i feel like i cant breathe
most of the time

maybe its the tight binder
on my ribs
maybe its the suffocating thoughts
that tell me im not good enough
maybe its all the stares
that i know are questioning my gender

i wish i could tell you it gets easier
every time someone calls me a girl
when im wearing all mens clothes, a binder, and short hair
but it doesnt
it gets worse

so much worse

no matter the effort i put in
how hard i try
to present as masculine as possible
at the point where i cant even
see anything feminine about myself anymore

im always seen as the thing
that will always break me down

sometimes i think
it would be easier to take it all back
say im a girl and dress like one
at least then
ill be seen as how im trying to

ill hide behind a mask
say im something that im not

because arent i doing that already?
saying im okay and that it doesnt matter
when someone calls me a girl?
putting on  fake smile
and act like it doesnt feel
like someone took my spirit
and covered it
with the wrong color paint

i feel like i shouldnt be myself
most of the time

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.

I feel trapped
Like I can't reach
The peak of who I am
Of who I'm meant to be

Everything becomes an obstacle
My hair
My voice
How I dress

They stop me
Stop me from being perceived
As the gender I feel
The gender I am

If gender dysphoria was a weapon
I would've been shot down long ago
With my brothers, sisters, and siblings
Who died from the never-ending torture

All I want is my name
All I want is for others to use my pronouns
But that's too far away
So I'm waiting for the torture to finally

End me

I’m sick of hiding every day

I’m sick of crying every night

I’m sick of not being me,

   being me to myself

Sick of looking in the mirror

   and seeing somebody else

I realised to be me I don’t need to know who I am

But how am I supposed to be me

   if I’m afraid of what others will think


Sometimes I wish we were like butterflies

At some point of our lives we would turn

   into what we were supposed to be

But what was I born to be?


I’m not a she, I’m not a he

Am I an ‘it’? Am I an animal

   raised to the slaughter?

Am I a 'they’? Am I two different people?

Maybe


I am the Me I am to myself

I am the Me i pretend to be.

who are you?
please tell me for i'd love to know
i'll invite you in for tea and biscuits, you can tell me everything
please tell me who you are
i'd really love to know
for otherwise you're nothing more than just a stranger to me.

My eyes are not sunlit windows to my own self, rather dimmed and tinted blockades to never give you a full picture. They are not a colourful array of flowers, they are dull and wilting weeds.

My lungs cannot breathe in and smell the roses because they are laced with tar, and not enough oxygen from shallow breathing. They are restricted from fulfilling out their purpose so I can feel 'okay.'

My ears will not listen to the buzzing of bees and the gentle wind- they will, however, listen to the screams between them and confuse help with hate.

My tongue does not taste of honeysuckle and mint, but rather ash and dried blood from tasting my existence. It formulates words laced with too much sleep and too little self care.

My fingertips do not touch as if I am handling the daintiest of flower petals, instead they trace a gravestone between my ribs with a purpose. They tear at my own skin and hair, or at least try to.

Do not devalue my battleground of a body by comparing it to a garden