A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender

The first time I uttered a prayer
was in a glass-stained cathedral.

I was kneeling long after
the congregation was on its feet,

dip both hands into holy water,
trace the trinity across my chest,

my tiny body drooping like a question mark
all over the wooden pew,

I asked Jesus to fix me

and when he did not answer

I befriended silence in the hopes
that my sin would burn

and salt my mouth would dissolve
like sugar on tongue

but shame lingered as an aftertaste

and an attempt
to reintroduce me to sanctity.

My mother told me of the miracle I was,

said I could grow up to be anything I want.

I decided to --

be a boy.

It was cute.

I had snap back toothless grin,
your skinned knees are street cred,

played hide and seek with what was left
of my goal, I was it.

The winner to a game the other kids couldnt play,

I was the mystery of an anatomy,

a question asked but not answered,

tightroping between awkward boy
and apologetic girl.

and when I turned 12,
the boy phase wasn't deemed cute anymore.

It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed
seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts.

Who reminded me that my kind of attitude
would never bring a husband home.

That I exist for heterosexual marriage
and child-bearing.

And I swallowed the insults
along with the slurs.

Naturally, I did not
come out of the closet.

The kids at my school opened it
without my permission.

Called me by a name I did not recognize,

said lesbian,

but I was more boy than girl,
more Kim than Bobby.

It had nothing to do with hating my body,

I just love it not to let it go,
I treat it like a house,

and when your house is falling apart
you do not evacuate,

you make it comfortable enough
to house all your insides,

you make it pretty enough
to invite guests over,

you make the floorboards
strong enough to stand on.

My mother fears I have named myself
after fading things.

As she counts the echoes
left behind by Maya ?,

Leelah Alcorn, Blake Brockington,

she fears that I'll die without a whisper,

that I'll turn into "what a shame"
conversations at the bus stop,

she claims I have turned myself
into a mausoleum,

that I am a walking casket,

news headlines has turned
my identity into a spectacle,

Bruce Jenner on everyones lips
while the brutality of living in this body

becomes an asterisk at the bottom
of equality pages.

No one ever thinks of us as human

because we are more ghosts than flesh,

because people fear that
my gender expression is a trick,

that it exists to be perverse,

that it ensnares them
without their consent,

that my body is a feast
for their eyes and hands

and once they have fed off my queer,

they'll regurgitate all the parts
they did not like.

They'll put me back into the closet,
hang me with all the other skeletons.

I will be the best attraction.

Can you see how easy it is
to talk people into coffins.

To misspell their names on gravestones
and people still wonder

why their boys rotten they go away
in high school hallways

they are afraid of becoming another
hashtag in a second

afraid of classroom (?)
becoming like judgement day

and now oncoming traffic is embracing
more transgender children than parents.

I wonder how long it will be

before the trans suicide notes
start to feel redundant

before we realize that our bodies
become lessons about sin

way before we learn how to love them.

Like God didn't save
all this breath and mercy,

like my blood is not the wine
that washed over Jesus's feet.

My prayers are now
getting stuck in my throat.

Maybe I am finally fixed,

maybe I just don't care,

maybe god finally listened to my prayers.

Thank you.

(Applause)