Flesh
When you finally get to unwrap the dressings bound around your chest,
Try not to consider this as your first day living as a man.
You have always been man.
This isn’t the first time fingers have pried under tightly woven binder knit against flesh.
When you see the thin, curved scars marking where man met breast,
Imagine the set of claws on the lion that escaped you on that operating table.
His roar sounded like anesthetic-
But this isn’t a story I’m telling retroactively,
No,
I am a god damn fortune teller,
And I see into the future of any young trans guy,
Any beautiful trans woman,
Any “this gender doesn’t fit, why are you making me wear it” person, I see you-
I was you.
I still am you.
Some days, two inches separates flesh from needle,
Man from child,
And it’s funny to think the future of my self worth hinges on a syringe that’s playing chicken with my muscles but-
You have to believe me when I tell you it gets better.
No hocus-pocus, under the table analogy is ever going to help me show you what future lies ahead.
But there is no future lying on a hospital bed-
I’ve seen it,
The only white walls that will surround you are the ones in your bathroom when you finally see the lion your reflection has always been.
Believe me.
Your greatness might be bound in dressings now but I guarantee your story has much more to be told, before the needle, and after the last stitch.
We are the only future that can guarantee our kids safety.
Think about yourself when you were ten.
Think about the difference between you now and you then.
Know how proud you would’ve been if you got to see everything you’ve done,
and everything you will ever do,
Your glory knows no bounds except for the ones you’ve put around yourself.
Your legacy will not ever just be an acronym.
You are part of a generation of inventors,
Movers,
Creators,
Dreamers-
And you are every single one of them,
Kid,
I promise.
We will always be visible.
Find us like lighthouses in your darkest times,
You can spot us by the roadmaps on and inside of our chests that led you here.
We are not all the same,
But we fight for the same cause.
It’s time you start predicting the future.
Before you know it,
You’ll be unwrapping the gauze
And seeing what life is finally like,
Now that you stuck around long enough to live it.