Too much Oestrogen in my blood,

or a simple matter of genetics;

it is the only way I can explain

the osteoporosis that has lurked in my bones,

stolen my strength,

since I was a teenager and where I had to fight

against prejudice because of my age

and my gender.

Too many times I had to endure

the words that suggested happily

that it was all in my head,

that the disease of black discs

was nothing more than teenage attention…

…so I pushed myself harder, I tore at every fibre

as it was all in my head,

I made choices that would put my spine under pressure,

as it was all in my head,

I allowed the words of weasels to get under my skin,

and yet however vindicated I am now

that the disease existed in me before I turned teen,

still I get the looks,

the pained expression of but you’re a man, you are too young,

so the wrong gender and not being in my seventies

is the answer to it all; so I am a man

but one obviously with female bones, slowly eroding,

the porous shell,

how’s that for the two gender system,

how’s that to live with female bones.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016