Something I wrote recently:

Spend too much time exposed and you scorch.
The outer layer of myself's
roasted red, and so I
peel myself layer by layer--
disgusting? you look away
oh, it's not healthy to peel too much skin off, you say
but I itch
and I ache
and I burn
until I rid myself of that brittle layer of skin
and submit to the sun the me that's underneath
red and raw.
Then again I feel too exposed
nude in your sight,
but you can't see it
does the sun see what it scorches?
--so, layer by layer
I peel myself free--
under my skin of genderlessness,
my false femininity.
Under my false femininity,
mask of the masculine.
Under the mask of the masculine,
androgyny so newly naked
and already I ache to expose
what lies under that.
And it hurts to be so bare
naked before your blind raking gaze
which just burns me black and crackling
all over again and
under that pain I must
peel a new layer away--
I'm getting smaller and smaller now.
At the end, when nothing's left
will I somehow be free?

I search my skin for scars,
and scars are all I see.
Scars I got that I never wanted--
Scars I might never get that I need.