An ultimatum stood at my door
And greeted me so fondly
To the tune of my thumping heartbeat.
“Live as I seem or die as I am.”
The words had reverberated in my skull and rattled my bones—
Sick with grief and mourning
Of a life never lived,
A lick of air never tasted on the tongue of a new man—
Not man-soon-to-be, or transsexual, or Pinocchio without the splintering of wood but of words,
That scar my treacly heart,
That would better beat being born of another,
Without the tack-tack-tack of a dull toothache,
Soothed by morning (mourning) migraines, or piercing stab of the mirror you avoid,
If not only to ignore the cavity but the caveat of a sorrow sight sought by seeing the sores gap,
Or stain of black mold
That seeps into the other aspects of life,
Rotten tooth, rotting.
Rotten life.
The ultimatum greeted me once more with a jolly hello on a Sunday morning
(After Saturday night was such a wonderful night)
Ever persistent, like church-going evangelists,
The knock-knock-knock
Similar to the beating of a batter to beat broken, bruised boys,
Yet a boy was not who I was (to the eye)
But what I sought to be.
Surely the movement door-to-door, or to move preaching lips, mimics the migration or change in oneself—
To them, as enlightenment.
For myself, a step down where the fire crackles,
Even as the tide crashes below.
Pitchfork points dig into my heel.
I’ll take the grueling punishment,
Cast into the bowels of the earth,
And pecked by the birds.
So give me that oldtime religion,
It’s good enough for me.
The ultimatum met me atop a bridge and greeted me,
Gun to my head.
“Fall back as I seem or pull the trigger as I am.”
A coup de grâce.
The ocean lingers at a standstill as the gun cocks,
Waiting to exhale.
Unlike the earth,
With my heart’s final pang,
I don’t end with a whimper,
But with a bang.
Author’s Note:
I wrote this piece after feeling really bad about being trans and all the stigma around it. But I hope this isn’t seen as a negative poem – it’s about choosing to be who you are even if it’s hard. That’s the important part.
Toby Adams | 16 | South Africa | @_toby.adams_ on Instagram
