It

The words leave your mouth with such nonchalance—
I almost don’t hear the bigotry

But I’ve been trained to hear slurs clear as day

The nurse calls my name—
I already didn’t want to be here—
I stand from my seat
Only to hear a voice from across the waiting room
“It is in the bathroom
It will be out soon”

Spiraling down I melt into nothing as I was taught as a girl
This person sees me as nothing—not boy and not girl
I am “it”
I’ve heard this before
And I want to walk away and leave
But I was already scared
That’s why I’m here
I don’t go to the doctor unless absolutely necessary for this exact reason

And I let my brain leave
I dissociate my way through this appointment
I don’t tell my doctor
I just suffer through and then run away
Like I always do

I go home and I cry in secret—
They do not get to see that they have hurt me

 

The next day I am fielding phone calls
My doctor, her boss,
Suddenly the people in power are calling me to apologize

It takes everything inside me not to say that “it’s okay. I will be okay”
I am not okay

They promise me Change
They tell me they can’t fix the harm but they can make it easier for the next person
And once again I don’t feel like a person
I have been made into a stepping stone across a river
Just a foothold for them to pretend they’re making progress
So they make promises
But I am still not okay

I am falling into crying spells
I am their stepping stone and the river they are trying to cross
They are using me to pat themselves on the back and pretend that they are progressive
But from the comments on my post I see that this has happened before
And before that and before that
This is an ongoing issue that I have been forced to endure
Nothing is going to change that it happened

I have been drowning in this river since the day I came out
The water has receded enough for my stone to be exposed

I don’t want to be stepped on

I want to exist in a world where my pain is not a learning opportunity for someone else
I want to exist in a world where I am not called an object or a thing
I want to exist as my best me

I am tired of being called “it”

Never Going Back

I have given up the ability to bear fruit
This should be a moment of celebration
I bought myself a cake
Filled my rooms with balloons
I invited the whole of the internet to rejoice with me
And in the dark of the night—
Under the first full moon of the year—
I wept my sorrows into the silence
I knew I could not share this glorious rebirth
with all the people that I love

My mother sat with me
Bearing her own loss and grief
Knowing I do not mean to hurt her with these decisions
Unlike others,
She understood that this was what I needed

The others—
My grandparents,
Aunts and my uncle,
My father—
They may never know
Because I know they will not understand
They think of this as mutilation

This family
These people
They do not believe that you can change fate
That you can be so much more than what you are assigned
They would look at my celebrating and say that I was trying to hurt them
That by doing this
I wanted to hurt them
They don’t understand that none of this is about them

The double mastectomy, the hormones, the name,
This,
This giving up of “a woman’s purpose” was never ever about them
This is about me being me in the way that is most me—
And that has meant making sacrifices

 

They probably don’t realize what a thin wire they walk
How strong I have grown to give them the chance to stay in my life
How ready I am to put myself first, should they not accept this new reality

I wept to the moon that I may lose these people,
But I also looked across to my mirror and saw someone
I didn’t know I would get to meet in this new space
This new me,
I am happy and hurting and healing all at the same time
And it is such a hard place to be

But I never knew I could make it
And now I never want to go back

Dameien Nathaniel is a twentysomething poet hailing from the East Coast of the United States. With a passion for writing and design, they explore gender, identity, queerness, and trauma through text and visual art. With a desire to travel the world and spread their love of poetry, they are hoping to publish their first works and kick-start their future as a writer.