‘You said it was for the best if my soul remained hidden. . . . I believed you for a time.’
This poem appears as part of “We’re Right Here: Transgender and Nonbinary Unitarian Universalist Leaders” in the Summer 2019 edition, developed in collaboration with TRUUsT and edited by the Rev. Theresa I. Soto.
Behind a façade I hid my soul. I feared what others would say (and I feared what I knew to be true).
But I heard you singing in four-part harmony that everyone, everyone, is beautiful. And I hoped that everyone included me.
I wanted to join your song. I wanted to raise my voice with yours. And that’s when I discovered that everyone doesn’t mean all.
You told me to be silent, You told me to go back to the shadows. You told me to disappear, again. You said it was for the best if my soul remained hidden.
Did I have some hideous, Medusan power To harden the order of creation into ugliness? That is what I heard you say.
I believed you.
I believed you for a time.
But my soul’s tears And its longing to live its own truth Grew more powerful than any admonitions, than any fears.
And I began to sing.
A small voice at first, shaky and tentative. It was a small voice that could not, would not stop.
As my own music slowly crescendoed with confidence, My hymn soon rang out:
“Enough! Enough! I will step into the sunlight. I will sing myself! The song of my soul will be heard.”
Though I could never raise my voice in your chorus, You can join my choir of glorious harmonies. And as I have been freed, so might you find freedom also. Not an easy freedom, But it is born of pain and experience, of innocence and hope. It is a divine oratorio.
Yet our tune can only begin If you believe that I Am just as beautiful as anyone. And that we are just as beautiful as each other.
Like this on Facebook
Please note: newsletter on hiatus