I’M NOT WHO YOU TOLD ME I WAS

By Colin Cahill

I never belonged in your gendered enclosure,

in the suffocating boundaries of the windows 

through which you witnessed

a figure forged from your furtive artifice

that I once partially believed was me.

 

Now, I look back and understand my unease,

for the longest time, I was provided not a word

to contextualize its paralyzing perplexity,

but now, it is

as transparent,

as tangible, 

as true as it should have always been.

 

Now, I am not confined within a cohort of unfamiliar

feelings and identities,

of things I should have been, should be, should become,

but I am free to exist as I will be, 

as I am, 

as I always was.

 

I no longer hide the gender you denied me,

I no longer don the attire you assigned me,

I am not a mannequin for your masculine dream of me, collars and ties 

will never suit me, and they

will never hold my ire to the dirt when someone says, 

“You know you have a dick, right?”

 

To that I’d say, “You can stay in your Farraday cage for as long as you may,

but I’d prefer taking the chance of a lethal current

coursing through my nervous system over

pretending to be someone I’m not.”

 

I will always look back on your windows with contempt,

the same windows I would scuff, scratch, and bite each time

I didn’t comply with your binary lie that would reply with 

acidic spite and chastise my intrinsic right to be who I am!

And I’ll have you know I am not a man!