My Beauty, It Blooms

"Growing Pains" by Jasper Behrends

"Throughout my transition, it often feels like I am mentally transitioned but the rest of my body has yet to catch up to my identity. The sunflowers represent the mental growth and lack of physical growth of my identity."

When I was a 5 year old girl

A boy told me

I looked like a monkey

Jumping around

And screeching with glee

While I tried to conceal

The dark hair already

Creeping like vines across my limbs

I was 9 when my parents

Gave me my first razor

I sat on the bathroom floor

To prune my bushes

Filling baskets with wilted, brown flowers

And decaying leaves

Flooding the bathtub with a sea

Of my dirty insecurities

I was 11

When I switched to sharper blades

And raked this ground barren

Smoothed loose soil over

Looked at this tamed wilderness

And saw that it was good

I was 13 when a boy said,

"You have a better mustache

Than me."

I went home

Painted myself with hot wax

And uprooted those stubborn weeds

I spent most of my life

Attempting to shed

Peel back

My skin

I tore apart my joined brows

Stripped tree trunks bare

Plucked one head clean off

Three more emerging

I think I stopped this self desecration

When I became immune

To the whispers and stares

If I missed my daily 5 o’clock ritual

I couldn’t bare it anymore

After I came out as trans

I decided to partner with my body

Rather than shrink back

From this shell of a stranger

At first, terrifying

To subject myself to such scrutiny

Then, liberating

I dared to wait for my legs

To bud and blossom

For my armpits to erupt

With glorious audacity

My lips to darken unapologetically

Once again

Come into my garden

It’s begging to know you

Catch the scent of wildflowers

Look at this flourishing

Abundant harvest

Eat me as I am

I’ve got so much to show you

Intricate lace patterns

Adorning my skin

Hair creeping like vines

Across my limbs

Cursive written across my body

A love letter to you and me

Some may laugh laying eyes on

“A man in a dress"

Blinded to my beauty

By their fear of vulnerability

They may put me on display—

Monkey, dance!

But their beauty is a razor

It disappears

My beauty, it blooms

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