I thought for a long time I ought to be a boy. Was it something I'd said? Or been told? Was it the way I bent my head, or rather, the awkward way men's hands moved over me? To this day, my stories feature an abundance of gender-confused characters, perhaps to their detriment. Perhaps to mine.
And I, finding in every underpinning of my lace a fault. I thought my life would've been so much brighter had I been a wolf in sheep's clothing. It seemed to me that often, men were beating me at my own game, that while I'd mastered the role of enfante terrible, my ice was growing thin beneath me.
At 17, somebody promised by 26, I'd be properly attractive, and I remembered it just now, walking down the street. Broken promises, forgotten names - have I, in my own absence, forgotten to play as an ugly duckling on that back-of-beyond pond, and how is it that I am still so alien at my core, and know so little of the times and toils of men?
Care, from what I did, much less.
And did that mean I wasn't attractive at 17?
I'm fascinated now by the way men look at me, but I've realized, in a different way from how I used to be fascinated. From when interest always signified some kind of competition and always left me a little blue and useless in my failure to be a better man, I've gone to watching from my side of the water, dipping casually a toe, not throwing the devil a single goddamn bone.
I was never in any doubt of being wanted, but for a long time, I misunderstood what it meant. I thought being wanted must, by right, imply giving heedlessly, and perhaps that's what it meant to be a child for me.
Now, I realize much more keenly that where there's want, there's need. And where there's need, there's a gateway into all the unspoken fragility of what a soul can be.
I've come to understand I don't need to be a stronger man than the men around me, that we're not for a minute playing at the same game, but rather parallel, mirror-games. What I need is just to be, and men's eyes confirm to me daily that it's more than sufficient.
I wonder what's seen by walking casually down some random street. Whether the hug of my hips detracts from the alien misbehaving flicker where my eyes should be. I think, contrary to prediction, I haven't become more attractive as I've gotten older, but have detached. Gradually, at first, only daring tiny, occasional rips, then landsliding all at once, until reaching this here nowness, where very light, improbable strings keep me tethered to the earth and who I'm supposed to be.
I have less trouble with myself being a woman because I've realized since I'm more alien than I realized, and now think about it only rarely, when sleep-drifting across different lifelines. What's the sense in you wanting me when it's ages already since I stopped being real?
