In All Honesty...

…let me thank you.

 

In the hell of your prejudice
I met demons of my making,
and yours, yet I must own them all.
Do battle with your ignorance,
as well as mine.

 

The thousand props and crutches,
the illusions and outright lies
that keep the system going,
that kept me hobbling along
in a false life for forty years.

 

You gave me my courage,
forged it in those hellish flames,
that were fueled 
by all my lost years.
Begged me find my true self.

 

Now see what I have found:
constructed female, imperfect woman,
but real enough to know what I am —
to claim my daughter right.
the right to name myself.