Name: 【TED】Lee Mokobe: A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender (Lee Mokobe: A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender)
Uploaded: 2017-06-13T16:08:37.000Z
Duration: 4 min 22 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The first time I uttered a prayer was in a glass-stained cathedral.

I was kneeling long after the congregation was on its feet,

my tiny body drooping  like a question mark

I befriended silence in the hopes that my sin would burn

And in an attempt to reintroduce me to sanctity,

said I could grow up  to be anything I want.

played hide and seek with  what was left of my goal.

The winner to a game  the other kids couldn't play,

tightroping between awkward boy and apologetic girl,

and when I turned 12, the boy phase wasn't deemed cute anymore.

It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts,

who reminded me that my kind of attitude would never bring a husband home,

that I exist for heterosexual marriage and child-bearing.

And I swallowed their insults along with their slurs.

Naturally, I did not come out of the closet.

The kids at my school opened it without my permission.

but I was more boy than girl, more Ken than Barbie.

It had nothing to do with hating my body,

you make it comfortable enough to house all your insides,

you make it pretty enough to invite guests over,

you make the floorboards strong enough to stand on.

My mother fears I have named myself after fading things.

As she counts the echoes left behind by Mya Hall,

She fears that I'll die without a whisper,

that I'll turn into "what a shame" conversations at the bus stop.

She claims I have turned myself into a mausoleum,

news headlines have turned my identity into a spectacle,

Bruce Jenner on everyone's lips while the brutality of living in this body

becomes an asterisk  at the bottom of equality pages.

because people fear that my gender expression is a trick,

that it ensnares them without their consent,

that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands

they'll regurgitate all the parts they did not like.

They'll put me back into the closet, hang me with all the other skeletons.

Can you see how easy it is to talk people into coffins,

And people still wonder why there are boys rotting,

they are afraid of becoming another hashtag in a second

afraid of classroom discussions becoming like judgment day

and now oncoming traffic is embracing more transgender children than parents.

before the trans suicide notes start to feel redundant,

before we realize that our bodies become lessons about sin

Like God didn't save all this breath and mercy,

like my blood is not the wine that washed over Jesus' feet.

My prayers are now getting stuck in my throat.

maybe God finally listened to my prayers.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Lee Mokobe: A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender (Lee Mokobe: A powerful poem about what it feels like to be transgender)

awkward

expression

trick

embrace