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Is This Me?

Gender, in the heat of the moment, can complicate the simplest of things; like a name.

By May FoxPublished 7 years ago 3 min read
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You call out a name

My name

As you thrust deep into my heart

You call out my name

In the most delighted of sighs

And yet I wonder...

Who is this woman you call out for?

I know it is my name

Why does my name

Called out in the most intimate of sighs

Sound so foreign to me?

How is it that I feel I don’t belong

To my own name

That you call out in the most beautiful of sighs

Why does it not belong to me?

In my heart

I know it is me

That you call out for in the most intimate of sighs

I know it is me

So why

Why do I wonder...

Who is this woman you call out for?

Even though I know it is me

It is my name

You call out in a sigh of heated passion

But this name doesn’t belong to me

Yet it is my name

Oh, so foreign to me

It’s the name of my body

That you call out in the most intimate of sighs

This name that is foreign to me

Is not the name of my soul

Afterword:I originally wrote this poem for my high school Creative Writing class. I never submitted it for its meant for a project due to the sexual nature. I felt that the close-minded policies of the school would obscure the meaning because in order for me to keep it as a part of the project I would have changed the content entirely. I was unwilling to do that. No artist should have to stifle their creative voice to appease someone else. I must say that the poem I turned in, in its place, wasn't much better. The teacher should have been wary of it rather than giving it high praises.At the time I wrote this I was struggling with my gender and sexuality. The pieces of myself weren't fitting together to give me the well-formed sense of self I hoped for. After re-reading this poem I discovered that my brain, in the most abstract of ways, was trying to help me fit those pieces together. I was just too blind to the world to realize what was going on. While there have been very many discoveries in my life it is still a work in progress. Nevertheless, I can say with certainty that this was the first account of my gender fluidity.

There are days where I'm female and my given name will fit properly. Other days, most days, to be honest, I'm male where I stare at the person saying my given name with an expression of 'Who the hell are you talking too?...Oh! Wait, it's me!'. It is the surreal sensation of knowing who you are, but the name just not fitting in with everything. When your mind sees you as an entirely different person, but instead of someone calling you by a more masculine name, they use one that is so feminine (and from the 90s no less), it tends to throw you off. This happens to me when I look into mirrors as well. During intimacy, it can be a mood killer, because these questions that just float into your brain pull your focus away from your partner.

In those moments of lost focus, there would be a twinge of guilt. I know millions of others feel that same guilt for the same reason. That is why I wanted to share this poem. No one is alone in these feelings at all nor should they be guilty about them. If your partner doesn't understand, explain it to them. I want people to read this and have a door open to their own self-discovery that helps them have a better sense of self, and feel no shame or guilt.

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About the Creator

May Fox

I'm a fun-sized, quirky college student who deals with their struggles in stride. If it's not Japanese that is giving me the fritz it's my coming to terms with my gender and sexuality. As if my life couldn't get more complicated I have PCOS

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