"Hey, girl what's your name?" someone asked me.
I couldn't reply I just said um.
He thought it was funny and "Um"ed me all day.
I'm sitting here wondering why he called me this way.
Does my body decide my gender?
Or perhaps does he?
I'm called a girl for I was born one.
But that is not me.
I sit with my they/thems and my he/theys
Hoping no one will call me a girl today

no wolf
walks here

no serpent
slides

no eight-legged
steed rides

just a soul alive
still, born of

a milkmaid
under earth

Lokabur
in me who

treads this
new earth

silently...

I'm crying for a girl who never existed.
One who failed but always persisted,
to try and figure out
what makes one woman.
these thoughts about gender felt like a shout,
but this 'girl' was still figuring it out.
Now this person mourns the loss,
of this gender that felt like an albatross.

i am not a vibrant ocean blue
nor as pink as the sunset sky

i am not the daughter you watched grow
nor will i ever be a guy

i am not anything you said I'd be
instead, I am simply me