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#For alll you lovely and beautiful Trans folks who need a reminder of how amazing and courageous and inspiring you are
commanderceleste · 3 years
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The Man that Was, and the Woman she Always Was
Dear Abby:
I have made a habit out of picking flowers. 
Crimson, the kind of red that catches your eye from across the meadow; the kind that bleeds into the landscape surrounding it, yet always manages to stand out; the kind of red that etches itself into the corner of your eye, and rarely fades from memory unless you’re not actively staring or picturing it in a deep corner of your mind. An impossibility you try to pursue regardless.
Pink, with a softness reminiscent of a childhood memory. Bathed in innocence, overflowing with nostalgia. It breathes life and blends with the sunlight, in a lovely shade that is as subdued as it is breathtaking. It moves with the colors of the wind, and kisses your skin the way a butterfly would, if only the bastard wasn’t so hellbent on fleet, fleet, fluttering away, as soon as you even consider the possibility of reaching out to touch it.
Purple so intense it borders on obscene. So alluring and mystifying, you’d swear it’s an unknown shade of neon, yet to be exploited, used to the point of exhaustion. Not quite lilac, not quite violet. Because of course it isn’t. It revels in the incongruency. It mocks, curses and tears apart, in a way that makes you doubt whether it’s an outside-inside job, or the other way around. It’s a seductive force of nature you can’t help but stop and stare at, regardless of the hurricane moving in the background; the monsoon taking shape, wrecking every living thing in its path.
Beautiful things have a way of behaving in such a disinterested, chaotic, untameable way. They dance with elegance that rivals a ballet dancer, dissociating from reality, losing themself in what feels like a small eternity. A blissful pause in the relentless and smug fabric of time and reality.
What do you do when you come across that same beauty in human form? How do you behave? Is it sensible to try? 
Or is it more appropriate to let yourself go?
To go with the flow, and indulge yourself in the swift,  wondrous and destructive gravity that, in the blink of an eye, takes your breath away, with the same ease as one breathes. 
Is desire personified even aware of the havoc and ecstasy it incites? If it was, would it care? Or would that only enable it further?
Beauty is a magical thing, in this indifferent, chaotic and unraveling world. It seeps in through the cracks, and breathes life into an otherwise monotonous, uninspired canvas. It swims across an ocean of mischief and deception, waist-deep in the waters of desire and reverence it pretends not to be. It often feels like a freight-train; a bull chasing its target through the streets, heading downhill, inching closer and closer to the bullseye. A brute object at top speed, uncaring and stubborn as a mule. Not a care in the world. Not a single reason to.
I wish you soon cross paths with the kind of beauty and confidence that I hope looks back at you, every morning when you wake, and gaze at your reflection in the mirror. 
It takes courage to set yourself free of the chains, and see yourself for who you are. It takes an eternity. Or at the very least, it feels like it. It often borders on torture. It breaks your heart, and just when you think you can’t take any more, it takes pause, only to double back and hammer you down harder in what feels like a second later.
When you find a particularly beautiful flower, you have a multitude of options at your disposal:
You can pluck it, break its lifeline, take it into your home. You can water it, try to prolong its lifespan. Truth is, its days are numbered the instant you cut the cord. Not out of cruelty, but perhaps a short-sighted decision you can’t back out of.
You can bear witness, and admire its glow and allure from a distance. Cautious. With fear creeping up your back if you so much as consider to come near it. You become a masochist, wishing you could be near it, longing itching and crawling up and down your spine in a never-ending game of self-induced sadism. 
Or, you can write it a song. A poem. Try to capture a fraction of its beauty in a blank page, hoping to do it justice with something as mundane as graphite, knowing too damn well that you’re running a fool’s errand. When the alleged masterpiece is done, you can only distance yourself from it so much. No matter how much you punctuate, tweak or make the metaphor less awkward, there’s always a sense of restraint. A feeling of inadequacy and unfairness that you can never quite scratch. A feeling that you don’t have enough words, space or talent to capture its magnitude and scale. No way to immortalize the way in which it transfixes, freezes in place, and makes the rules of time and logic to suddenly grow irrelevant and nonsensical, even more than they usually are.
Chances of you reading this are slim. Chances of you finding beauty, comfort or a mere shade of intrigue in its origin and purpose even less so. I can only hope it brings a smile to your lips. A fluttering, warm and cozy sensation in your chest. A fleeting hope that, regardless of what the world may think, or how unfair and uncaring it may be, you’ll always be able to look back to this. This messy, bold and sincere attempt at bringing joy into your life. This genuine gesture, seeking to brighten up your day, and bringing the kind of happiness that you brought into mine when I witnessed you become the woman you were always meant to be. The breathtaking, soft-spoken lady with an accent that turns the roughest of edges and the most hardened hearts down to their knees. 
We’re all fumbling in the dark, struggling to make sense of it all, hoping to have a legacy, miserably failing at remaining unscathed in what often feels like a bloodbath. 
But every once in a bloody blue moon, you find something to make the struggle worth enduring. Something that keeps the pain and heartache at bay. A flower. A shade of color you didn’t know existed. A woman you can’t help but be transfixed by, her inner and outer beauty suddenly making all your troubles fade, the same way morning dew and promises do.
I hope you find the same joy and beauty that you’ve brought into this world, by the simple fact of being in it. You deserve that, and so much more. 
Godspeed, and keep shining on.
Owen.
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