for now, i am only focused on
recognizing the girl in the mirror
she sometimes looks like a boy
her rotting skin draped in doll clothes.

sometimes her body expresses itself
gagging and shaking from fear
seizing like it forgot stillness.

other times her body expresses this massive monster thing
it's deep and thick and blue
on some nights she tells herself its the ocean
over and over again she tells herself
that he is the ocean.

she wanted to tell them about the men.
the poets and songwriters and fashion bloggers and computer programmers
the hours and days stolen from her
trying to find some meaning within their violence

the men that had ****** her everywhere.
the men that had touched parts of her that belonged to nobody.
pulling slapping tugging choking bruising scratching
owning pieces of her with more aptitude than she ever could.

in sickness and in health
she could only recreate the memory
of their throbbing, drooling penises
pulsing with the aggravation of power

in her bed she shivers and gags
she's come to realize that this is how men love.

on other nights she is the ocean
deep and embodying
open and consuming
feminine and destructive

All the steps we’ve walked.
All the jokes we shared.
All the tears we cried.
All the pain we felt.

We endured it
We felt it
Together
No matter what

We agreed on that.
Didn’t we?
Our little promise,
Of childhood hopes.

But time has taken its toll
And now, you are gone.
Taken away
But you’re not looking back

No matter how hard I try
I can never forgot you
No matter how hard I try
I can’t get over you

After all the steps we’ve taken
I’m trying to erase how far we’ve walked in miles.
Are you also trying?
Or am I the only one?

A coffin came my way,
They said, therein you lay;

I could believe them nay,
Until they said they could flay;

Wild I went,
I could not vent;

The expression remaining,
Before it started draining;

I was no longer composed,
I had to be dosed;

You were ethereal,
This had to be surreal;

No enmity could matter,
When everything had shattered;

You had been battered,
When you had me flattered;

I can not apologise,
You have been baptized;

I seek not your forgiveness,
I need not your liveness;

For you’ll always be,
Right here, in my heart;

I woke up, to find you gone,
For EVER in your zone..

I need not repent,
For I have your scent;

Your memories alive,
Shall always thrive;

You were one of a kind,
Never out of your mind;

It is not cowardice,
For it requires courage;

It shall not be despised,
For it was your suffrage..

It’s easy to see what others see,
Just look into a mirror.
Except when my eyes approach the glass
And a trembling hand moves hair out of a face
That belongs to a me that isn’t there,
When I feel the clench of teeth that aren’t mine
Baring a terrified, threatened smile,
The lungs of someone else threatening collapse
Like a tower of rose coloured glasses,  
A facade so beautifully crafted that upon its creation
It was given the wrong name.

I look into that mirror and only when the eyes,
The bars of the prison my soul desperately claws at,
Meet my mind do I truly see the person who is there,
The man who grew so safe in complacency
That he refused to question what it meant
To be anything other than what
His body told him.

There’s comfort in conformity,
Especially when the character is curated in such a way
Where no one's the wiser.
A costume so extravagant that even the mind gets swept away
By the splendors of dissociation because surely,
Surely this body belongs to this character
That was so painstakingly molded
By the roles and rehearsals presented to it, surely
The discomfort it feels with these mounds of flesh that hide the lungs
Is not because they shouldn’t be there, but because
They are making it so much easier to play the part
Of the one that isn’t me.

Surely I feel guilty and complicit when I speak because I am fooling everyone,
Fooling, Deceiving, Making it so incredibly easy to see
Someone who just isn’t nor has ever been there.
Even Myself, for 22 years.
For 22 years I’ve let myself take on a role rather than actually stop and think
That maybe I am not a girl who likes dolls,
Who likes dancing and dresses and lover’s confessions
And wrestling and writing and eating and lighting
Up the entire room when I laugh, No,
Maybe that was the rough draft of a character that was meant
To be played by a man.
Maybe, just maybe, it was a boy doing these things.
And when that name was crossed out and replaced
While the critics walked out and looked down with disgrace,
The boy in a dress with his chest all in lace
Finally let out the breath he was holding
For 22 years.

The mirror still lies on occasion to others,
But to me, I look and see past this body,
Past the hair and the chest and the shortness of breath
From the noose of conformity around my neck,
And I see the man that god made me.
And while I want so badly to be seen by the masses,
How I want to shatter their rose coloured glasses
So they see the waves of purple and blue that adorn me.
How I want the people who have scorned me
To say I didn’t delve from the scriptwriter’s plan,
It just took them awhile to see I was a man.

I know it will never happen.
That even as the curtain falls, no matter the costume or lack thereof,
They will only see the girl that isn’t there.
And maybe I will take this facade to my grave but as I return
To the one who truly made me,
He will say ‘welcome home, my son.
Your performance as her, it’s finally done.’