International Pronouns Day

I read an old poem out loud to a friend recently. Not an old poem, but one I had written at least two years ago. In the lifespan of my poems, I guess that's still pretty young. Sometimes I forget that I've been writing poetry for a whole decade now. Anyway.

"That sounded like some major dysphoria musings," he said. My face scrunched up. I wrote the poem before I came out, even before I had fully realized who I really am. I had always sort of known, but never let myself know. I went back and read the whole collection that the poem belongs to, and couldn't get my friend's words out of my mind. So many dysphoria musings, like I was walking on a thin line between being closeted even to myself and being ready to scream to the world that I'm trans.

Needless to say, I have a lot of thoughts about International Pronouns Day. My pronouns are he/him/his, but I spent 18 years of my life going by she/her/hers, and two years going by they/them/theirs. What this resulted in was an entire collection of poetry about being a man before I even let myself know I was one.

I have to say, I love the way my brain works. It knew who I am well enough to write a whole collection about it, creating a beautiful archive of my deepest thoughts, so deep I didn't even know I was having them. My brain has taken to retroactively fixing my memories, too. Changing pronouns, erasing the word "sister" and replacing it with "brother." It's magnificent and entirely self motivating.

Maybe I can finally finish that collection.