To be Human

I am a girl.

I am born into the waiting arms of my father,

A man,

A man all his life,

And he whispers

“She’s here,

She’s a girl!”

And I am a girl.

And my mother,

A woman,

A woman all her life,

Holds me and whispers

“Hello my girl”, and

It is me.

I am a girl.

I am not a girl.

I am a hermit crab

Collecting pillows and

Couch cushion shells

To cover my soft skin,

I am a hermit crab, and

My sister is a girl, and

She cries in another room until

My mother, a woman,

A woman all her life,

Runs to my little sister

who is just a girl

But I pay no mind to her cries, because

I am a hermit crab.

I am not a girl.

I am a girl.

I am bright and witty and

Probably too kind,

Probably too innocent,

Never blaming the neighbor boys

when their “brand-new” sled malfunctions

And somehow I’m the only one hurt

And I’m robbed of

The only real snow day I remember

And I won’t be called pretty for months,

While I heal,

And I’ll never feel pretty again

Even though

I am a girl.

I am not a girl.

I am a woman now

Apparently.

So my mother says.

And she is a woman,

A woman all her life,

Surely she knows what it means

to be a woman.

Apparently it means

Blood between your legs, and

Your tummy feeling upset,

But not the kind of upset you felt when you were a girl and you had too much ice cream that one time, no,

The kind of upset that says

“Why aren’t you a mother yet?”

Even though I still feel like a girl.

But I am a woman now

I am not a girl.

I am a woman.

I think I am in love with

the first boy who has ever loved me back,

And he says

“If you love me…”

And I do.

And I am a woman,

Or so my mother says —

So the world says —

And I do love him

And I want him to be happy because

I am his woman.

And this is what women do.

Even though I still feel like a girl

I am a woman.

And I regret it instantly

And it takes me months to realize

That what he asked of me

Isn’t what women are for

But how would I know?

Just because

I am a woman?

I am not a woman.

I am barely an adult

and it hits me like a silver bullet

through the chest I never wanted

I am not a woman.

I have never truly been a woman

I was a girl

And now I am something else

And I do not know what that something else is

But that’s okay because it is simply

Me.

And my friend says to me

“I think I am a woman”

And I say back

“I think I am not.”

And we cry together, and

I am not a woman.

I am a woman.

I am at work,

I am at the grocery store,

I am

in an ambulance,

And despite the ‘X’ on my license

I am a woman.

And despite the pronoun pins,

The name change,

The haircut,

The oversized clothes,

The same conversation

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over—

I am a puzzle with the wrong pieces

Unless I pay for new ones, and

I am a woman.

I am not a woman.

I know the color of my soul,

And it is a night sky in Alaska

I have wings in my heart

And they fly out through my mouth

Every now and then

Blood-stained poetry

Soaring across the room,

A truth about who I am and what I am

That not even I know the extent of,

And no one is listening but it does not

Matter

I know at the core of my being

I am not a woman.

I am a person.

I am laying in bed

In a room that is truly mine

That does not reek of trauma and impurity

For the first time,

My lover beside me,

My cat on my chest,

And the reflection of the night light

dancing on the ceiling

Looks familiar

And I do not think about what I am

I know there is no clear definition.

I am a person.

I am human.

I am human.

I am human

And the world is on fire

And I do not wish to burn

like my people before me,

But if I must I will choose

When and how and

I will fill the bomb that does me in

With rainbow glitter,

And my soul will be smeared on the walls of my tomb,

And it will haunt those who would rather forget I ever existed, because

God knows you can never get glitter out of anything.

I am human.

I think I am tired of all the labels now and

I simply wish to

Be.

And some people will make that really hard for me and anyone like me,

But at the end of the day I know this much

And it is nice to know

even this much

I am human.

- Rin Bromagen

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Follow Rin Bromagen (fae/them) here and check out their pinned TikTok, where they perform To Be Human. Their performance is incredibly powerful and truly a work of art — it’s an experience that stays with you.. ♡