ehk (wip)

 She calls me “girl”, and I will cling onto that,

Performing the ‘euphoria’ of white lies,

As she’s kind enough to play this game.

I am pitied: no one dares to touch

The illusion of gender, cowardly,

At respectful distance from the sick.

My skirt’s just a skirt, not a symptom.

Do not project your euphoria onto me.

“You’re so brave.” “It’s safe to be yourself,”

As they monitor the course of my gender,

Like a terminal illness.

“Your style’s so transfeminine,”

So I performed, perpetuating the discourse

I swore to combat: the fearful deference

For the ‘mentally ill’, the ‘complicated’

Transgender.

Neither reveals nor hides my daimon,

But shakes my flesh with silent signals:

The vague tension of my tendons,

As I smoke, or the warm quaver of my skin,

Under the winter sun - feminine.

The ungraceful shape of my chest,

The numb emotions and the tears I hold back -

Masculine. Is it not still me,

This centerless process I do not control

Nor own? What is there to figure out?

My daimon does not affirm nor it negates,

So why do you ‘affirm my gender’,

If not to protect it from the risk

Of negation? Of cisness?

Do not you therefore affirm the negation,

And treat me like a delusional man?

Do not project your euphoria onto me.