My secret life you’ll never know

despite my desire to share it with you.

I want to tell you about my joy

and my friends

and all my adventures.

I want to tell you

how much the electrolysis hurts,

how scared I am to live in this country,

how lonely I feel sometimes.

You joke that

my life is redacted.

Yet you don’t truly want to hear

the things I have to say.

I don’t get to have opinions

or preferences.

You might withdraw

your conditional love

if I stopped playing the role

you forced me into.

I want to lean on you

in ways you’d never accept.

I want to cry on your shoulder

every time I feel afraid

or rejected.

I want your blessing.

I want you to tell me

my grandmother still would have loved me.

That my father would have eventually come around,

I want your support in coming out.

For someone who wants to be needed,

why can’t you see I need you

in the worst way?

I need you to walk beside me

and hold my hand.

I need you to defend me and be my champion.

I need you to be there

when I start HRT,

when I have facial feminization surgery,

when I go through all these exciting,

frightening changes.

But I don’t get to have you

in that way.

So I’ll keep my secret little life a secret.

I’ll be for myself

what you can not and will not.

Your rejection

is just one more flame

in the fire this phoenix is rising from.