yearning poet

i remember being a child, as early as five or six, wanting to be like the boys. cut my hair short and play soccer or basketball or whatever we had that day in gym class. i remember praying to a god i didn't understand yet that i would wake up with a penis and each morning waking up as disappointed as last time. i remember staring into the mens department while forced to dress shop for my mother's wedding. i remember being trans from a very young age. i came out the first time at twelve, technically. my best friend moved away and when we spoke online, i told her i wanted to be a boy. she called my dylan from that day on, until we lost contact. no one else knew. i came out again in my sophomore year of high school after getting out of a restricting relationship, and used the name aether. i pulled the closet doors shut on myself when he wanted me back. i came out as nonbinary six months before coming out once and for all- i went by danny, or sometimes dane. i shaved my head when i couldn't afford a haircut. ive always known who i am- i was never a woman. nothing will ever change that.

i wish more people in my life understood what i mean when i say i want to start over. i tell them my shoulders ache after binding from wake to bed and that im tired of hearing the name someone else gave me, and they nod along and tell my where they're sore but they'll never feel it in their heart the way i do. i dream of healed scars across my chest and a legal name change and a city where no one has ever known me, but how can i leave behind everyone who thinks they do right now?

When you think about the gay community and especially gay men, your first thought often isn't the issues around hookup culture or the rampant pedophilia, but the longer you're a queer man in the community the more you see it. Grindr allows men the age of my grandfather to pursue boys who have only just turned eighteen, queer boys who haven't even experienced a healthy relationship with another man. Men with smaller bodies who look younger being told their body type looks better hairless in attempts to make them look even younger. Being a queer person comes with so much fear from outside of the community that we often forget the dangers we still need to protect ourself and others from.

ive got what i believe is a date today. the two cutest men in a relationship want to add a third and make it a polycule, and i adore them both- so why do i feel so guilty? do you think i still love my ex? or maybe i believe i don't deserve to be loved? i pray you don't agree with my self loathing. these men- one almost a bear, a cis man with more confidence than i have ever seen, and the other a trans man just as i am- give off nothing just feelings of trust and respect and desire but yet i still feel as though i ought to turn them right around and shout to run from me. i truly hope it all goes well- send me positivity, if you feel so helpful.

i wish it would rain again. i wish the street would flood and the yard would cover with puddles. i wish my knees would buckle under the weight of my clothing soaked through and through. i wish the clouds covered the sky in shades of grey and no light could pass through. i wish the beating of each drop on the roof of my house would lull me to sleep for once. i wish the garden would be fully watered, saturated completely to the deepest roots. i wish i felt whole again.

as ive told you, im a trans man. i came out to my family a few months ago, and my mother reacted so poorly i willingly moved into the home of my very distant and essentially negligent father. this week, ive been staying at my mother's house where i was raised and have been privy to hearing the way she actually talks about me and it's made me realize that since i told her, she hasn't once addressed me as her son- she just calls me her child now. she doesn't use my name unless someone else is around as if she feels the need to flaunt her supposed allyship. she handles the pronouns of others in her life properly; namely by using them. i don't quite grasp why she can't do the same for the son she birthed and raised and claims to love.