I.
Do you know who you are? Really, truly, see yourself.
You don’t know how to perceive yourself truly without poetry as a vehicle for expression. As a transgender person, it’s nearly impossible to exist in each moment without being aware of yourself—dreading the view of the mind and body that others see beyond your control.
You are both scared of writing about your person and drawn to it in one. Poetics mirror transitioning tauntingly; you cannot escape the vulnerability in perception. Writing has always been an outlet, but putting words to feelings means confronting and announcing said feelings.
Are you ready for those kinds of eyes?
II.
You must learn to reacquaint your mind with your body when a second puberty begins to sprout. Like poetry, this transition spreads and impacts every part of your adult life. Your mother asks if you really need to use a writer’s pseudonym when being published; binding your chest is tense like a sonnet; conversations edit in real-time, searching for the correct adjective to describe you.
You begin to imagine your life like a sestina—cyclical but fluctuating—and you wonder what words you’d find repeated down the page: bind, sore, cry, shout, raw, real. The words sound crude and melancholy, but that couldn’t be more wrong in your eyes. The variation and room for expansion with those words are frankly exciting. The tension, the volume, the destruction, and recreation all feel like home—something you never thought you would feel in this way.
III.
The most noticeable changes three months in:
The voice in your writing reads different. You’re not sure if it’s the word choice or the decision to write anger into your poems, but there’s a deeper base. Something is hitting deeper in your chest, much like the vocal cords warping in your throat during conversation.
There is a hunger. Every other day, you say you can body a rotisserie chicken / you say you can perfect five sonnets in an hour. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach, but the drama of appetite is what gives the feeling of satisfaction.
There’s desire. You don’t know how to put it pleasantly or in a way that doesn’t ruffle feathers. You need the syllable count and repetition of a duplex to tie you back and let you writhe. At any given moment, you could explode with poetics / explode in erotica.
What this means is you are learning yourself. You ask again: Do you know who you are?
Slowly, you begin to find that answer, you begin to find yourself. And the best part: you’re only three months in. Think of where you’ll find yourself on your literary journey six, nine, or twelve months from now.
The transgender poet.
Doesn’t that make you want to live?