the rose vine – “I Go by She”

“I Go by She”

I wear sunflower dresses

and draw black triangles on my eyes.

I love the smell of vanilla and honey

and the sparkle of stars in the moonlight.

So how can I blame anyone for assuming

my apparent femininity equates to womanhood?

I refer to myself as she not out of identity but out of 

passivity. Of course I’m a woman, I look like one.

I’m not a man but I don’t think I would complain

if tomorrow I awoke in the body of one.

Rather I think I’d feel the same; a stark indifference

to the very concept of my identity would not be new.

Perhaps that is my identity, indifference.

Because man I don’t think I feel like a woman

but nonbinary is reserved for short hair and androgyny.

I wonder

If I cut my hair and wore loose clothes

threw out my dresses and stopped wearing makeup

would I feel comfortable identifying with the identity

that I feel comfortable with? Would I feel comfortable 

escaping the binary and asking to be called they?

Would shedding my identity allow me to be true to it?

But I love my hair, my tight clothes and flowing skirts.

I enjoy my femininity yet feel disconnected from womanhood.

So I don’t have a clue what my preferred pronouns are,

but I go by she.