I look along the splintered wood of faux halls and melting faces, burning candle wax and bare, wooden beams, praising a man we’ve never seen.
If he were real, if He were real, I’d beg him to strike me down.
I am the daughter laid to rest, sleeping in her unmade sheets; I am the son you never wanted, but the sun you always had—and I have wept, and I have wept.
I wonder if you would have loved me more if I were always your son, but now I have learned it doesn’t matter.
It will never be less bad, but it will be easier to hold, less to weigh, as I examine the fractured mosaic and hold it close to my heart, and I know I will look back in shame, but understand,
I am not kind and I am not sweet;
I will speak and move and live like a man that was born a girl—and you cannot change that. I am the girl left behind and I am the boy finding her again. I am the amalgamation of splintered, fractured light you shine on us, always us.
