7 Years Ago I Started Challenging The Notions Of My Gender And Sexuality, Terrifyingly Exhilarated By

7 years ago I started challenging the notions of my gender and sexuality, terrifyingly exhilarated by finally understanding who I was. The first picture was taken by my dear platonic partner in 2016. I wanted to see if I could look lovely and she wanted to see me shine. Well, that turned into a difficult year, and over the next several I fell apart and gave myself over to self doubt and dispair. Then 2020 happened. I finally faced it head on, after decades of tossing with my own identity I could no longer keep running from it. Which brings us to this second picture taken just days ago, of me wearing a dress out side of my house for the first time. It has been a hard journey but this brings me joy. Even when my days are convulsed by chaos, being able to see my body changing, to feel myself transforming, it never fails to make me smile. The knowledge of becoming me, after so long hiding from it and loathing myself, I can't even fully describe it. I hope all those out there who are still fighting through that self acceptance all the support and strength my soul can muster, and that everyone fighting through this world to be themselves is raised up. We are all beautiful and handsome and valid in our existing.

I hate falling in love.

Always seems to be with the person who can't want me back.

Silly crushes turned fervent

And so heartsickness withers my bones.

My chest hurts

I want to cry.

Can't get enough distance

In order for it to subside.

Silly dreams

Silly thoughts

Raging confusion beneath his gaze.

Walking out

I feel all eyes on me.

Not in the way I always dreamed

But as if I were a wicked thing.

Some abomination accursed of god

Defiant

Apostate

Resolute before all creation.

I feel scared,

Naked,

Raw,

Some tiny thing in the middle of a field

As the wolves do prowl.

Before,

I'd have run away.

Locked myself in my room

Hiding who I was.

I'd have cried

Loathing how wrong I felt

How off my body was

To the vision I held in hope.

Not now.

Yes I am scared.

Yes

I get nervous

But I don't care any more.

I want to dress how I want to dress

Flaunt the beauty I recognize in me.

Show too much leg

Wear sheer blouses

Take pride in my curves and lack there of.

I want to live and love freely in the open.

Be seen and acknowledged as existing.

I have already spent years hiding from myself.

I'm done giving in and lying down.

.

And each day it gets easier.

Not that the struggle loses its bite.

I just love myself more

Take pride in myself more

And grow steadily more incapable

Of ever settling again

I want to be loved

I am allowed to have bad days

Or weeks.

Even if I know who I am

It does not exempt me from all the problems I have had.

Life still hits me

And sometimes it hurts pretty bad.

This does not erase my identity

Or mean that I am wrong.

I am happy in the knowledge

Of who I really am.

I am simultaneously sad however

About the other parts of my life

Which are not going so well.

This poem is more for me

Feeling guilty over feeling sad.

As if those in my life who don't want me to be true

Will use my hardships as "ah ha! Gotcha!" moments.

Life is hard

Regardless of my sense of self.

I don't often like to be touched

But only because of how sensitive I am to it.

My chief love language

I fantasize about someone's fingers

Running down my side.

In the hands of someone who cares

I could utterly disintegrate.

At the mercy of someone who loves me

I would lose my mind completely.

I crave it

Long for it

Yearn for the sensation.

Starved for affection

I quake when a crush passes too close.

There is a fire that rages within me

Hatred for those I do not wish to touch me

And agonizing need for those I fancy.