Falling Out of Love With My Body-- Or, a Coming Out Poem

Falling out of love with my body

happened slowly,

and then all at once.

It was like,

growing up,

loving my slurred speech

and my broad shoulders

and my wide ribcage,

and these monstrous feet.

And then, slowly,

you wake up one day, and.

Nothing fits.

It's like this:

my hips grew wide,

and my lashes long.

My breasts developed,

i bought my first thong.

I developed acne,

my hands stayed petite,

my height seemed stunted,

I ruined my new sheets.

I started to understand that i didn't love my body

the same way as other girls.

The things I loved most,

were considered my greatest flaws.

I kept growing,

kept living,

kept hating this body,

put on 50 pounds,

Hated it more.

And one day,

I woke up.

Looked out my bedroom window--

knew, somehow, that I'd been wrong.

See, I don't need to imagine

waking up in the wrong body.

The wrong gender,

the wrong shape,

with the wrong voice and the wrong name and everything just being so

wrong, wrong, wrong.

It's like this:

I spent every moment of nineteen years waking up

in the wrong body.

Day and night.

Someday,

i hope to write a poem

about waking up

in the right one.