Ovipositor

– This is a poem about dysphoria I felt in high school and how it returns to me sometimes,
even post transition. It’s about my past, present and my future. Its one of the poems I have tried to get into a poetry journal without success. I search for feedback on how to make thing better.

0. Ovipositor

It’s like a ovipositor

It’s not one thing or the over

It looks like them

The ones who have made me cry, alienated me from myself

1. Wasp

I’m like a wasp

All the hive is buzzing

All of them busy grey things in this nest

I’m trying to be like them

Trying

I’m doing the same things

I’m wearing the same full body grey suit

I’m helping with this grey mass we build

Mud, it’s so perfect a metaphor for my life

I’m like the sunshine on this mud

Heating it, hating it, making it solid

Into more hive

Strife, in a hive is dealt with quickly

I’m not sure why I wasn’t

They did that thing, the attack

The strike

The clipping

I’m not sure I can fly anymore

But they didn’t kill me

Like all the others

Ovipositor

I’m sure of it

2. Hive

On this day

This hateful day

Our grey bodies

Ready to go outside

I’m stuck in hear, in my mind at least

Leave the hive, but not really

I’m still grey

3. Cave

It’s dark

Cliff above us to the outside

One of them

Those others that pretend that I’m one of them

They drop a knife

It falls millimeters from my head

Anyone else see it?

That I was nearly dead?

Nope

I’m told to take the knife back

All the way up the cliffs

Carry the weapons of my enemies

I’m broken inside

I’m dead inside

I’m never going to escape the grey

4. Hyena

I’m in the library?

Not a wasp right now

I’m a reader

Reading about a hyena

Vagina that’s like mine

I’m a hyena?

I’m not, but I am

My piece, my bit feels like that

On the outside it looks like

On the inside

In my mind

It’s not

5. Escape

I’m out of the hive

Not in grey

I’m out

I’m me

I’m no longer pretending

But how long?

How long was it before?

I was outside

Still in their grasp

Like a dog?
6. Dog

I’m trained

I’m trying to be them

I’m pretending

I’m also trained

Like me, barking, sniffing, digging, pissing

But secret, shhhh I’m not. I just pretend

I’m not a good barker

7. Ovipositor (2)

I’m not pretending anymore

I still have my ovipositor

But I’m me

In many ways

One day, one day I can

Be all me

All I want to be

For now?

I’m as me as I can be

Ask me and I will say so