i am covered with tigerstripes of scars, because that is what it is to become woman (poem)
one of the most fascinating things to me about
the current discourse about gender identity is
the realization that I would have identified
as non-binary had that been an option
when I was young —
as my husband observes, I’m
kind of a crap girl.
my brain never worked that way
being tall I knew I was to
protect the weaker than me
hold doors
walk on the outside of the sidewalk
bigger and tougher meant
it was a privilege to take the rock
or the bat meant for another
more fragile and
smaller than me. The road rash,
the elbow scar from being pushed
into a concrete wall
these were the scribbles forever written in skin
and inches; my role, however clumsily performed:
the cavalier, the knight, the brawler, the
fists in a fight.
Later lessons also left marks….
the pretty shoes leaving shiny pink
marks over the Achilles tendon
the wages of learning to walk in heels
the knowledge that pain
was not to be cried over in public
that blood was to be hidden
and disposed of in the dark
this my role, however badly performed:
the well-behaved woman
ladylike, the demure and
the uncrackable facade.
Inside, an andre norton world
of unbreakable spun-glass alien towers
and flight without wings
and songs that passed mind to mind
drumming of a heart under another sun
another sky
another place altogether.
Had it been an option when I was young, I might
have called myself non-binary
neither man nor woman
neither scar nor cut
stretched and flying in all directions
rather than only one of two
at this age
I have tiger-stripes and crosshatches
and scrawls of scars
both cage and skeleton
a woman keloided
from nothing to
a monument,
an obelisk
a prayer.
