I wrote this poem to write about my journey through transitioning. The garb here is a metaphor for the judgement and mockery that a trans woman has to face, which suffocates and kills in silence. The poem ends with me ridding myself of the garb.

Created by Persephone

Published on Jan 8, 2024

Mental health and wellbeing

Social Issues

person standing with a cloth on their head

Syarafina Yusof on Unsplash

My Translucent Garb

I wear a translucent garb

I’m forced to put it on

I can’t help but notice

Its absence when they’re gone

And in my blissful solitude

I relieve at what I’ve lost

Clandestine, on my bedroom floor,

Enlivened and aghast

I wear a translucent garb

Sometimes it blocks my nose

I then breathe through my mouth

But the air barely flows

The cloth gets in the way

I’m breathless and in pain

If only you left me, if only I was lonely

I’d take it off again

I wear a translucent garb

If only I could not

My eyes are red and bloody

My soul is left distraught

Just leave me in my room

My freedom is my chains

Earned in private, without their eyes

Seeing me as their prey

I’m sick of this fiendish garb

I want to burn it off

I’ll tear it into smithereens

Its tyranny shall stop

I don’t care of what they think of me

What I am or what I’m not

I can’t breathe with this on top of me

I can’t live in this cloth!

…

I killed that blood-soaked garb

I ripped it all apart

Let them see what I can be

In body, soul and heart

All my life, I had it on

All my life, I starved

I tore it off, once and for all

And hence, I am reborn.

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