Skin feels like a borrowed coat, ill-fitting, too large or too small. Mirror shows a reflection I don’t recognize, a stranger in stolen clothes. Every touch a jolt, a wrong note in a familiar song.

He, she – words that scrape like sandpaper, leaving raw the truth they can’t express. A constant performance, masking the disquiet beneath. An undercurrent of longing, a yearning for a different vessel.

Exhaustion from the effort to fit, the ache of being out of sync with the world. But in the quiet moments, a flicker of defiance. A whisper, “This isn’t all of me.”

The weight of dysphoria, a heavy cloak. Yet, a spark ignites, a resilience taking root. This is my journey, my path to forge. To claim my truth, one step at a time, under a vast, open sky.