by H. E. Casson
(CW: Gender dysphoria, anxiety)

I stumbled across a poem I wrote a full two decades before I was open about the queerness of my gender. I sometimes feel like I was leaving myself breadcrumbs so that when I finally realized how lost I was, I’d be able to find my way home. This is one of those breadcrumbs.

For folks using text readers:

The clothes, they feel wrong
But the fault’s in the wearer
In terror of being
Exactly myself
With the clothes
That I chose
From the piles on my shelf
I’m pretending I’m someone I’m not
Someone else
Someone normal
And happily lost in the crowd
When I’m lost in this shroud
In this lie
Over-false
Truer walls around feelings
That don’t match my pulse

And I’ve twisted around
From the me I should be
That even my clothes
Have rebelled against me

Saying, “There are some things
That we have to discuss.
For we’d rather you naked,
Than fake it,
With us.”

Shared on Twitter in 2020

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