The Inside

Boy

I used to wear dresses and play with dolls

While wishing I was playing in the mud.

I used to go shopping and wear lots of pink

While wondering what boxers would feel like.

Now I know what I am, I don’t question for a second.

But everyone else

What do they see?

I look like a boy through and through.

Everybody calls me he at first.

Then I talk to them.

My voice is high.

They notice something is up

And they apologize

And I die a little inside.

“May I go to my locker?”

“Yes, ma’am, you may.”

Can’t you see I’m a boy? Are you blind?

My full name… what boy is named that?

Mother, why? Why label me this?

There’s a boy, locked inside a girl’s shell

And he’s lost.