For you, it’s a simple question.
You can just say,
“Obviously, I’m a girl.”
“Duh, I’m a boy”
But for me,
It’s a question that burns
Through my mind.
It’s like an identity quiz
Where all the answers are wrong,
No matter how much you decide
To change them.
I’m twelve years old.
They’ve just handed me a bright white paper.
Are you a boy or a girl?
That’s the question they ask on every evaluation sheet.
Are you a boy or a girl?
I can only sit there,
Pencil tapping nervously against the table.
I stare at those two white boxes.
Am I a boy or a girl?
What is so wrong with my mind,
That I am not able to choose one?
I’m five years old,
The teacher asks us to make the flower our favorite color.
Pink or blue?
I don’t want to choose,
So I split the flower in the middle
One half pink
One half blue.
The teacher comes and says
“At least you tried.”
What does that mean?
I put effort into
coloring inside the lines
And making it
Perfect.
Beautiful.
Interesting.
Different.
And all she can say is
“At least you tried.”
Am I only allowed to choose
one?
I’m eleven years old.
I’m looking through my drawer,
Picking out clothes to wear.
The black shirt
Or the white one?
They both look nice with the pants I’ve chosen.
I know I can’t wear both,
Because only one shirt can fit on my body.
Only one.
I hastily pick the white shirt,
Only to realize
They didn’t match as well as I thought they had.
I’m twelve years old,
Still staring at that sheet.
Am I a boy or a girl?
I searched hard,
Only to find
There’s not a single thing that’s wrong
With my mind.
What makes me a girl?
Is it my hair,
Or my face,
Or the way I love to paint and make pottery?
Or maybe it’s the way all my friends are girls.
The way I love painting nails.
What makes me a boy?
Is it the way I refuse to wear a dress or skirt,
Or the way you can always find me practicing archery
In the hot summer?
The way I hate pink.
How I always play soccer and basketball.
Black or white?
Fight or flight?
Pink or blue?
Boy or girl
Boy or girl,
Boy or girl?
Why not both?
So I wrote this a few years ago, when I was still questioning my gender. Now I've realized I'm a boy so this poem doesn't really apply to me anymore. This poem is dedicated to my past self, and all the non-binary/ gender questioning kids still trying to find their place in the world.
P.S. It's supposed to be a spoken word poem
