Faded

The prompt for this was "You are a kid's imaginary friend. He's growing up. You're fading away."
Based on my own experiences as a trans person, this formed into my mind and I had to write this poem.
Please be warned this has a transphobia trigger warning.

He has always needed me in his life; I’m the one who is strong for him, the one who holds him up.
I am there when others kick him down, and ridicule him, when they tell him the things that aren’t
true; the things that no one like my boy wants to here. I am the one to wipe his tears when he lays
in a pink bedroom, never changed since he was a child, crying himself to sleep as he struggles with
his life.

What do you even struggle with, I hear people ask him, as the days become a never ending blur. You have good grades, you have a house over your head, everyone loves you, people want to be you and
you’re upset? How selfish of you. The words make his tears grow stronger, but only when I am the
single person around him. I hold him in my arms and remind him of all the things he wants, but can
never have.

See, the people around him don’t realise that he has plenty to be upset about. Distraught even. He has
chronic depression, but no one knows why. They don’t understand the pain of having to wear the wrong
school uniform, or to be looked at in the wrong way, or to be terrified to be kicked out of your own
house. To be stuck with this secret about who you are that you can never tell anyone, or risk your life
in the town you live in.

The people around him don’t understand when he frowns at the wrong name, the wrong pronouns,
the wrong life. They’re comfortable in their bodies, and they could never grasp what plagues him,
deep in the night when the days have been rough and the people have been harsh. They’ve never been
too harsh, no no, don’t get the wrong idea. They just don’t know and they can’t know, his life would
never be the same.

So I am always the one he needs in his life, the only one he can ever rely on. The image of what he wants
to look like. Tall, bearded, masculine, instead of his small, petite feminine frame. He answers to she,
when his soul yearns to answer to he. He uses a female restroom, but glances at the men’s as he glides
through the door. He knows that if he did, he’d be yelled at, probably beaten up, or at the least, removed
by security.

One day, I give him the courage he needs to speak out. He finds his parents, sitting at the kitchen table.
They’re laughing and smiling, and he nervously smiles as he sits down. Mom, Dad, I need to talk to you.
They nod for him to continue, their smiles unwavering, and their heads tilted. He takes a breath and he
says it out loud. Mom, Dad, I’m not your little girl. I’m a boy, and I’ve know this for my entire life. I
want to be who I am.

The silence deafens him and then he flinches as his mother stands. You are my little girl, enough of this
talk. You are a girl, you were born a girl. Get off the internet so much, you’re learning bad things. His
father says nothing other than stop being so pathetic, grow up. He slowly stands and returns to his
room, heart heavy. I’m there, of course, sat on his bed to give him support. For once, he doesn’t look
at me.

That was three years ago and now I float here, unmoving. I watch him everyday as he drifts through life,
unhappier each day. He frowns more than he smiles, and his parents send him to therapy. He fakes
smiles and wears his dresses, like the perfect little girl his parents want. He keeps his hair long, and lets
his mother plait it. She takes him shopping for skirts and stocking and he swallows the lump in his
throat.

I faded, that day. The day his parents shunned him. The image of what he wanted to be, the image of
what he needed to be. He couldn’t look at me any more without feeling ashamed, without feeling wrong.
I’m still here though, at the back of his mind, like an old comfort blanket waiting to be found again. And
when he deems the time is right, I’ll be here to encase him in my arms again. For now, he’ll wear the
dresses, and be a little daddy’s girl.