Here I Am

I

I imagine this: a great mirror like a lake. I fly above, attempting to find my reflection.

Remade, I question.

II

Has my shape changed radically now I am other? Am demisexual? Am of asexuality?

Is the intoxication of knowing myself similar to desire satisfied?

Does orientation change me?

Parallel to that old tale, girl becomes woman after she detonates her virginity in a visceral explosion?

Is my flesh transformed? My blood more magical, or less?

III

I fly without reflection, but it is a high nevertheless.

After a moment's wallowing in new-found wings, I look back down at the mirror lake.

IV

Later, I land to gaze upon the heaven caught under glass.

My heart wrenches, out of pace with my body.

My divine love is not reconciled with my earthly sexuality.

Eyes blind with fear seek to renew faith.

V

Precedent prevails, because other sexualities asked before I did.

I research: is God alright with who I am?

This is where the head searches: in texts, wondering.

This is what the heart finds: confidence, in daring to ask the question.

VI

I feel connected in the presence of other sexualities.

Light, to look in the mirror and seek ourselves.

Our fingers are steady enough to type questions into a search engine.

We do not fear the bruising of our knuckles from the disapproving snap of a ruler.

VII

I kneel down on the mirror and trace the edges of the blur below.

I press my brow to the cold glass.

I imagine falling through the mirror floor into another world.

VIII

I find community. I pick up a pen.

A likeness may be drawn as well as found.

Poking my nose, pinching my cheek, I try to copy it.

Rough, skewed lines I sketch and sketch and sketch.

IX

There is pleasure in the attempt to fill in the blind spot of my first-person perspective.

How do these eyes that see the world look?

X

Standing up, I turn my back on the wobbly portrait that pricks its gaze into my back, questioning.

I make a running leap. Into the sky I go, my shadow as lost as my reflection.

There I swoop in loops and dive in lines, practicing, pacing before the next step.

XI

I hover, looking back down.

I have been spellbound by a wish to see myself mimicked.

XII

Wind brings smells from elsewhere.

I lift my wings, uncertain, but, trembling, let it take me away.

The promise of new sights draws me out of comfort.

XIII

I find myself reflected, painted small in others' eyes.

Sometimes, the glassy gaze of closed-off strangers.

Sometimes, a smile mirrored by a new friend.

I almost cannot catch them, sketch them, fleeting and treasured.

XIV

I find I prefer myself glimpsed rather than reflected.

I did not wish to see myself.

I wished to see and be seen.

Preserved somewhere, in a heart, a memory.

Not caught behind glass in a frame.

XV

Here I am, I wish to say.

Demisexual and proud.