Seeing The Light, For The First Time

Just realizing how much I hated to wear male formal clothing.

How could I be

So blind and stupid

Not to see it

Before now?

Given my feelings

Towards wearing

A suit and tie.

Of a condemned prisoner

Being led away

By a noose

Around the neck

In a dark coloured straitjacket

To the gallows.

A dreaded ritual performed

Every Sunday morning

When mom took us

To church.

Until my teens

When things changed

For the better

As far as

I was concerned.

Or

When mom decided

A new family portrait

Was needed

For that year's

Christmas cards.

Which I protested

In a losing battle

As mom laid out

My "Sunday's best"

Upon my bed.

Didn't she "see"

How uncomfortable

I felt

Dressed

As a male?

With the suit jacket

And tie

First things tossed

Whenever possible.

Or my uneasy

Inside a Christian church

Where I felt like

A blasphemous intruder

Walking on hallowed ground.

My soul melting

With each step

Inside.

Author's Note

One of the first things that I did, during my transitioning, was to donate all male dress-clothing to a pair of dear and kind transmen, who helped me, right after I came out to my mom. As for the Christian Church, I haven't been back in one, since November 1998, with my dad's funeral, except to visit the occassional foodbank.