Being A Toddler

No, apparently I can’t go anywhere, I guess this is my place now

The world, the overwhelming environment, the unwilling people around me, the people that constantly ask me to change

And as I grew older as an entity I discover more and more pressure that’s put on me

My dad’s job forced us to move cities every three years; as much as that might sound like a long time span it’s totally not a convenient thing

As a four month old baby I already had to leave my birthplace to another city that seemed like a better future

I obviously don’t remember a lot of it but I do know that things seemed to get better

I started to grow normally, I stopped crying a lot, I had baby friends, I even had a baby husband, we always played together, I used to have a green little car and we used to drive that car together until I remember one time that we fell into a sewer; it’s pretty funny to remember

Or as we were playing in the playground or when it rained and I tried to run under the rain and obviously fell and hurt my knee and went home but I always liked being outside

I was then three years old when my little sister was born; this time my parents wanted the child

They asked me what sex I wanted my sister to have and I said a girl, I thought a girl meant a boy but my wish came true, I was confused, I was always told that I’m a girl, I was always told to dress like a girl, to like the things a girl likes but I never really felt like I was one; I was either only taking examples of my older sister or I didn’t have any other choice of self-expression, but I also was never really like my other sisters and also nobody knew why

I was ecstatic about my little sister though, I could finally be an older sister to her, though I couldn’t really embody what it was to be one

My dad started to ask me to join him working a lot; he would let me help fix things, and we would play boys’ games, I guess, he was still manifesting a boy in me and I liked that

And with time, my contact to my mom was reduced a lot; I was always the odd one in the family, somebody that doesn’t fit anything you can think of, just a middle child in the middle, unsure where to go and who I am, misunderstood after misunderstandings

My mom was a tough mom, she was really quick to be mad, she didn’t really have her emotions in control

And my dad is the quietest person I know; he never really said anything, especially anything emotional, he never cried, he doesn’t show feelings

He’s cold but he’s there for me and my mom is like fire

And I was the one to be burned by that fire