Gender expectations.

I know you hate labels
but here, I don't feel cornered.
Words don't always digest
easily so it's hard to convey
why "miss" or "sir"
feel wrong at times,
why my brain associated
long hair with girls
short hair with boys
and how I feel grief
that they may never be accepted
as anything else.

You paint walls pink or blue
in anticipation
as if that could possibly define
a child wanting to find their
place in this world.

I always thought I was
happy in my own skin...

in each footstep, I hear
society scream there is only
girl or boy
woman or man
and anything else is a
delusion.
Everyone is scared
of a shadow that hasn't
followed them.

My mouth spits
rivers of rage -
I'm not making this up
to seem aesthetically different,
why would I crave this
path I can hardly navigate -
it hurts my heart
to hear gender fluid
gender queer or trans
people have their identity
decided by those
cliched pinks or blues.
Those negligent roles that
paint us with two ways to be:
masculine or feminine.

I'm tired of trying to escape
this box and being met with
exasperation.

Please let me be.
Let me live without facing
invalidation in every corner.

Wanting to crawl out of my body
when I see each gender reveal,
knowing that a child may face
disappointment because they
don't identify within a binary,
within a comfortable line
that only points two ways.

We are so much more than
what's beneath our clothes,
than what our birth certificate
reads.

Let us out of this pressure tank
before we combust.

-

Musings from a potentially (still figuring it out) non-binary peep.