My Transgender History Follows Me

Our heroine has struggled for years. Fighting through the thick fog of self-doubt and apprehension, battling demons of the soul that rise up to block her divine path and steeling herself while those she once loved flee her presence.

Her body is battered and bruised. Skillfully cut by the surgeons knife her physical wounds have yet to knit and pain dogs each wretched step she takes into the future.

Her spirit is weary with fatigue. The long journey has taken it's toll as her optimism flags and the emotional scars of loved ones lost encrust her heart. She cries herself to sleep at night, on those few nights when rest overtakes her. Each new waking promises a difficult day of sojourn to herself.

Her soul is black and numb. The rise and fall from hope to despair has dimmed the light within. She struggles to see the goodness within others even as her own fades.

She grasps the truth, only to realize it is crawling with lies. Like an overripe fruit, it is too late to enjoy her authentic self now covered with maggots.

My transgender history follows me long after I've embraced the truth of who I am. I must suppress the lie of who I was, lest the faint peace of congruity slip from this present moment. Yet in doing so I usher in the pestilence of falsehood to infect today.

I am caught. Do I deny my transgender history, and lie to those I now hold dear?  Or do I let my transgender history in, and lie to my deepest self?

The words from the Jars of Clay song, Worlds Apart echo through my mind as I wrestle with the challenge of becoming myself without forgetting myself.

I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all ends up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus I collide
With a world I try so hard to leave behind
To rid myself of all but love
to give and die

To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves
more deeply than the oceans,
more abundant than the tears
Of a world embracing every heartache

Can I be the one to sacrifice
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow

To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

All said and done I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me

Did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are
Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart

And I pray
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees, on my knees

I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
and wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
the battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
and serve the ones that I despise
speak the words I can't deny
watch the world I used to love
fall to dust and thrown away
I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
so wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
so steal my heart and take the pain
take the selfish, take the weak
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
take my world apart