Every day I wake up in the wrong body

 

The misconceptions it causes

 

make me feel less like a miss

 

and more like a mistake

 

Our society has created such a small gap

 

between our bodies and identities

 

that every day I choke on the cloud of oppression

 

Struggling for a breath of self-expression

 

I feel as if we all put our binders on one arm at a time

 

until I realize that I’m the only one willing to risk my lungs for the chance that someone might not 

 

assume my past present and future

 

based on a thing that means so little to me

 

I would not cringe if it’s presence lacked 

 

But my body need not apologize

 

for it takes no fault in the fact that I’m tied to the terms mother and princess

 

None of which I am

 

It is that my body means something else to everyone I encounter

 

I tell others I’m not a girl

 

they say “he, man”

 

I say I’m not a boy

 

they give me “he/she, it, “What are you then?

 

Make up your mind! and Don’t try to be special because you’re not”

 

Your life is just a useful as your stupid pronouns

 

People’s eyes seem to be distorted mirrors

 

and I cannot express myself, for everyday it is somehow communicated to me that if my heart 

 

stared into them

 

they would shatter

 

Every night I drift off to sleep 

 

dreaming that no one cares that I am not a man or woman

 

And I wake up

 

in the wrong perceptions