butchfemme and projecting

here's something i wrote

the girl split in two

i have started compartmentalizing.

am I the femme, with soft focused sensuality? with painted lips and eyes blurred, not a scratch or implication of rough-play. who aims to please and does so effortlessly?

or am i the butch, with brute outward expression? with calloused palms and stubbed nails? who protects and loves and gives and provides? 

do these two exist within me? or am i a blank slate for whom one can project onto? am i doomed to buttoned-up collars, heavy clothes over a binder so tight my lungs burn and i feel light-headed? is that sexy? are my broad shoulders worthy of the nails being dug into them? do my breasts deserve to be cradled? is my bottom lip meant to be tugged?

 to be strong is to be the assumed protector, and you, held like you’re fragile.

I do not want to pretend i am something i’m not. i just want to be loved either way.

addendum;

sometimes i can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. I’ve written about this at length, injected my own self-loathing into piece that are supposed to be far-removed. it’s put for the relatability, though i’m not sure how many people feel this way, and do nothing about it.

It is easy to clothe your creations in something recognizable, swaddle them in what you know best. 

So they pick at their shoulders. And they stare at themselves for lengths of time, until their mouths become open black holes and their eyes morph into slashes on a canvas egrediously misused. 

the disgust doesn’t wane. it thickens with each new addition to my troupe of nobodies, each a sad, lump of a person not yet fully formed. perhaps never formed.