There is a boy that lives
in my closet.
I keep him in a Nike shoebox
next to my skeletons and
other things I’m trying to
get rid of.
Day by day I guard the door
to my closet
in fear of what you’ll say
when you realize
he’s not another thing
you can control.
I beg and hope that he’ll stay
inside my
claustrophobic
closet
but each time I let him out
it gets harder to keep him in
because now he knows
there’s something outside his
confined life.
Because now he knows
there is a world of dazzling color
and loud laughter
and he isn’t satisfied like he used to be.
So each time I leave my home
he escapes into the way I talk
or the binder on my chest
and it scares me that I can’t seem to
hide him anymore.
There was a time when I
wasn’t afraid
to let him be seen.
We used to play together,
back when we didn’t realize
you were staring at us in horror,
whispering my difference in each other's ears.
But just because he was visible
doesn’t mean he was seen
instead all you could see was a confused girl,
a “tomboy”.
But you say
I’m getting too old
to be a tomboy.
Last night you crept
into my closet
a gun in your hand
and uttered those ten painful words
I could not bear:
“You’re going to high school
as a girl next year.”
And for each word
there was a bullet wound
bleeding water from my eyes
and screams from my throat
I woke up to find locks on my closet,
a reminder that
all the courage I’d worked up to tell you
about the boy I was hiding
was a wasted effort.
The boy pounds his fists
against the empty walls
but I can only helplessly cry
for the person I wish I was.