Coloring Outside the Lines

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Beautiful butterfly emerging from my cocoon and you act blind. 

Precious sense of sight you waste; powerful gift of speech, decays.

I feel invisible.  Challenges and triumphs go unnoticed. 

I am not the butterfly; I am the elephant in the room. 

I miss being a child – all I had to do was exist and you oozed with pride.  

Unrecognizable stick figures and illegible letters and you beamed in amazement 

Santa Claus, Knights in Shinning Armor, fairy tales – that’s what I thought life was. 

Become an adult and the rug is pulled out from under me. 

I want crayons and glitter markers to draw myself back into that fairy tale.

Disappointed by the extent to which you protect your own comfort at the expense of asking me how I am doing.

Will you look back and wish you had been more courageous?

I wish we lived in a world where love meant that we would sacrifice our own comforts in order to stay deeply close to somebody.

But,

Maybe my eyes must learn to see through yours,

To silent courage that still sees me with glitter markers.

Only, I’m coloring outside of the lines now.

Within the infinite space of your silence,

I discover,

There is no distance so great that you lose sight of me.

You know I am a reflection of you, right? 

Reflecting back at you is not embarrassment or discomfort, but the strength you instilled in me.

I couldn’t have accomplished this without that strength.

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“What if you were born and the doctor assigned you the wrong gender?” – Jessica Soukup

I was inspired and moved by Jessica Soukup’s TED talk so I included it here. Every child just wants to be unconditionally accepted and Jessica has bravely articulated what so many transgender people want their parents and loved ones to understand. Understanding is the first step to unconditionally loving another human being in the way they want to be loved.