the way things are

Sometimes I look at myself and everything's just wrong;
I've got nothing where there should be stuff and random bits stuck on
and there's changes happening to some parts as time's moving along
but there's nothing I can do to change the way that I was born.

I don't hate my body, mind, it's been good to me through life
and I know some of it will be fixed with help of surgeon's knife
but I need some help convincing folks I'm husband, not his wife
when my voice betrays me, but to tell them could cost me my life.

And I know I should be grateful to live in the time I'm in
when things are moving forward and I can show the man within
to doctors who can help me to rearrange my skin
(as long as I fit narrow meanings of what 'a man' means)

This body birthed a child who's been my saviour to this day
so I can't wish the body I was given clean away
but sometimes wistfully I can't help thinking of what may
have happened if things had been different had nature not betrayed.

Sometimes I look at myself and wish that I could change
the parts that distress magically, my body rearrange
wish I could make ordinary things that I find strange
swap part-for-part, like some bizarre anatomy exchange.

For now, though, I must watch the change that's brought about by meds
and look to all the things that doctors tell me are ahead
and through the pains of difference there always runs a thread
of hope; that one day I'll no longer be misread

as something I am not and never was despite the way
the papers tell us what we're told at birth is what we'll stay
until that magic moment - 'sex-swap surgery' - they'll say
we're finally the sex we say we are upon that day.

But I digress; for now I'll try to accept this physique
and remind myself I've options now, the future's not so bleak
and write my sadness, rage, and raise my voice so I can speak
so others might find their pain isn't really so unique;

so their pain becomes my pain, and my pain becomes theirs
'cause we're all in this together, and our stories we will share
to lift each other up, to treat each other with such care
and love each other when the world seems just too much to bear.