How are you?
Besides frilly and heavily gendered, I mean.
We've known each other a while,
Ever since my aunt declared
I would look simply darling
In pink with ringlets
And I wondered why someone
Would ever want to be darling
When you could be witty.

Even though you're just a piece of cloth,
I always felt like you were wearing me.
You had all of the control
And used it to scream from the rooftops
"SHE DOESN’T  BELONG!"
Needless to say, we've always had a rocky relationship.

In a dress, I'm perpetually the before  photo
Legs marred with years of clumsy mistakes
Arms locked across my chest
A graceful curtsy to me as foreign as not spending my childhood in the woods


You were a mask I used to appease,
A forced smile and twirl for my grandma
Was sure to earn me squeals of
"Oh, you look so pretty!"

But what was so many girl's dreams
Quickly became my nightmare.
Because, frankly, dresses,
I don't know what to do with you

No matter how gracefully I strutted in heels
Or how perfectly my hem flared
There was a nasty little gremlin sitting on my chest
Constricting my breathing
Muttering into my ear  , "You aren't a real girl, now are you?"

If I wear a dress and converse,
I stick out like a sore heel stuffed into wedges
If I do my hair, makeup, and put on heels,
I teeter above everyone like a poorly made-over baby giraffe
If being a girl is art, dresses, I'm still finger-painting

I'll nod to the Michangelos,
Cheekbones sculpted, lips glossed
But I'm happy with my finger-painting,
Face and hands smeared in innocent color
Willingly oblivious to what the world wants me to be.

I guess this letter
Is a roundabout away
Of saying something very simple.

Even on our very first meeting,
When I squealed and jumped around with the other girls
I was holding my breath
Waiting for the aching embarrassment
To stop pacing my ribcage.

Even at my brother's graduation,
I was smothered by pink taffeta
I was choking on glitter.

What I'm trying to say is,
It's not you.
It's me.
Because me really hates you.
Goodbye, cinched waists.
Goodbye, strapless shoulders.
Goodbye, heels.
Goodbye, years of hating myself for who I was trying to become to make everyone else happy.
Goodbye, dysphoria.
I am not less female without you, dresses
I'm simply more me.