Dear every boy who asked me out in middle school

I hate to break it to you but I will break your heart

It’s not that you are a bad person

You may be my friend but I’m not saying no to preserve friendship

I’m saying no because I am stuck

Stuck in the closet for both my sexuality and my gender

Stuck with a yearning for a girlfriend

But all I get is a bunch of boys asking me out

And everytime I say no

I break their heart every time

But it’s better than outing myself to my friends

So I break them instead

 

Dear mom

You always say that I will stay your little girl forever

I will never grow up and I will be your princess

But things have changed and I have grown up

Grown into my looks

Grown into my senses

And guess what

I hate the way I look

And I hate the way that my senses make me act

I have grown into the fact that I hate my chest

I want it flat but if I try to bind people will get suspicious

I hate my curves

So I hide them the best way I can

But you hate it when I wear sweatshirts everyday

My senses are saying to flirt with girls

But I don’t know how to come out to you especially

My senses say I want to come out to someone

But I’m scared someone will get mad at me

I don’t want anyone to know that I am not a girl

Especially you mom

Because I don’t want to take your little girl away

 

Dear society

Thank you

Thank you for making me scared to be me

Thank you for making me not comfortable in my own skin

The word faggot is tossed around in lunch rooms

By kids who think it is a funny insult

While I am crying on the inside

Because everytime they say it the way they do

They make me think that it is wrong

That I am wrong and I need to be fixed

Everyone says that someday I will get a boyfriend

That I shouldn’t say that I won’t

But it’s true

Everyone thinks I say it because they think that I don’t think anyone will like me

So I just say that I am waiting for college

That I want to focus in academics

But the truth is that I know and hope someone will eventually

Maybe even before then

It just won’t be the gender that everyone thinks

For some I’m scared that it won’t be the gender that they want

But, I am not the gender that they think

I myself am not what everyone thinks

 

Finally, dear me

Or I should say future me

If you look back at this poem

Or you are performing it somewhere just remember

That you wrote this when you were 13

You are sharing this after you came out

So 13 year old you has questions

How did you do it?

Did you lose any of your friends?

How long were you in the closet after this?

Did we finally get people to understand what nonbinary is?

Does our family realize that we will never have biological kids?

Do they know that they were raising a lie?

But the fact is these are questions that I am sure you still think about

The questions that I’m sure haunt you

The questions that taunt at the fact that you think everyone sees you as a disgrace

A misfit

A mistake

Someone who is just confused

That’s the worst word

Because that one word makes you think that everything about you is wrong

But you are right

And you need to realize that

Everyone needs to realize that

Sincerely the scared and closeted

13-year-old me