When the universe was arranged,

All creation from a bang,

Every grain,

Every cell,

Every atom flew out.

And like all matter careened about,

The things I thought I’d figured out

Started to malfunction.

 

A function

Of womanhood

Is being told what a woman should

Be,

What a woman should

Do,

What a woman should

Say

To find a man,

To keep a man,

To please a man,

But what didn’t happen according to plan

Was falling for a woman.

 

I began to feel my straightness falling away,

And rather than despair, I’d say,

“Who cares?

Why should I be scared

When I’m uncovering a new part of me,

Discovering

My bisexuality,

And knowing

That my reality

Is still being formed?”

 

Reformed, I was, compared to my past,

Back when my inner peace was harassed

By thin models and such

Whose thighs didn’t touch

Making me feel that I was too much.

Too much space I took up.

 

My high school mind looked up

To

Those girls who wore a size

Two,

And I imagined if I were that size,

Too,

I wouldn’t be so lonely.

 

Only,

Instead of shrinking,

I started thinking,

Pulling myself from the brink.

 

Lingering on those traits that seemed defective

Carried the harmful effect of

Making me feel unworthy of love.

And above all,

I thought all

Men would call

Me unattractive.

 

Counteractive to my demons of body hatred

Was a women’s college that aided

A questioning

Of my priorities

And a reckoning

With my abilities.

 

My qualities

Are these:

 

With ease I find connections

To apparently disparate sections

Of human thought.

 

I have fought a recurring depression,

But it has given me more affection

For the struggles that cause others tension

In their lives.

 

Knives are no match for my wit.

My patience, I have loads of it.

My honesty, I must admit,

Is central

To my well-being.

 

Seeing how my value

Is no longer in being some guy’s gal, you

Might think, then,

That I now hate men

When, … really?

I learned to decenter

Those influences that would render

Me a pretender,

An imposter in my skin.

A skin

I never thought I’d be comfortable in.

I’ve found solace in

My voyage.

 

My voyage

To acceptance.