Elucidating Questions

See there have been times I don’t want to be perceived

But over the last few years I’ve been desperate to be perceived

And someone just perceived me as a they/them

Their dog was interested in me because I had food

I turned around and they saw this

And said “oh I wondered why you were interested in that person”

Instead of her or that woman

My mum still misgenders me

It’s hard

I just want to be anything but a woman or a man

Whatever the heck exists in-between

That something I don’t know how to name

I don’t think there are words for it

Something wild and untameable

Something that exists under Apollo and Artemis’s gaze lifelong

Something always wondering and never sure

I’m not still a youth

Not like that

But there is a part of youth I have never given up on

Something in youth that still glows in me

I just don’t know what it is

It’s the part of me that sees the same scenery over and over and still experiences it as new

It’s the way I still see weather phenomena mysterious and wild even knowing how it works

It’s how I talk to my gods constantly

They’re probably tired of hearing from me

That something in me that I can only verbalise as magic

I’m not what my outside makes me seem like

My outsides are all wrong

It’s hard looking in the mirror sometimes

Knowing some other person is looking back

And the misgendering just reinforces that my outsides are wrong

That the me who participates in this dance daily is not who everyone sees