On Gender – Mine, Specifically
Ah, I so want to be a bright boy.
I was never comfortable in my body (who is?) and I didn’t know why, and while settling into the cosmic gender non-conforming bath has gone a long way to resolve some of that tension, it’s still here.
Call me shallow, but I grieve for the svelte andro boy I cannot be. I have hips and curves and, right now, a body that I do not enjoy being in. It’s not as strong as it was, it rounds too much, it aches to remind me to care for it more than I do. I am trying. I am failing. I will do better, and that’s my business, frankly. Anyone who comes knocking with the “love yourself as you are” snake oil right now is missing something key to me. If I’m to make myself again, that’s not my way.
I don’t want to wear a jumpsuit and a billed hat like we did in 2nd grade. I don’t care for shorts and button-downs or Vans and stovepipe jeans. I don’t want to be sexless and infantile. Anime-soft. Understood. I want cheekbones that cut, a jaw that juts. I want long limbs and lanky thighs and the low-hipped swagger of the industrial and New Wave boys. I want slim pecs and gristly arms and close-cropped hair over a made-up face that kills.
I am odd looking, yes, and that goes a long way. I’ve learned to appreciate my asymmetrical face, my scar, my square jaw and intense eyes. I still look domesticated and tired in the mirror. I want to be feral and strange.
None of this trips me or steals my breath often – I’m generally resigned to my looks. I have an aggressive personality and, frankly, the ego to match. I try to temper them with a big heart. Sometimes I succeed. I know when people are attracted to me and when they are not, and the latter bothers me far less often than it used to.
But oh, sometimes I want so badly to be a boy so I can really be a girl.
Flirting with the feminine razor doesn’t always feel right from my current meat suit. Inside, yes, but outside is always at odds with the vision. I am non-binary, though. The mercury of me curls comfortably inside of the word’s hollows and belongs.
I just wish, sometimes, that I could take a chisel to the wrappings. Brutal, maybe. Not as unloving as it sounds. But, hmm. The breathless possibility of technology will never likely be far enough along in my lifetime to break all our chains (not to mention the state of the collective consciousness) but I wish. And I lean in a little and wonder.