When I was a kid I would sometimes secretly call myself Andrew,
would tug at the crotch of my pants the way only pubescent boys do,
ran around pounding on my bare chest like Tarzan.
It’s not that I thought I’d grow up to be a man;
I just never thought I’d grow up to be a woman either.
From what I could tell neither of those categories seemed to fit me.
But believe me, I knew from a very young age never to say,
“Hey dad, this Adam and Eve thing isn't really working for me;
I mean, what about all the people in between?”

In the third grade Lynette Lyons asked me where all of my Barbies were.
I lied and told her I got in trouble so my mom took them away.
I didn't dare say, “Barbie sucks, Lynette!
And for that matter Tommy, so does GI Joe.”
I wanna grow into something none of us have ever seen before.
And gender is just one of the ways we’re boxed in and labeled
before we’re ever able to speak who we believe we are
or who we dream we’ll become.
Like drumbeats forever changing their rhythm
I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday
and tonight I will borrow only pieces of who I am today
to carry with me to tomorrow.
No, I’m not gay.
No, I’m not straight.
And I’m sure as hell not bisexual, damn it.
I am whoever I am when I am it,
loving whoever you are when the stars shine
and whoever you’ll be when the sun rises.
Yes, I like girls.
Yes, I like boys.
Yes, I like boys who like boys.
I like girls who wear toys and girls who don’t,
girls who don’t call themselves girls,
crew cuts or curls or that really bad hair phase in between
I like steam rising from the body of a one-night stand.
I like holding hands for three months before kissing.
I like wishing your body was Saturn,
my body a thousand rings wrapped around you.
You wanted to be a Buddhist nun once.
Last night you held my cervix between your fingers.
I thanked gods I don’t believe in for your changing.

Tell me we’ll be naming our children beautiful and nothing else.
Tell Barbie she can go now.
Tell GI Joe to put his gun down and find a boyfriend,
or a girlfriend,
or a girl/boyfriend.
Fuck it, GI Joe just needs a friend, y’all.
I mean, he’s plastic,
and not even the kind of plastic that bends.
I want to bend in a thousand directions,
like the sun does,
like love does,
like time stopped
so the hands of the clock could hold each other.

And we held each other like I held these words
for too many years on the tip of my tongue.
I am my mother’s daughter.
I am midnight’s sun.
You can find me on the moon
waxing and waning,
my heart full of petals,
every single one begging:
love me, love me, love me,
whoever I am,
whoever I become,
love me, love me, love me.