The Haze

It waved when I moved
So I ran from the ash haze
It never faltered
I turned to meet him and see
My shadow was tied to me

This is a poem about my dysphoria.

For me, dysphoria was a reality I didn’t want to meet, that I tried to run from for years.
It seemed like a looming threat, so I wouldn’t acknowledge it, a terrifying and confusing thing waiting to complicate my life that would follow me as far as I went.

Sometimes, it would grow smaller, I could fling myself into the schoolwork I was already behind in and prevent myself from even having time to see it.

I would try to “Cut it off,” by either convincing myself that dysphoria was something more extreme then what my silly experience was or for a time it would come out by attacking others’ identities, of which was really self directed, I guess trying to put myself back in line.

Anything to avoid questioning, to avoid complicating life.

No matter what I did, I found I could not out run it.
Even as I didn’t know fully what it was, I could not run from it.
Eventually I realized running was pointless.

So I turned around, looked around and looked at this strange feeling properly, and started trying to learn what it was.
Why I’ve felt so wrong since I was even a toddler.
Why I’m just so uncomfortable.

Because when I looked at my shadow, all I found it to be was my own form looking back at me.

And while I’m by nature always a little confused I’ll say;

                                                 “Addressed to you, hi
                                              I mean to say "sorry" for
                                                   Lying all this time...
                                              A whole new introduction. 
                                               Here we go, hello I am-”
                                                                                                        -Cornelius Hecker, he/him