I was made with feminity in mind.
Grew up to become a woman with curvy hips, luscious breasts, an hourglass figure and an innocent looking face.
The type of body that the male gaze yearns for, with concupiscence in its eyes and a vague disregard for the person within.
I should have been grateful. I was. I wasn't. I was.
Inconsistent feelings of pride and disgust would take turns as the days passed.
At first I thought it was shame, bashfulness.
I was still innocent back then, a body made for lust with a mind yearning for chaste love.
Though I didn't understand why, I realized quickly that this body was not my own, so I tried to own it.
I spent hours endeavouring to look at it from an outside perspective.
This body attracted men's eyes. This body was similar to those of women that attracted my eyes.
It wasn't my body, but it was one I could wear and dress up like a doll in one of those games,
with lace tops and mini skirts, make-up around my eyes and shiny lipstick to make my lips pop.
It worked for a while, got me attention, longing looks and sincere compliments.
Yet that dress-up game was starting to feel restrictive, and I tiptoed around the male clothes section.
I tried things in secret and found some answers amongst brothers' shirts and ties.
Wearing them the first times, I didn't even see that body underneath, curved and fit to the cut of those clothes.
I went out as a man, and yet they called me She.
I wished for another body, one with muscles and a flat chest, a hint of stubble and the deepest of voices,
rimmed of women small in my arms and moaning beneath me.
I thought I had found all my answers there, and I was preparing myself for a late transformation.
Then, a few days later, I found myself marveling at bras and stockings,
and I didn't know why I'd ever thought being a man would fit as well as carnal feminity.
I spent years wondering, alternating between doubts and certainty, between fear and longing.
I learned too, bit by bit, I strived to uncover the mystery that is myself, and finally I came to the right conclusion.
I cut my hair short, and my breasts smaller.
I embraced the whole wardrobe of the dress-up game I used to play, changed my name to reflect duality,
and then I looked at myself with my own eyes once again.
I have scars on my breasts now, that beauty tarnished forever,
but I had never loved my silhouette in a dress more than I do now.
I can put on a suit and have people call me sir.
I can be ambiguous and smile to myself, as I watch them struggle to know.
I want to tell them, they will be right, and wrong anyway.
I was made with feminity in mind, but I made my body my own,
a shapeshifter's next best thing, in a world without magic.