The Chore of Being a Girl

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I’d always known I had to hold up the round mirror to my face

Force my eyes to see an exact reflection where there only were blurred lines in space

The younger I was, the more I expected them all to feel the same

The older I got, I starved and raged for anything to blame

Annoyed at everyone’s comfort with their bodies and others’ perceptions

Thinking I was the only person to struggle with it was my deception

Passionately loathing what made girls feel like girls and not as lost as me

I had no idea I’d been brought up in an effort to end up like the ideal she

Every order, expectation, and submissive disposition felt like a suggestion

Though I participated in some due to Catholicism, I was accused of emasculation

The pinks, the blues, the skirts, and the working boots; all of that felt silly

At the time I couldn’t mock it, as people through it lived

That was the only form of existence that was accepted

I put on a subconscious performance to keep ‘em distracted

I told myself I couldn’t possibly love girls because I loved a boy

Under the weight of denial, my being had begun to shatter

In my mind amongst the flames, I was going to hell, I knew

I constantly told myself I was a girl and that it didn’t matter

Meant to be a wife dressed in white, why was I so lewd

Hung onto my boy friends because it didn’t matter

A bit longer and I’d surely fit in, a woman renewed

Hung onto Jesus because he’d make it matter

Don’t speak over him, maintain a pleasant mood

Being a girl didn’t matter

Then why did it for everyone else?

It didn’t matter till I realized I’d chosen my shackles

Called myself with terms that didn’t reflect a speck of me

To uncomplicate my existence, for others, make it easy

None of that belongs to me and for all of this I’m not sorry

I’ve loved men, I’ve loved women, and I’ve adored those out of the binary

To me, they are the epitome of free, souls in vessels, individual paths forging

A god didn’t lock me up in the wrong body, those of the world did

In the name of their god, my struggle was meant to last a lifetime

All of those people were fine with me having a constant inner war

All of those people failed to see I’d built a personal hell inside

Though I didn’t and I don’t expect them to read other’s minds

I do expect them to catch up with the histories they hid

Most have chosen comfort, pointing at us heathens from afar

I’ve [trans]cended the pink, the blues, the skirts, and the working boots

The meanings history has given those things bring no comfort to me

If unafraid, look, we are much more than we’ve painted ourselves to be

No old myths should dictate how we externalize what’s in our souls

Know that you don’t have to come out like me, alter your you

Neither man, nor woman, I present myself to you as human

I appear as I like, take it as you may, but I love being chimerical

I used to live theatrically, performed femininity to keep men close to me

It didn’t work out for me… I attracted those who existed differently

Those living outside the thin borders of christianese reality

I realized I had one foot in and the other ready to leave

I had no idea it was more like taking a leap

I am not sorry for performing, it was all I knew,

What I am sorry for is acting like I knew all there was to know

I once intended to uphold the division between men and women

I ignored how it implied me as well and… you reap what you sow

I’d crafted my inner world, one increasingly difficult to live in

I played the game, but never scored

Being a girl was one hell of a chore

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