I feel ready to pull the scab off.
other people use my name much more than me,
which makes me feel like it’s not really mine.
more than a boy or a girl,
someday I’ll be dead.
it’s no one’s fault. I get angry like a teenager
as I peel the wound back open.
I get excited for no one to ask after me.
I can’t wait to burn your house down.
I can’t wait to be done.

no more back talk. no more rage.
when I tell you there’s no place for me,
I get your sympathy,
but despite what you may think
that wasn’t what I was after.
I am most myself when I speak the truth without flinching.
I am almost never myself.
And I could fake it, but I’m tired.
I could fake it, but that feels to easy now.
too much like a sin.

I wonder about my future.
if I have it in me to be a brittle old snow bird
or a grandparent gone mushy with time.
I’d have to make money first.
I’d have to be a parent first.
and living that much for that long
seems like something for upstanding
young men and women,
not whatever I am. faceless and fearful.
when I finally say what I really think,
that’s when everyone thinks I’m pretending.

there’s only so much convincing you can do
and only so much someone can be convinced.
I get tired of asking to be seen as I am
and decide that I don’t care if anyone
knows me really or not.
I asked to be truthful
and got shut out.
I hope that absolves me of some guilt,
but most days it doesn’t.

I put on my makeup like you wanted,
shave like you wanted, waddle like a pigeon,
hold my posture ramrod and correct.
it’s not that I can’t. it was never that.