Instructions For Disappearing

Instructions For Disappearing



Go hide at the high school dance 

With your back against a wall

They will call you a wallflower 

As you pretend to be small 

Silence your own voice 

When someone gives you abuse 

Dim your brilliant light 

To be in service to their juice 

Get tired of the above 

Decide to find a new way 

Reclaim your power

Vow to say all you have to say 

Decide to be yourself 

And do it far far away 

From all the people who ever tried 

to put you in a cage 

Now go outside, climb your tree 

Scale branches thick with leaves 

Go as high as you can until you feel 

You’re a bird without wings 

Come down from your tree 

Find your cloak of invisibility 

Walk back home alone to where 

your family never sees 

They never see you 

For who you truly are 

Decide to navigate away 

Guided by the northern star 

Get in a boat 

Give yourself a pirate name 

Point your sword towards the sky 

Declare yourself insane 

Set sail with your compass 

Off you go to a faraway land 

You wear a beard or a mustache 

This is you, not you trans 

Shed all the labels 

In which you’ve been confined 

Daughter, sister, mother, wife 

You are undefined 

Open your journal to write 

A new story on a blank page 

Put on a lavish costume 

Put your alter ego on a stage 

Could anyone find “you” now

If they were inclined to search? 

You are who you made yourself 

In this moment you gave you birth 

Look down at the ground now 

See a pair of waiting wings

open your heart then your mouth 

a freedom song bird up and sing 

Who you were transformed 

Into the truth shining through 

The way to disappear it turns out 

Is to finally find you