There is half-made woman on the TV screen,

She feels she is incomplete.

I trace the curls of her hair with my eyes,

Thinking only that she is pretty.

"He's a dude?!"

Erupts from beside me and I am startled.

"She is a woman." I say.

"With a dick!"

I am too shocked to answer properly.

"Unless she's had the surgeries."

The words sound stupid, but I cannot find the ones I am looking for.

"He's a fag!"

Shouting at the television as if they care to hear.

"She's a woman." I repeat.

"Man, you can't even tell!"

Angry, personally offended

And seeing nothing beyond the labels.

My mouth won't open.

I think I have lost or failed somehow.

"That's sick! She's-- He's a fag!"

Childish, but...

The proper pronoun. For just a second.

Have I won after all?

She is a woman.

i don't get shoved in lockers

i don't dodge left hook punches

i won't flee into my own hearse

i'm not tripping over lunges

but i feel it in their eyes, oh lord

i can feel it in their stare

they feel as though they can't afford

letting Others in their lair.

every glance in my direction

betrays their cliche thoughts

as if they can't see the perfection

of what my heart has wrought.

i took my chisel, firm in hand

carved Self from what was Stranger

and sadly now I comprehend

great art's ever in danger.

though their words are cracks and fissures,

I am stead' with stone and mortar

they'll find my heart it never withers,

and my soul it shall not falter.

So avail my fort with battering rams!

Climb walls with makeshift ladders!

If they're the ones that say I'm damned,

at least I'm made of such that matters.