Pensaba que era alguien
y era mi reflejo.

Era yo,
era mi cuerpo,
no era yo
era mi avatar en este mundo,
un hombre joven y asustadizo,
no era yo.

Pensaba que era alguien
y era mi reflejo.

Mi reflejo,
ese mundo mudo e invertido,
como este tantas veces.
Espero que a mi reflejo le vaya mejor que a mí.
Ciertamente tiene mi cuerpo,
vaya desgracia.
Aunque tal vez en su inversión
se reniega de mi condición transgénero,
de mi desgracia con los expertos de la salud mental.
Tan invertido ese mundo de reflejo
que tal vez pueda disfrutar de sus amigos,
disfrutar de su reflejo.

Mi relación con los espejos
siempre fue de amor-odio.
Amor porque la científica en mi
sólo veía un instrumento semimágico
que replica nuestra realidad.
Odio porque yo no estoy en esa realidad.
Un energúmeno ocupa mi lugar,
un inútil al que odio con todo mi ser.
Un chico.
De pequeña jugaba a que luchaba con ese chico,
nunca pude derrotarle,
sigue ahí.
No era yo,
era mi reflejo.
Mi archienemigo.
Mi odio.

//

I thought it was someone
and it was my reflection.

It was me,
it was my body,
it wasn't me
it was my avatar in this world,
a young and shy man,
it wasn't me.

I thought it was someone
and it was my reflection.

My reflection,
that mute, inverted world,
like this one so many times.
I hope my reflection is doing better than me.
Certaintly it has my body,
what a pitty.
Although maybe in its inversion
it denies my transgender condition,
my disgrace with mental health experts.
So inverted is that world  of reflection
that it may enjoy its friends,
enjoy its reflection.

My relationship with mirrors
has always been of love-hatred.
Love because the scientist in me
only saw a semimagic instrument
that copies our reality.
Hatred becouse I am not in that reality.
A madman takes my place,
a vane man that I hate with all my being.
A boy.
When I was young I fightplayed with that boy,
I never could defeat him,
he's still there.
It wasn't me,
it was my reflection.
My nemesis.
My hatred.

So, you ask,
How would I explain it?
Well certainly, as something
Not fun.
It's like...
It's like carrying a leach around with you.
When I walk, I can feel it,
It is a dead weight on my chest,
******* the life from my arms,
Making my hands and face slender,
What should be full and strong
It's like...
It's like when you're sick to your stomach.
That feeling of tar in your gut,
But instead of being isolated, it's everywhere
Throughout your body,
It makes you feel sick everywhere.

This is how I explain dysphoria:
Have you ever looked in the mirror,
And wanted to just rip all your hair out?
When a bad hair day gets out of hand,
Have you ever felt the need to just start over?
Even when you tear out a clump of hair
And your scalp looks raw and a little ******,
But you keep going anyway,
Just to get rid of that stupid haircut?
...no?
Alright, how about,
When you're watching the outtakes of a 3-D animated movie,
the scenes that have "gone wrong",
When the girl's eyes are far too big and pop out of her face,
Her arms are disconnected from her chest,
Her head moves but her teeth do not,
And you just want to scream "DELETE IT!"
Because it's obvious that someone has ******* up here,
And this nightmare, this fever dream
Is not what they intended their creation to look like.

Alright, well have you ever
Done a pencil drawing?
And you've put a lot of time and effort into it,
You're so proud,
This is one of your best works,
But something about it is just off?
You might not be able to tell what it is,
This will bother you for a long time,
You will spend hours on end thinking
About what exactly separates this piece of art from everything else,
What it is that keeps it from perfection...
Until suddenly one day, you realise,
You notice exactly what's wrong,
You grab an eraser to fix your mistake
But then, oh no
Your eraser was *****,
And when you tried to rub out that single wonky line,
You leave a huge black smudge across your paper
And now there's no way to get rid of it
All your work on this piece, ruined,
And you're really upset,
You were so proud of this drawing,
It was so close to being perfect,
It could have been so beautiful,
It was almost perfect, but now...

But now, it's wrong.
It just looks wrong
It just IS wrong,
It wasn't meant to look like this
I am trying to explain as simply as I can
That this body is wrong,
That it wasn't meant to look like this,
That it wasn't meant to BE like this!
Don't you understand?
This is how I explain dysphoria:
Have you ever looked in the mirror
And wanted to just rip your chest out?
Do you ever see your body, your parts seeming broken,
Your chest, legs, hear the sound of your voice
And just scream "DELETE IT!"
Because it's obvious that someone
Has ******* up
Someone was using a ***** eraser
When they created me, erased me,
And they've left smudges, mistakes, that I
Cannot get rid of,
And however hard I try to pretend
That I don't care,
I do,
And I still feel the need to erase them.
These leaches that I carry around,
They drain me,
And I was so proud of myself
I,
This body...

It could have been so beautiful

Climb this mountain,
Don't tell her what her voice is

Climbing, I don't say,
When she calls out, she's joking,
She's not talking to me,
But if I imagine she is,
Watch me sprint up.

This euphoria,
I've only felt it once before,
When I was called little brother,
And these two words embraced me
So small, yet holding so much,
She might have been joking,
But what I heard was
I hear you,
And I almost cried

Now, climbing,
I don't say
I don't tell her what her voice means
I doubt she remembers
What I whispered in urgent tones that day
Because I know she isn't talking to me,
When she calls to the boy,
I know she's talking to
the real boy,
But when I heard her,
I soared up the cliff,
Exhaustion from the hours before
Suddenly gone
And I could run, like
Any boy could have,
Now I find myself dreaming
That she might mean it one day,
I find myself dreaming
That the boy she was talking to,
Really talking to,
Might mean it one day...

I look at myself
and once again
I have that feeling.

That stone in your heart,
that heartless stone
that is me.

Raw feelings go here
unscheduled
no words to describe them,
just feeling.

I could say that I'm down
In this English language of yours
But no, that's not it.

You may argue it's depression,
and yeah, my psychiatrist would agree,
but that's not it either.

Maybe it's dysphoria kicking in once more,
certaintly I feel its awful hand greeping me again,
but that's not it.

What may it be,
this ugly feeling I puke to the poem.
I don't know.

But I want it to stop

you say you're fine
you say your good
you stare into their eyes
"I'm fine"
"I'm good"
You probably smile through your lies
fake happiness and safety
I know your pain
I see it in the mirror
I see it when you tell jokes
I know

you need to talk about it
you try to talk about it
you can't hold it in
it's not good for you
its what I did
think of me now
how I hate myself
bottling it all down

don't push it down
don't pretend
I know how hard it is
pretending your okay
keeping a blank or happy face
avoiding eyes
faking smiles

sometimes I still pretend
that I'm still who everyone thinks I am
that i am like everyone else
a whole girl
unbroken
unscarred

then I think how scared you were
when you told me
how you tried to pretend it was fine
like I did then
I can't pretend to be 'normal'
when your words came out broken and shaky
one step from breaking

I remember the day I told you
that I was 'different'
how my heart raced
how my hands tremored
my words barely slipping through my lips
you barely reacted

that's how you were
shaking and almost crying and almost backing out
and you told me that sometimes you feel like it isn't real
like you are lying to yourself
I still do that sometimes

a lot

My whole world
Crashing
Down around my ears,
And all you can do is
*******
Laugh.
"It’s schadenfreude, *****.
Nothing I can do.
You gotta help yourself."
Help myself?
Ok.
I get up in the mornings
When I feel like leaving my bed
Might **** me.
Sometimes I even get dressed
Even though the seams of jeans
Scraping against my thighs
Is like a subtle, silent torture.
Reminding me
Of the scars they sit against.
Even though the necessity
Of removing my shirt
Makes me want to peel off
My skin along with it.
Because it doesn’t fit
Has never fitted
Feels so wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I help myself
Every time I take a bite of food,
Ignoring the voice in my head
That tells me I’m fat.
Every time I step out the front door
Fighting through a wall
Built in my head
But very, very solid,
Constructed of all the fears
My subconscious can imagine.
And it can imagine a lot,
Trust me,
I’m a writer and an artist,
My imagination knows no bounds.
Mix it with self loathing,
And a good measure of crazy
And it makes a witch’s brew
Labelled
“nice try, *******.”
Don’t tell me to help myself,
When you have no idea
What it is like to live
While arguing with yourself,
Being shouted at inside your head,
Everything a battle.
Don’t. *******. Tell me
That you understand.
No,
You don’t.
How can you,
Unless you’ve spent days,
Hiding in your room,
Because downstairs there are knives
And everything
Everything
In you wants to feel them
Sliding through your flesh.
How can you,
If you haven’t looked in a mirror
And seriously contemplated
Just hacking bits off.
Because the pain of doing that
Would surely be less
Than the pain of seeing
Those alien body parts
Hanging from your frame
Every day.
How can you know?
How can you tell me
To just smile.
Just think positive.
Just go for a walk.
Drink green tea.
Eat some chocolate.
Do yoga.
Meditate.
Practice
Mind
Full
Ness.

Don’t tell me I’m ok.
I’m not.
And that’s ok.
I don’t have to be a perfect,
Functioning member of your society.
They’re your rules,
Not mine.
I don’t have to be happy in myself
All the time.
I don’t have to smile
Until my face aches,
While holding my tears inside.
I help myself.
Every day.
Just by continuing to exist.
By continuing to look ahead
And try.

there are nights
in which my body plays cage
the space we take up feels too much
everything numbs
and that feeling returns
the one i can only describe as burning
and we are merged
and we are divided
we are overly aware of our limbs
yet we cannot feel them at all
my body does not love me
she returns
making herself home in my belly and *******
there is something familiar about it
something comfortable
like sinking and floating at the same time
the cold and the dark and the deep
carrying me off to places unspeakable
embracing me
sealing me up as if i were a letter
and it an envelope
i am sent with no return address
and my heart sighs the song of my wonder
if this body will ever be mine