Trans Transient Transcendence

It's not easy being a transgender transient. It takes work to have style on the streets, and even then the most I can accomplish is a sort of hobo chic but if you have a problem with me you can derelick my balls.

It's not easy knowing I could hide in wasp's clothing, hold an occupation serving in glorious serfdom, shut my mouth regarding the pain and corruption targeting minorities who can't hide like me in a hive caked not in honey but in silence. I can pretend I am just the same as all of them, receive a certified assurance of security for the all time low price of my liberty, 50% off today only.

It's not easy feeling too ashamed sometimes to admit I woke up under a bridge today, thankful to god to be there because I've been caught in the rain, the snow and the cold before, not sure if I'd make it to morning or give in to exposure. But if I tell you, you'll ask me why, why do you do this to yourself? Clean up, get a job and an apartment so you can barely afford rent on a box that sits vacant. Why do you do this to yourself? Get some bills, get a debt, pay some taxes, there's a war happening and we can't terrorize civilians without your help. Don't do this to yourself! Have some self-respect. Serve some fast food, the industry's striking so they're sure to hire you. Seek treatment, find a program, you must be insane and on drugs to sleep in the rain. Why do you do this to yourself?

What do I say? No, I'm not on drugs, I just smoke weed but you better be crazy to survive a day here. There's nothing rational about the spiritual castle I erect out of magic to cancel the cold and the wet, the lonely and dark, frozen near dead with miles ahead--I'll get there even if my carbon can't make it because I'm crazy enough. I bring safety with me when I travel and I place it wherever I sit like a paper weight lantern whether I'll get fucked with or not. I don't give a shit. I know my rights and they weren't given to me, they aren't written like laminated privileges, my ancestors stole my freedom, they turned themselves into citizens.

You can hate me but I swear you can't hate me more than I dared to the night I finally understood why it only feels like I'm in a costume after the time comes to resume wearing male apparel. Maybe no one else cared but I felt greater fear than I knew how to bear so I buried the feeling that I was living in error. I carried more fear of wearing mascara than spraying a payload of mace at the tweakers that told me to walk away so they could scar lessons on my friend’s face. I refused them. I pulled out my mace, I aimed for their eyes, they took in stride and pulled out their knives and you must be wondering how running from two monsters fueled by methamphetamine for so long your body’s been reduced to adrenaline is less frightening than presenting as a woman but there’s a distinction between putting on polka dots and realizing everything you thought you believed in was false. They could only kill my body. I had to release a fictitious identity.

So I fought back the tears. I shrugged off the pressure, and no weapon you brandish could hurt any worse than the club I erected with my own self rejection to batter and beat myself in my sleep. I hit harder than those skinhead thugs did the night they broke my nose and chipped my teeth and tore out my hair and told me to get on my knees. They told me to grovel and plead. But I refused them. I told them if I'm going to die tonight, I die on my feet. The truth is you can't scare me more than I dare to. I bring my own terror. My nightmare's alive and breathing my air repeating a curse to convince me I don’t deserve to be here.

My mother says I'm incorrigible. To vacate feeling responsible because I wouldn't let her control me she concluded that I'm simply not correctible but if I were incapable of improving I wouldn't be breathing because it's a lie that life gives nothing you can't handle. The truth is to live through this bullshit that floods through existence we must evolve into unrecognition. I used to be an arachnophobe. By the third time I caught lice, I found spiders adorable but I still won’t cut my fucking hair.

Does this make me stubborn? Am I incorrigible? Maybe. Maybe my mastery is alchemy and I'll transform right in front of you. Maybe I have to because some younger version of myself is sitting somewhere licking a pistol lollipop wondering how many licks it'll take before things finally taste sweeter.

I know it isn't easy being one of nature's experiments, but you're not a mutant and your experiment can only fail if you let fear conform you until you've grown identical to the control group. I know I can hide in wool clothing and pretend I don't suffer with you but I won't abandon the lantern and leave you with no one to show you--I don't even know you but I know this much: happiness has nothing to do with lying to yourself.

I'm not perfect, I never will be but you can't judge me more than I judged myself. I stole my own joy deceiving myself into believing that face blinking back from the mirror was supposed to be growing a beard and broad shoulders and look hard and rough and all scarred up. I live the regret knowing I built barriers with black magic to protect the part of me I couldn't love yet while a testosterone brush coated the fertile earth of my body with a parking lot crust because I couldn't find my courage early enough. But I'm calling my bluff. My goal is happiness and I’ll send my fear screaming. The cement is giving to self-respect seeds, the concrete is splitting and beautiful things are spilling from me.

I may not be a real man like you, but that's because to you manhood's a prop to make you finally feel powerful. There’s nothing superior about having testicles. You use it to hide yourself from your cowardice so you call women bitches because that way at least you can subjugate something. I call last night my bitch because it tried to destroy me and I still woke up under that bridge. It doesn't matter how, I woke up. I carry a lantern called manhood, my father gave me the tools in my attitude to protect what I love from being misused or disposed of, from being caught in the cold and the wet. Fear may be breathing your words and stealing your air but I'm still here and I'm not giving up yet.

And if I’m not a real woman like you, I won’t be offended. Maybe you can’t stand it knowing this poser is prettier than you. If your judgment defined me, that’d make me your object and no real woman allows others to assign her own value. You don’t have to be perfect, just respect yourself enough not to project your own self contempt or I’ll be required to call you an “it” because no real woman takes shit. Real women are resilient, that gift from my mother she mistook as my stubbornness. Real women see spectrums, not dichotomous categories. A real woman is whatever the fuck she wants to be.

It's not easy being transgender but your skin is only momentary, your personality's imaginary and your conditioning is voluntary. A human being is not computer code. Your gender’s binary because you've been taught to believe in things that divide and conquer you. Truth is what you choose. You can stop playing by them when you don’t like the rules.

It's not easy being transient but the only reason for your system to be monetary is to scare you from throwing out your batteries, taking off your training wheels and stepping out of boundaries to find where your true power lies. It doesn't matter what the facts describe. Only your attitude can hold the light. Put it to the test and you can show the rest how to defeat the things that want you to cower and plead. Show me because sometimes I'm still too scared to be free. Show anyone that wants to stop you, show them they can kill you but if they kill you, you die on your feet.