Trigger Warning: This poem is about deep gender dysphoria. It contains references to tucking, self abuse, self-mutilation, sexual abuse, rape, and gender reassignment surgery. It is about my continued effort to sort things out, and to heal.
Thank You, I Want You No More
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Even before the abuse started
I would push you in everyday as far as you could go
And pull the extra skin over you,
Making you disappear;
I would tuck you tightly between my thighs
And hold you there hoping to make it look
Like I had a vagina.
Of course, after they gave me pornography
(Trying to make me a man),
And the other abuses—the assaults, the molestations, the rapes,
I hated you even more.
I abused you and got myself into situations
Where others would abuse you too,
And when I grew pubic hair I would tuck you away
Even more—hoping to make you gone,
I fantasized of removing you myself with a knife.
Yes, years later I got married. Yes, I sired three children,
Yes I learned, to the best of my ability,
To allow you to feel pleasure—but the line connecting you
With my heart and mind would always trigger
A leaving—a drifting upwards into the ceiling
Or else far back into time, or even deep into utter nothingness.
I know, I know, I hear people say to be grateful for what god gave me,
But I look at you like a deformity—something I was born with—
Like blindness or being unable to walk—something that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Maybe it is possible to give thanks
For one’s handicaps, but I have not yet evolved to that place.
No, I do not hate my sons, or men, or masculinity—
I simply want you gone.
And now, the little blue pills
Are causing you to retreat more and more,
And planning for your surgery is utmost in my mind.
I do not hate the idea of you–it’s just
You were never supposed to be there in the first place.
OK. Thank you.
There, I said it.
Thank you for siring my children, thank you for all the times
You let me pass urine, thank you for all you endured all these years,
And yes, thank you for letting them one day transform you
Into the parts I really want. Thank you, I want you
No more.
Please help support my Gender Reassignment Surgery. Thank you. All my love. <3