Today is a first for this blog. I would like it to have been more, but my new friend Sarah is modest and not quite ready to introduce herself to Blogistan. I am going to keep working on her on your behalf, because I am sure that she has thoughts on our condition that would benefit many here. I will just add that in our few exchanges of ideas via email I am learning more about myself.
So, while this is not quite a guest post, here is a poem by Sarah Thompson. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and perhaps with a word of encouragement or two we might hear more from her soon.
Halle
My imaginary friend
As children we cohabited quite happily.
One body, harmlessly male.
Sometimes I confused my mother.
After puberty it became impractical,
'She' became an exile.
Gently, persistently, demanding repatriation.
"Let me free, now".
In a house of girls it was easy to comply.
Dresses, skirts, tights...
She gave me a pleasure in sensual things,
Sharpened my sense of the absurd, made
any self-confidence feel distinctly false.
I buried her for 30 years, but she never gave up.
Waiting until the hormones weakened.
Until I was freer to be 'myself'.
She returned subtly, never attracting attention, just another
weed in a rich chaotic garden. Always rewarding me.
But she was ruthless after decades of neglect.
She assimilated each victory
Incrementally redefining normal.
Bangles, necklaces, handbags...
'He' was helpless.
He longed for me to dominate him,
I was patient but relentless.
That male surface, those millimetres, are just a shell.
Functional, a legacy of times past.
I made myself comfortable inside.
His attempts to deny me were pathetic.
I took his concentration, his awareness, his remaining confidence.
I drew, locked, his thoughts increasingly into my loop.
I gave him imagination, lightness, and warmth.
He enjoyed being female.
He yearned to submit.
Hair, mascara, nail varnish....
Between my legs just a foreign scrap of flesh,
After a bath I covered my breasts.
I learned to move freely.
The walk, the hands, the way I held my head.
I desired to be desired.
He clung on, acting for his life,
clinging to old habits.
But the battle was won.
The end was so easy.
My reassuring gentleness inundated defences as soggy as cardboard,
And the drowning man gave up.
So now there is just me.
What a heartwarming way to write a mini biography.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely lovely! Sarah has a way with words that's both beautiful and thoughtful. I hope you can convince her to share more.
ReplyDeleteThanks Halle for sharing your friend's beautiful words with us. Please encourage her to write more.
ReplyDeleteHugs, Elly
Halle,
ReplyDeleteThanks for introducing Sarah to us and sharing her wonderful words.
Hugs,
Peggy
Dangit, now my eyes are leaking again. That was wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI have been listening to "Calypso" from Suzanne Vega's album "Solutude Standing" lately. The line in the poem about a drowning man hit home. Hard.
Sarah
Hi Halle,
ReplyDeleteThank Sarah for sharing and tell her that she has a ready made group of followers just wiating for her blog.
Usually the poetry form doesn't do much for me, but this pulled me right in. Very evocative of my own experience.
ReplyDeleteThanks for those comments. I'm new to blogs and so don't know the rules. But let me say that the poem describes one possible resolution of my 'breakdown' last year, but I decided to preserve the male side, and jumped off just a few lines before the end. These days, while sympathising with the person at the end of the poem, I'm much closer to the 'manifesto' on Halle's facade page.
ReplyDelete"Until I come up with a better plan, my goal is to be as true as possible to my feminine nature, while presenting as a male...."
I'm still 'work in progress' and this makes me prefer one-to-one communication at the moment. If anyone wants to talk, my Email is sarahthompson2011@hotmail.com
(I've forgotten the spurious gmail account I set up to add to Halle's blog the other week, so this will have to be 'anonymous'. Only Sarah could be so incompetent?!)
Interesting that this line, bout the the drownng man also caused me to reflect. For me it was very long ago, but I tried to remember what it was like when I finally gave up the struggle to be someone I CLEARLY, was NOT, and just submitted to allowing myself to be who I just WAS.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally gave up and just let myself BE, I found that "I" was STILL, "ME". The female "me" was not that much different from the former me, just much happier and genuine.
Thanks for posting this, Halle. Sarah is a writer and I suspect it is only a matter of time before we see a blog from her.
ReplyDeleteI recall reading a number of poems, such as Sarah's, in the book, The Uninvited Dilemma - A Question of Gender. All were written by transsexuals.
Calie xxx