometimes it makes me want to curse.

I look in the mirror,
And sometimes I can only stare back in horror.

I have extra parts and missing parts,
My hair is too girly,
My clothes hug the wrong parts.

I just want to scream,
And I don't want to be here.
I wish no one to be near.

But other times I look,
And I can't help but smile,
This has all been worth while.

I look at the wall I built,
And my whole body fills with guilt.
The face I plaster on is not always me
How could I let this be.

Slowly I will take it down
And live my life.
I will be a girl or a boy,
Or both or neither
If that's that day.

Envy is not green but
something perhaps a little more sickening to me
than chartreuse and a spoiled ego.
Envy is when i see boys walking by,
looking down at myself again, i see my curves
and i hate them.

i don’t want them.
i want to look like the boys.

Envy is seeing other girls more androgynous
than i;
girls with broader shoulders
and with more angular faces.

why can’t I look like that?

i hear voices deeper than mine:
tenor, baritone—
and I shred my throat
day-by-day,
trying to come close to the pitch.

Envy is the aches in my body when changing
my posture from legs to shoulders;
from changing my stride
and preventing my hips from swaying.
i want to look like them.

seeing these people makes my insides feel
like they’re being twisted with a red-hot fork;
and it hurts, oh God, it hurts.
it hurts to know i will never look
like how i see myself.