My gender feels like an empty wall. The bare bones of what could be, tossed aside and left alone. The paint chipping away like the taunts of who I should be, and i'm desperately trying to redecorate but someone took all the paint. My gender feels like a curtain, forced shut so that no one may know the contents of what makes me, me. Covering it up with a pretty pattern. You're supposed to be that pretty pattern, Jaimie, covering yourself over with the aesthetics they want to see because no one wants to see what's inside, wants to see the mess of the room, clothes and rubbish scattered everywhere. Sometimes my gender feels like an alley way in New York. Barely a second glance to the torn up street, dumping their rubbish on me, leaving me to rot with the rats. My thoughts are jumbled and strewn, cluttering up the dark street of what once was a necessity, instead my thoughts and confusion litter the floor like plastic bags, spilling on to the road where no one wants it. My gender feels like an unwanted Shakespeare sonnet, a jumble of made up words and phrases projected on an audience that came for a concert. The disappointment of not getting what they expected and the confusion of what exactly they're watching. I feel as though they're waiting pummel me with insults and junk thrown my way as a desperate attempt to silence me. I feel like a bad production of twelfth night, only the only person i'm impersonating is who I'm supposed to be. I feel like Zippy, held down and zipped shut so that no one may hear my screams for help, insistence that i'm not supposed to be there. I want to be there, desperately tapping on the other side of the glass for someone, anyone, to hear me, but they don't. And i'm alone.
