I barely recognize my reflection
Who am I?
Who is the person in the mirror?
I don't look like myself. This isn't my body.

I'm not a girl
I'm not a girl
I'm. Not. A. Girl.

The mirror says the opposite of my heart.
A stranger looks back.
We argue.
My eyes verus my mind.
My body versus my soul.
My heart.
Glass shatters and breaks it.
I feel it fall to the floor.
Blood dries on the ceramic bathroom tiles.
So do tears.

I refuse to be a girl.
I won't be a girl.
I never have been.

I'm. Not. A. Girl.

i strip my skin, to show you my flesh. and i am met with tears and apologies muffled by your sobbing. i would cry with you, comfort you, tell you how good of a person you are. but now, my scars revealed again, i point at you shamelessly and i tell you it’s your fault. where sympathy and pity was, i only hold resentment. maybe in a few years i will have clarity, a new perspective, and i will feel guilty for how i was, but not now. you complain about your burdens and i take them on. the weight of it all.
everyday i feel it, my body, dropping a little lower. my feet once stable, now cramping under the pressure. and so i cut myself open and i tell you of my bruised body, but still. you can only cry and look at me, without ever doing anything.

Place one hand on my shoulder
and guide my head under
You welcomed me to the world
so let me drown at your fault
Smile at me faintly as the waves
ripple over my eyes and fill my lungs
Like a babe being baptised
you hold the back of my skull
Now, not to keep me from drowning
but to show me your gentle touch
As my body erupts in panic, I flail
I feel your love
And for the slights you caused
I feel your sorrow
But I am too far gone, no longer
needing your hands to keep me afloat
Or to hold me under

Crosses still hang
as remnants of the past
Reminders of old traditions.
Only few years have gone,
but /decades/ Says her heart.

The life they gave grows older,
No longer sewn to the Mother.
The hope and faith in their eyes
dimmed in her years past,
So while the crosses still hang
It seems they’ve lost all meaning
For the Mother and their beliefs
died with her youth.

The flash reveals a ghost.
She stands in the present,
a figure from the past.
You can feel the future inside of her
yearning to be the now.
But it is not his time just yet.

Hand in hand,
tears from two form a river
The world stills in mourning as the little girl dies.

He tries to loosen his grip,
but her hold remains.

The boy can only watch as she starts to fall
Her body descending in the waves.
Finally as she lets go,
he tightens his hold
and struggles to keep her afloat.

Sinking under,
she gently whispers
“They mourn for you
And the youth I stole.”

"He's young now." I look into the mirror. "He'll grow on you."

"He's learning. Unwise in his few years, low in confidence."

I ponder..." Will he always be so...scrappy?"

Here stands a young man, looking in the mirror. Still baffled at the reflection he sees.

There goes a woman, his mother, still determined to have a youngest daughter.

People say "He's changing, look in the mirror...see for yourself."

What I see is a scared young man....

scared to live, scared to take up space, scared to make a sound in the noise of society's never ending chaos.

She's trying...she says. To understand. To support. To move on. She knows not her faults nor the effect her words have on you...she only knows that one day her daughter stopped wearing dresses, cut her hair, and left a life of pink and pageantry behind.

No, she doesn't know what she does, but she can see the light in your eyes began to dim when she calls you her little girl.

His father....slowly decaying, pushes the ideas of a son out of his mind. Refuses to see the beard and changing physique in front of him, clings desperately like a moth to a flame to his little girl who he swears never grew a day past the age of five.

Back when things were simple. Back when there wasn't so much **** change. Back when things mattered less about pronouns and more about peace of mind and reputation.

When I grow up, I want to be the change that I wish I saw in all of you. I want to embrace who I love with open arms, decide that I'd **** for the man I see in the mirror. Let all those who disapprove be ******.

Because if I couldn't protect the light in that little girls eyes so many years ago, I'll be **** sure that the man I become is one who will protect mine.