Identity

First I was a human baby.

But not to long after that I was-

Girl

I was dressed in pink and my name ended in an “a”.

Next there was “girl child”

With skirts and dolls,

I learned about drag

By turning Barbie into a parachuter

Mom and Dad told me to stop climbing trees

Later, when I learned colors,

Green, blue, red-

I learned I was another thing;

White

I learned about this nice guy named Jesus

And his mean father God

My parents told me that I was

Christian

Then there was “student”

And I was told how good I was at English

The A’s in math were glossed over

I did like to read

The first identity I took-

Book-worm, smart, geek

Nerd

Ignore the perfect spiral I could throw

Then there were the throes of puberty

My body rebelled,

And I developed things-

Boobs, hips, blood,

And a new word was pushed on me

(As true as it wasn’t)

Slut

I thought about who I was

And who I wasn’t

And choose my labels for myself

Agnostic

Feminist

Smart

Opinionated

But, From everyone else

I am still

Girl

White

Christian

Nerd

Slut

And I never got back my first label

Human