This free verse poem is dedicated to all transgendered persons.
We Must Be Who We Are
by Barbara Lynn Terry
I have bucked the system that tries to destroy us that are different
My whole life has been lived
showing everyone who I am
even though they would tell me that I need "help".
The only "help" I need
is to have this birth defect surgically removed
so I can be complete and whole.
We cannot live the lives of everyone else
but if we give in the fanatacal right
Then we are living their lives,
and not our own.
We are the architects of our destinies,
we are the builders of each and every dream
that we struggle to bring to reality.
We are the ones who have been given
no choice in who we are
and that is why we must
live our own lives
and not the ones that are dictated to us.
Comments
Unfortunately
That isn't how it is with most of us. By the time we realize where we are, it is too late.
The lucky ones understand early. My first clue was when I was 13, but there would have been nothing I could have done about it. The support wasn't there, and frankly I didn't really understand my feelings enough to articulate them. My parents were good people, but they would not have understood either. The internet offers vast gobs of information that simply wasn't there when I was a kid.