Sorry to disappoint you, mother, father
But I'm not your daughter
Sorry classmates, I'm not a her
I'm a sir.
I've spread these wings, I'm ready for flight
And if necessary, I'm ready to fight
I'm sick and tired of hiding
I'm through with denying
This is me
I will be true to my heart
Nothing will shatter my pride apart.
I'm a boy. I'm a man.
And someday family, I hope you understand.

"I'm a boy," he mutters away from the others and winced as he looked in a mirror, his reflection not what he wanted.

"I'm a boy," he said quietly, almost ashamed to say as he came out to his best friend.

"I'm a boy." Tears filled his eyes as he announced to his parents, surprised when they accepted him fully.

"I'm a boy." He can proudly say, years after he had kept it all in, he can show who he truly is.

He awoke and found himself
inside the body of another.
Safe in the darkness
gentle amniotic arms held him whilst muffled voices dictate his fate
“You’re having a girl” they exclaimed,
and he lay, wondering what this meant.  

He awoke and found himself  
inside the words of another.  
Inside the “brother” he never was, rather than never had  
and the “boy”  that scuffed his knees in adventure.  

He awoke and found himself
“a pretty girl”, “a princess”, “just like her mother”
so he closed his eyes and dreamt of another.
A world of train-sets and barber shops,
birthday candle wishes to replace long, curly locks

he awoke, and found himself floating
in space
his face, unrecognisable in the mirror.  
His chest seemed to grow branches  
as if by night the doctors that had pulled him from her womb
had suddenly discovered his secret.  

They grew like thorns until they were all he could see.
Those and the other boys, s h a t t e r i n g jigsaw piece body parts
every time he looked at them.  
He wondered why when their voices deepened, it was called a voice  
break and not a gift.  
A broken larynx. A birthday present lost in the post,
instead he unwrapped their super glued puzzle pieces,
piling them onto his plate
if you eat your vegetables, you’ll grow up to be a man.

“You’re having a girl”, more like “You can pass go but you will never collect 200 dollars”.
“You’re having a girl”, more like “earthquakes will erupt inside your mind every time you hear the words
“She”, “Her”, “Sister”
“You’re having a girl”, but he was  

“He”, “His”, “Mister”.

And when he cut his hair, and found himself  
in the arms of over-sized t-shirts and grown out leg hair,
they would say
“you look like a boy”, as if they expected him to protest in offence
but his heart feels as warm as the breeze that blows through thornless branches of trees  
and he wants to say thank you.  
He wants to say that the words  
“You look like a boy” manage to stitch up his jigsaw piece body parts,
for these are the words that cut through his mothers dresses and threw away the thread
these, are the words that in time would cause his voice to break;
remind him that he is not broken
and bury his girlhood beneath his bed.

Let me be me.
Trust my judgement even if you don't know what it means
Believe that I am trying
Explaining how I feel is a lot harder than lying.
I am afraid.
I am scared with every word I say
But not because of I'm unsure who I am at the end of the day.
I know who I am. What I'm afraid of is that our relationship will fade.
It's hard for both of us,
All I'm asking for is a little bit of trust
I know you don't want to give it because I've lied.
I know you feel like your daughter has died
But I know that your son is alive.
He's not asking for help, he just wants support
You can't get a her out of him no matter what you try to extort.
I've always been a people pleaser, who said I didn't act that way for you?
I don't like upsetting people, this trait is not new.
I know you think I am too young
But I am sure as the rising sun
I may not know everything, but at least I know this
So draw your arrow and aim your bow
But if you shoot be sure not to miss
Because when it comes to this, I will not just roll over and lie low.

A name on a form
speaks in front of you.
Focus on that
not the box they tick
when asked to pick
a side
when they don't quite fit
in either.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Iden
Nobody knew his real name
He stayed in his room, where he cried in
His body wasn’t right, what a shame.

“What a precious lady”, they said
He wanted to scream
“It’s a phase”, they said
He could only daydream.

The mirror must have a glitch
He was certain
The reflection caused an itch
Of what, it was uncertain.

‘Are you a boy or a girl?’
They shout down the corridor in a chorus behind me
Like the cries of “Good morning, Miss” in assembly
The patronising tone
in sleep deprived confusion
Droning throughout the halls
ringing around ‘she’.
    
Going to lessons is the scariest thing
Head down, walking fast hoping
they’ll never say anything
Hoping no one will question you
Glance around and notice you
not daring to look up
in case you make a wrong move.
    
You can’t know what it’s like to be
in a room all alone,
in a house that is not your own;
'Your body is a temple’ they said.
But they don’t tell you how to treat it
if it’s right in your head
but wrong in your skin,
and that feeling
of being and existing
is like dealing
with a thousand anxieties
suffocating within;
Chest too obvious
voice too loud and feminine
not enough to be ‘gentleman’.

'Why does this bother you?'
I hear you enquire,
it's because society’s construct
of gender is too based on attire,
an old fashioned concept-
Telling your children
that 'blue's for boys'
'pink's for girls'.

'Is it really?' I say.
Gender is not just binary
it fluxes and changes,
just like any scientific theory;
Einstein for instance,
didn’t come up with special relativity
in a night!
It took years of work
until he was right

Let this apply for gender too:
not just black
and white it's not as
clear cut as that
this is black and this is white
Evolve the theory
from system to spectrum
of freedom and pride
to reside in one's body happily:
Humanity allied.

This is what I dream about,
but it is not what
I've been living throughout,
in our world of shame;
where we are reduced to words and themes.
Driving my community,
those who love and support me,
to thoughts of suicide.
Being known
only when they're reduced
to rags and bones,
dead bodies
hanging
from their hashtags
thrown in the corner
another into the pile of disorder...

But people think it’s okay
to come up to you
abuse you in the street.
Knocked to your knees
to cries of 'queer'-
you end up living in fear-
'well, what do you expect given
who's watching Wall Street?'

Yet I stand here
talking to you
a queer boy-
with all connotations of the word-
a queer boy with a voice.
Look at me!
My chest,
My unbroken voice,
My broken mind.
I am not proud of what I am,
what I’ve become and
how much it hurts
is indescribable to you.
I am not what you want me to be.
I am a man.
Not trans.