The fear that lived in my stomach
Before I came out is back again.
This time it’s in my heart.
It isn’t a black hole anymore,
This fear is orange.
The fear that no one will
accept me for who I am,
The fear that someone
on the streets will see me,
Hate me for my buttons,
My presentation,
The fear I won’t make it home,
Is back again.
For a while, I could breathe,
exist in this world.
Now I am too scared
To say pronouns out loud.
Again my fear caught up to me
yet again I am hiding
in bathrooms.
This time,
I am hiding from the bathrooms.
Now, I don’t go to the bathroom
in public anymore.
I don’t use the men’s room
Or the women’s room,
I was never comfortable in either,
always worried someone would sense
I didn’t quite fit there,
That someone would try to
Force me out because of it.
-Isaac Batts (they/them)
