On The Fence (+VIDEO)

I’m tired of sitting
on the fence of femininity
and dangling my
hairy legs
over the

edge.

I’ve been in this              tossed-coin region
for a while now,

mid-air,

frozen and

floating.

I am      a moment,
a feeling rather than
a whole human being:

anticipation

for a result,

Because, of course,
I need to pick a side
beneath which label do I hide:

masculine                                      or                        feminine?

But I can only imagine either side
as funeral pyres,
one with pink flames
the other with blue
which we all get thrown into
and
burn —

— no,
branded,

with the voices curled against
in the backmost corners
of our minds,
latching onto the
empty chamber
that echoes
marketing ploys and
implicit societal messages,
until the space is slowly consumed
by useless noise.

In fact, I have realised that
my entire body
is just a sounding board,
it is a map,
dotted with locations I never chose:

married by 30, pregnant that same year, child, house, stable career
carrying the weight of these expectations I do not want to hear.

And I don’t quite know
how to build
out of the ashes left
from either flame.
How do I learn about
something that doesn’t even
have a proper name?

You see, I’m not
male
or
non-binary
or even
100% female,
I would just prefer to be someone,
a person who can carve their own tale:

Unwinding myself from the forest
without quite having to be
Hansel or Gretel,

Waltzing underneath
the inviting evening of stars
without quite being
Cinderella,

A Galetea with
curves sculpted by
my own hand’s rather than a man’s.

I’d be a statue of creativity,
of glee,
an emblem of personality
and what makes me me,
the size, colour and shape of which
had not been dictated by
The Bitch of Inequality.

But there is only so much
us artists can do,
only so many combinations to be made from pink and blue.
Because despite our efforts
in painting over its eyes
society can only ever see two:

An eye for XY,
and an eye for XX.

So instead, I choose to make my home
the nose-line,
and sit defiantly
along – no – on top
of the division,
crushing it with my curves and muscles,
which sing together in a simultaneous harmony.

The line snaps,
suddenly
the fence has broken,
and I am free.