jamie's poem

[seacumber.livejournal.com]

I'd like to post this poem.  I wrote it for my best friend Jamie, who recently transitioned from f to m.  i'd like some comments on it.  It's in first person, only because i wrote it for him to read to others in a spoken word format, and its really based on his life.  i combined all his memories and thoughts and fears and joys into a poem.  thanks. :)
::emma::

by the way, i think this is a really wonderful community.  i wish there could be more.

Since when is gender something we can alter

Make a little snip or cut if we falter

In our genetic makeup

That makes up the world

But if I could

I would

Become that girl

My parents always wanted me to be

Ignore that my insides are screaming at me

Because I’d always believed I was male

When you’re young you don’t get

That vagina means woman

And that’s not up for debate

I’d stay up late crying

God made a mistake

And that little boy I was

Was just dying to escape

Cuz they trap you in dresses

In ribbons and curls

Make you look lovely

Like the rest of the girls

But I wasn’t like the rest

I’d try my best to fit in

But I only stuck out

There was a time when I sucked it up

Put on the frills

Learned to be lovely

Tried to sit still

But still there was this thing inside of me

Locked up in the kind of slavery they don’t list in the amendments

I’m a slave to my body

A slave to these roles

Sifting the difference

Between defiance and resistance

But fine

Society’s view of a man is yours, not mine

Even if that’s true I’ll strip down to my black and blues

Expose the scars I didn’t choose

Gender’s not a contest you can loose

It’s not a choice it’s a lesson

In expression

In being proud of who you are and how you show it

So those people who doubt you

Even they know it

I guess this is all just part of some plan

If I put down enough money they’ll make me a man

They’ll make me a deal so I don’t have to hide who I am

You don’t understand

It’s worse for me

Sixteen

And I’m gonna have to spend the rest of my life being something I’m not

Or fear being caught

Or fear what I ought to be

And no amount of surgery is going to take that away

All those years of pain

But I look forward to becoming an old man

And looking back at my boyhood days

It’ll probably be just a youthful haze

But some moments will clearly stand out

Like the day I came out

To my father and he cried

But soon wiped his eyes and said I’m proud of you son

Moving on to when I will meet the girl of my dreams

And she will see through the bindings, the stuffings, the seams

Into what makes me me

And falls in love with what I could be

I’m so thankful of all those who came before

Not the famous ones, but the nameless ones

Those who died for their identity

Were beaten, but triumphed

And knew who they were meant to be

Someday that’ll be me

You might see me now and think

That girl’s confused

Give her awhile

She’ll get used to it

I resent being called a she

When all I want is to be referred to as me

There isn’t some magic cure you can render

I am transgendered

I am alive

Despite what you might want to believe

And I won’t jump in that coffin just to be convenient

Instead I’ll jump in front of the speeding train I know as life

I’ll stand up

I’ll stand out

Proud

Shout my gender

Hear my name

Hear my calling

Cuz’ it’s one and the same

I won’t let adversary get me down

I love diversity when it’s worn without frown

I’ll put on that crown and say

Fuck being queen

I’m the most manly man around

Because men fight for what they believe in

So I’ll do it too

Proclaim my masculinity

And know it to be true

So I ask again

Since when is gender something we alter

Something we can change

I know who I am

Can you say the same?