I twirl my hair like I’m making candy. I pull it out like I’m made of metaphors. I’m biting your tongue. You’re biding my time. Years of miscommunication, disparate conversation. I down another disappointment and build another boundary for greedy hands to push and for me to cower behind.
I am caught in between, or rather, I exist there comfortably. Wedged in, or rather, nestled, right where I was born. Some don’t see me as whole. Others see me as a hole—in their ideology.
Pregnancy tests. Ultrasounds. Gender reveal parties. Maternity shopping. Childbirth. On the day we take our first breath, a clinician typically lifts us in the air, does a speedy examination, and pronounces our sex.
My body is intersex. And no, that does not mean that my body is broken, abnormal or diseased. Still the context of my body has been defined and rewritten in and out of existence so many times that I don’t know what it is or where I stand.
Enter I*
Into my life.
I, Imagine,
I—Myself—Me.
In a world where I can be,
I*
and I don’t have to try,
To fit in places
where
I
do
not.