at seven years old when a switch was thrown and suddenly i knew that something wasn’t quite right i did not feel courageous
i was so scared feeling nailed inside this coffin of a body that no longer felt like mine
there were no words that my tongue could wrap around to verbalize how wrong it felt when i was called daughter so i swallowed that bitterness and felt it like a twisting knife in my guts
and i did not feel courageous i did not feel brave as i clawed my way out of that pink box i had been involuntarily thrown into
but i have been told that i am brave i am courageous i am strong for being transgender and i don’t know what to do with that
and it was not bravery that had me telling my mother i needed her credit card number to buy a cheap chest binder off of amazon because i was really a boy
i had decided i would not be dying as a woman and be buried in a nice dress with the wrong name and gender on my tombstone
i decided then standing in the kitchen of the little cabin we lived in 16 years old and terrified that i would make myself into a bright light of a boy
and i really don’t think of that as being a courageous act it was one of preservation of finally deciding that living was better than surviving
and the funny thing is that makes people see me as brave and i don’t know what to do with that because i was scared then and i have been scared since
the only difference is i am going to live long enough this time around so that i just might be able to see what people mean when they tell me i am brave