10 Lines for Coming Out as Non-binary to Your Friends

  1. You know how I always say
    I don’t really know how to describe myself?
  2. The truth is that, at all times,
    I am afraid of the weight of my words.
  3. For as long as I have wanted to be seen,
    there has been a disconnect between my voice and its echo,
    and it slowly drives me insane that the two can never seem to match.
  4. I like how you see me.
  5. People call me things that make want to scratch my skin off
    and bite the hand that tries to soothe me.
  6. There is an indomitable jealousy for the comfort that some feel
    in their bodies, in their heads.
  7. I know we all lie a little about how we feel
    in our bodies, in our heads.
  8. Whichever starting line I could have been given,
    I would have been dissatisfied.
  9. This life is about figuring out this ever-changing body,
    how it desires and how it is satiated.
  10. You know I am terrible at being straightforward—
    it’s the same old stuttering fear—
    but all this is to say I don’t want gender:
    I want to borrow it, flaunt it,
    and have it forgotten the second I am tired of it.

Recommendation: Diary of a Mad Black Anthropologist by Siv Greyson.

updatedupdated2025-01-122025-01-12