"Sugar and spice and everything nice,
Thats what little girls are made of"
___________
That short little rhyme has haunted me since childhood. I often remember when my mother would recite it, when she brushed through my long blonde hair, or whenever I came home covered in dirt. Any time she sensed I had done something inherently boyish, she chastised me with that horrid phrase. Little girls don't play in the mud, little girls don't chase frogs or build forts in the woods. Little girls wear pretty dresses, little girls sit up straight, little girls play with dolls. Femininity became my greatest tormenter, not the girls who teased me daily about my masculine habits, not my mother who pulled my unwilling limbs into dresses and curled my pretty hair. It was the looming cloud of pink that encased my blue heart like a cage.
"Snips and snails and puppy dog tails,
That's what little boys are made of"
__________
I was familiar with the counterpart, the very rhyme that rang through my head as I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were dull and puffy, fresh tears had settled on my hollow cheeks, my once 'pretty hair' hung limply on my shoulders. It was a stranger staring back at me, this was Lucy Roth. She had my eyes and my nose, her laugh rose the same way and her nose wrinkled in disgust just like mine. But she was an impostor, my brain and my heart resided in her body.
In one hand I held the scissors, the plastic handles slippery in my clammy grasp. My bony hands shook and my arms trembled as I raised them to Lucy's curly locks, with one shaky breath, I grabbed a fistful of hair in one hand and sliced it off.
I stared in shock at what I had done, fresh adrenaline ran through my veins at the thrill of it. Overcome by my actions, I grabbed another fistful of hair, then another, and another. I cut and cut until her hair lay messy and short against her head. An insane grin spread across her face, the smile of victory over my greatest adversary.
Lucy was dead,
And Lukas was born.