Why ...

Why is it that I wake up
And can already hear you arguing
Your voices implanted in my mind
Where no one else can listen

You control me
But I like to think you don't complete me
Because if you did
I'd be aggressive, mean, and everything I don't want to be

So I have to ask
Since I'm the only one that can see you
That can hear you
Why do you destroy me?

Your words affect me
You tell me how to dress
How to walk
How to talk
How to live

But I don't know if I'd call this living
Being stuck in my head,
You must not consider yourselves living either
Yet you have all the power

One day, you'll be in harmony
Rather than at war
One day we'll be a family
I just hope it's before you **** me

I walk through the doors,
Present the child with a tiny badge,
Yellow, white, purple, black.
I watch the smile spread across their face,
As I call them
"Captain; dear; Mx. Eli; child"
Do not tell me that they are not real
Do not tell me that they are confused
You have never known the inner workings
Of the mind of a child,
You dictate their thoughts and dreams and imaginary friends and fathers.
They are not confused
They know their mind
And they know the world they will grow up in
Will be nothing but cruel to them -
Nothing but cruelty to the little lost boys and girls and neithers,
Because if you cannot experience it then it must not be true,
And you must make up lies you imagine your father must have said
From his passive, uncaring position in the clouds,
Watching drama unfold like a game of Sims.
Tell me I'm going to hell. I'll see you there.
And never talk to my sibling like that again.

What is it, how can we tell?
Are we forced into it, a cell?
A trapped enclosure, a set of ways
Dedicated to telling one how to be.

Not inherently bad,
But dangerous,
When we talk about
Dreaded gender.

Keep your codes for morals
Let me wear my skirt.
My dressed all lay dusty
Because I was afraid I would be
Looked at
As lesser.

No longer,
For I am truly,
Not akin to a single
Form of gender.

The one true way
That of self-realization
Comes from the acknowledgement
That I am me
Male, female, none, both.
I am Bede.

this person i know
wants to be called they
it could bring us much closer
to see them that way
its a strange thing to think
and harder to say
but they is so happy
when the effort is made
to all the theys and thems
it is this i pray
we be kind and accepting
and just let them be they

I saw what the world wanted me to be
I saw the projections  and figures everywhere
I saw the expectations, the social constructs
the suggestions, the insistence
and then
i stopped looking
I took away the mirror and let it fall to the floor
a million pieces
I invited my seven years of bad luck
so I could stop looking.
I looked within myself instead.
I stood on the edge of the mountain, where society wanted to push me over the edge
I stood on the edge of the ocean, where it wanted the waves to drown me
I clung to the earth, where it's winds and currents would rather have me swept away.
I stood there and I screamed.
I bellowed into the deepest valley, and across the sea
I wanted every ear to feel the sound
I howled until my lungs felt free
" E N O U G H "
rejecting the false image pushed upon me
I looked within myself and found the universe when the earth wanted to swallow me whole.
My reflection belongs to me,
this world cannot contain me
but it tried to own me
Self liberated
from imposed shackles.

i am one of my own
what has been decided for me
and yet what i cannot be
if only because i cannot be it right

becoming a scavenger,
i pick apart what remains
from the carcass of femininity
clawing and ripping and tearing
and taking from gender
whatever i desire
for what has gender done for me?
aside from putting on a collar
and controlling my every move
deciding what i do
and how and when and why i do it

stealing what i can
and turning it upside down
looking starlit and airy
while still solid with rage
and being oh so tender with her
and protective from the rest
raccoon eyes and evening gowns
leather boots and lace socks

when i say
“i want you to come home”
i’m talking to the woman
i was always expected to be

i don’t miss her and
i don’t love her
but she would make it
a little less messy.