She Is Encased in Amber

There is a part of me who so carnally wishes that I was a little boy when I was young. One of the lucky people who knew there was something wrong with them early on; one of the lucky ones that had years of evidence to back up their claims in their tonka trucks, mud covered faces, and baseball gloves. Who had given hints to those around them and themselves for years, so that it wouldn’t have been such a surprise. 

But there is something precious in growing up as a little girl and becoming a man. There is something sacred and special and tragic in putting that little girl to rest in her grave full of flowers, never expecting to see her dead until the hands of a new man lowers her body down. 

There is no violence here. 
There is only a bittersweet departure, and a rebirth.
An insect shedding its exoskeleton to become larger, older, evolved.
Leaving its shell behind in its grave full of flowers.

The poetry and pain within this kind of transition is beyond those lucky people. To tell everybody that you knew all along and to give those warning signs and to prepare them for the truth is a sort of privilege I will never possess. It is much harder to tell them that there were two of you; there was her, and now there is him. There is an expectation that it was always–should always have been–him; but within that is a deep injustice for that little girl.

She is a fossil I keep in a box under my bed. 
She is encased in amber.

Sloane Gray is a transgender man studying English Language and Literature in university with aspirations of becoming a teacher. He writes largely about his experiences with transhood and sense of self. 

A Song for Sloane