What nobody tells you about transitioning is that the voices in your head take it and run with it. The supposed angel on your shoulder, that uptight little gremlin with its dime-store wings and cardboard halo, tells you to pay attention to the stares, the whispers, the people who pretend they can’t pronounce your pronouns, the people who know they can be respectful but choose not to.
The supposed devil on your other shoulder thinks it’s intimidating, but it’s not, because it looks embarassingly like your Pinterest board. Your relatives ask you questions they could search online, and it comforts you like only a figment of your imagination could. The two clichèd supernaturals have an argument, in front of the all-shattering mirror, in the gendered bathroom that makes you and everyone else feel awkward, in the closet. They tear each other’s hair while, bracing yourself, you cut off yours. You tell your therapist you struggle with internalized transphobia, and he tells you to brush it off, but there’s no way you could take that literally; the voices are yours. You thank your inner voices with an infodump and a quiet smile, and the supposed angel reminds you that all you are is what you think other people think of you thinking of them. The supposed devil reprimands the supposed angel for being confusing. You throw away your dresses and, eventually, they throw away their dispute. You are made of the words thrown like daggers, it is true, but you melt them down and make them shining armor for your new bodymind.

mk zariel {it/its} is a transmasculine neuroqueer poet, theater artist, movement journalist, and insurrectionary anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. it can be found online at https://mkzariel.carrd.co/, creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, writing columns for Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.