Between Perfect and Real

by Ray Stoeve

I’m more comfortable when I have an extra layer between me and the world.

Most of the time, being myself feels more like acting than theatre does, like I’m perched somewhere far back in my brain, pulling the levers that make my body move: Do this, say that, feel this emotion. Like every other girl got a manual of how to be a girl and I didn’t, like I’m fumbling around trying to figure it out and whenever I think I’m getting close, it all gets fucked up again. Kind of like when your headphones are tangled up and you pull on the end but they just get more tangled. Maybe my gender is tangled-up headphones.

When Ronnie and I came out to each other, it was just a formality. We knew. We saw each other and knew we were family.

Not that I hate my body. There are just parts of it that aren’t what they should be.

On pronouns. She is a barb stuck in my heart; it’s been there so long the pain has dulled to an ache I hardly notice. Except now, when I have to think about it. My mind slides away from he. Even though that’s what I want, I can’t touch it. When I do, I get this electric-fence shock, like I’ve remembered something embarrassing I did forever ago.

The pronoun echoes in my mind, not the stab of she, but something softer, an embrace.

Love is a home I can live in. Even if it’s meant for the girl she thinks I am. Maybe someday it won’t be. Maybe someday the real me can live there too.

Queer. It seems like a stand-in for LGBT, but it’s not. It rolls off the tongue like a sneer, something sly, a subversion of what everyone thinks is normal. I like it.

It isn’t my job to make her feel better about how she’s hurt me, and it isn’t my job to keep quiet so she can be comfortable.

“You know what’s not fair? Mom telling me I should dress differently my whole life. Me and my friends worrying about some jerk attacking us when we’re just out living our lives. Me having to be a girl because no one ever told me there were other options.” The words roll out of me, an avalanche flattening everything in their path. “You’re not perfect either, Dad. You never told her to stop using my given name when you both know I hate it. You didn’t stop her when she walked out. You didn’t stop me when I left.” Tears slide down my cheeks. “Tara shouldn’t have died. You shouldn’t need the suicide of your friend to realize you were wrong.” I break into sobs and flop forward, hands clutched to my face.

I want the life I never got. It’s not fair that I have to play catch-up now, that I’ll never know what it’s like to be seen as a boy my whole life. I would have been a cool guy. I know it. I wouldn’t be Blake, wrestling with my bros and saying awful things to people. I wouldn’t be like the jocks at school. I wouldn’t be the terrible dudes Zoe dated before she came out. It’s not too late; part of me knows that. But another part of me thinks—what if it is? What if I never see myself in the mirror again? I can’t go the rest of my life on glances and moments. I don’t want to live that way. I want the world to see me as the boy I am inside. I want to grow up to be a man. I want to be good and kind and strong. I just don’t know how.

All I can see is breasts and hips, a girl trying to be a boy. Just a tomboy, like people called me when I was a kid.

“There’s always something worse, but is it really productive to compare hurt?

She’s not kicking you out, sure, but that doesn’t mean you have to be okay with what you get.”

“You’re my anchor. Nothing in my life has ever felt as perfect as being with you.” I shake my head. “Perfect isn’t real.”