the difference between feeling guilty
and feeling ashamed
is that society creates shame
and guilt is within yourself.
and i do not feel guilty for who i am.


― something i learned about being queer

I
Left to myself I finally look up to the mirror. Tear runs through cheek.

II
Crying back to me my reflection listens as noone has before.

III
"Look deeper" she cries. Darkness dwells where nothing dwells.

IV
Past my glasses, past the glass of the mirror, past my glasses. My eyes' look at my eyes is the only thing I have left.

V
My body's body demands attention. Silent scream in the twilight of spring.

VI
A second tear runs across my ****** hair, and it knows itself a stranger.

VII
Stepping down my eyes I see my body. My body that is not my body. My body and nothing more.

VIII
My paper gets wet as a man's hand grips my pen and writes. A stranger's hand.

IX
Chest up and down, the man's body refuses my call for change.

X
And my body that is not my body moves along with my body's mirror.

XI
My manly jaw opens the silence up, and my mirror cries out. I dive in to help.

XII
I continue to step down into the night. There's nothing to look up to where I came from.

XIII
And the echoes of the well hear out my name, my real name. There is wind at the bottom of my heart.

XIV
As I dug deeper into my reflection's eyes, I reach a wooden floor. Nothing but stone saw me prior.

XV
When I look in the mirror, I am there.

XVI
A lonely little girl shivers back to me. I am alone yet I am the one that shivers.

XVII
When I step onto the wood it cracks. The girl looks at me and moves away from the light of my eyes.

XVIII
I follow. My soul cries. It is the girl that cries. It is I who cries. No surprise, I was the girl all along.

XIX
I caress the girl and take her upwards through my mirror's skin. Here she will suffer.