Myself and I
The first thing you should know about me is that
If I do not get at least four solid hours by myself every few days
I will snap
And the second thing you should know about me is
That I hate to be by myself
I wear lacy bras under my T-Shirts
And boxers under my dresses
To remind myself I am ‘they’
When I was four, my older cousins told me
Being gay meant you liked a boy
'So I'm gay?' My little voice asked
And they laughed at me
Twelve years later, well,
I wasn't wrong
I learned English when I was five
With my white babysitter
I would say Mexico not México
Because my classmates looked at me weird
I'm 17 now and attending the 8th high school ranked in the nation
Where college is an expectation not a choice
But my father quit school when he was 16 years old to work
And my mother
My mother was the first in her entire family to graduate college
Both my parents taught me hard work is everything
But I don’t always listen to my parents
Because no one teaches a six year old that there's no shame in being the victim
When there's all the shame in being an offender
No one teaches an eleven year old kids about abusive friendships
And that being a pushover
Doesn't make them like you
No one teaches a fourteen year old’s
That they're gonna get sad
For no reason
For fifty reasons
Either way it's going to happen
And it's gonna be okay
There's no need to try and kill yourself
No one teaches their kids about the reality of the world
Just that there is one
And that if you play your cards right
Things will fall at your feet in your favor
But that's not true
Sometimes you have no good cards
To offer the game
And your hand
Is full of minority collectables
That are always marveled at
And then overlooked
Six year old me would have been astonished
At how
Introverted and Educated
Pansexual, Gender Fluid, and Independent
I am as an
Anxiety-riddled
Mexican American Woman
With Scars and Depression
Who is trying
To recover
But like it or not
These are the cards I’ve had to play with
My hand is full of Jokers in a game of Go Fish
Blackjack and War
I am branded meaningless
Tossed aside for my lack of placed value
Because that’s how things have always been done
But there's nothing wrong with my hand
Just the game
There's nothing wrong with me
Just society
But to all the six year old me’s out there
Struggling to accept who they are because
The game told you, you had no place
Keep your cards close to you
Do not trade them for something that you are not
Because let me tell you first hand that
Knowing who I am
And what cards I hold
Is the closest I’ve come to
Accepting myself
And that's enough for me to believe
That we can learn to play a different game