Can you feel the power coursing through you,
disguised as adrenaline,
when you swing your arm and before the blow even hits,
you feel all your anger and frustration fade, so now all you want is to fight?
You wanna kick and pitch a fit,
till your old ****** arms
are covered up by new scars,
but nothing like that matters because you're the last man standing.
Maybe the other boy, curled up on the ground now
with his arms thrown over his head,
broke your nose and made it even more crooked than before,
but you're the little freak who no one thought could win.
But you entered in
from a world where everyone called you ****
to be the freak who everyone only saw as a ****,
thin-shouldered and quieter than the boys he fought.

Maybe your quietness and meek, weak, malnourished look fooled you and all of them,
for look into your eyes in the mirror and see the gold and brown fighting through the green sheen,
the fire for everything you hate, all the things you're hitting and spitting on when you're through with them,
and when you stare into your own eyes you might recognize yourself.

Don't be fooled, boy, you're weak and you're sick,
your arms aren't thick
which muscle and dark hair,
and nothing about you is real,
with fabricated reactions and premeditated sentences,
all programmed into your brain, which fights itself in its confusion,
screaming, and smoking from the fight with itself, about what should be happening with your emptiness and with your bony chest.

Boy, you're hardly that,
just a *** who stares after the other guys,
but you're not sure if you're gay, because you really just want to be just like them.
Boy, at least you fall for pretty girls,
shorter and daintier than you, with more mellow hearts but stronger emotions,
and passions for poetry (not the kind you possess, rooted in your inability for expressions)
and always with love for another boy, a real boy to grow into a man.

Today, I typed into my Google search bar
“How to stop being trans.”

I am so desperately attempting to repress my identity I felt the need to Google it,
I spend day in, and day out, watching women on the internet talk about what it is like to be a woman.
Even now, that concept confuses me.

There is something I will never truly understand about being a woman-
That is the feeling of being female.
It’s something I’ve never really had, even though I go through those hardships and more.
I am talked about like I am an object, referred to as “it” by so many kids at this school,
Just as many of the transgender students going to my school are.

I am treated physically like an object whenever I attempt to present as a woman,
And I realize there is no way to go around being an “it.”
Nothing more than a mere object used for someones entertainment,
Thrown away when they have gotten their thrill out of me.
I am nothing more than a cancelled TV show
Who’s reruns are on at midnight, or early Sunday morning.

I am nothing more than the little wooden toys toddlers play with,
Thought of as ‘cute’ when young,
But told I am to grow out of the phase of playing with toys.
Told to grow out of the phase of being a boy.

No matter how short I cut my hair, or how tight the binders I wear are,
How baggy the jeans, or how many button-ups or flannels I buy,
I am told it is just a phase.

I have been fighting with my identity in the open for nearly five years.
First, it was an internet presence,
I learned the word “genderfluid.”
I used that term for a good three months,
And then I found a new word.
“Agender.”

I was agender for years,
Even somewhat out at the school I went to-
In the fifth grade, I was asked what I truly was.
This question is going to be repeated until the day I die.

In seventh grade, something fully dawns on me.
I am nothing more than a transgender boy with an affinity for putting art on my face.
I panic as I tell the four people I had in my arsenal at the time.
Thus begins the era of “Brodie.”

This lasts for a few months, until I am uncomfortable with the name.
I finally, for two years, settle on the name “Alexander,”
And then, at the end of eighth grade, I am ready to come out to teachers.

No one is able to keep up with it, because it had been at the very end,
But as I start my highschool career, I confidently call out,
“I prefer Alexander.”

The people in my old band class don’t really think twice, but a small murmur falls through the crowd of the homophobes in the corner.
My German teacher opens the idea with wide arms, and takes me under her wing.
I become her son.
I start pondering a new name in the last month of the first year, twisting it over my tongue.
“Julian.”
I like the way it sounds, but no one thinks it fits me.
I sigh, and repress the name until nearly the very middle of my sophomore year.

In my freshman year, I had once Googled the same question.
It has been a year of attempting to repress it on my own.
Google Search still does not give me an answer.

I realize that I am nothing more than a transgender boy.

And I will fall for you,
Not like rain
Or drifting flakes of snow,
But like the sun.
Everyday.
Endlessly.
Over and over again.

sometimes I feel lost in the bed sheets;
clinging onto a body I wasn't made to
hold.

A long day
Bruised sides
Ribs visibly shifted
Chest swollen
Stabbing heart pain
But it's all worth it
Because someone saw me
As I am.
A man.

They imagined Him again
And again
And again

They tried to replace Him with Her
But They couldn’t
He just kept coming back

They Never took interest in Dolls
Or Castles
Or princes and Princesses

They played King of the hill
with the Guys
Pretended that They were a Knight

They felt and looked awkward in Dresses, the Feminine makeup
Or Long hair

They wore button ups tucked into black, Combing Back hair
And tightening a Necktie

They would cringe at the sound of Their voice,
Their laugh

And hope that They could slip by as Their self
Despite it all

They had denied
Denied
Denied

Just androgynous
Repeatedly
They lied

They lied
They lied
They lied

Make Him go away

Make Her go away

What were They supposed to tell Their loved ones

Hiding behind a wall of secrets
Kicking
Trying to get out

From time to time someone finds
The way around
They see behind all of the lies

A small boy
Curled up, afraid
Trying to get a glimpse of the other side

And when he finally sees the light
Words like she and her
Push him back

He finds that it is best
To rebuild the wall
Return to hiding

And go back to pretending
That he is happy
How people see him

And those who saw
Behind the lies
Forget that she is really he

It seems nothing will ever change
Until the day the wall comes down
And none of it remains

It doesn’t matter
who others want you to be
We love you
for your beautiful smile
for your happiest laugh
for your most endearing quirks

It doesn’t matter
what box you were put in.
We love you
for the joy you impart
for the comfort you give
for the caring you receive

It doesn’t matter to us
what’s between your legs
We love you
for how you think
for how you touch our lives
for how you change the world

All that matters
is that you be yourself
Your place can be found
only by looking in your heart

I am not one of those
To wax lyrical,
And proclaim loudly that
“I HAVE NEVER LOVED BEFORE!”
I have,
Of course.
I thought that I knew
The crushing ache
Of love,
Seeping through my bones.
Oh, but I was wrong.
He is not the first
To creep under my skin
And make my chest a home.

But he is the first
I have not resented for it.

He is the first
To make me feel awake.
To play music on my ribs
That vibrates long after he's gone,
Setting me quivering,
Gasping,
Overwhelmed and unsure.

But full of colour;
I was grey for so long.

Half asleep and mostly numb,
Adrift on a lonely sea,
He dashed my boat
Upon a rock,
And forced me out to swim.
To make my own way into life,
Instead of passively waiting
For it to begin.

He waited on the shore for me,
Dazzling in the sun,
A vibrant ray of feeling,
A shard of light that pierced my skin.
And I realised that love
Is just your heart breaking,
Sweetly,
Over and over again.
Stitched into a patchwork,
Of everything you are,
Woven through
With threads of them,

So it's not just yours anymore.