Atlas Ez Poetry

(Note: I wrote 3 pages worth, so I figured I’d post it here. Enjoy If you Dare)

Let me tell you a story, one that I’ve been both hesitant and not in the right mind space to tell to anyone, not fully anyway. It’s about a kid that masked so hard the masks they wore became them. One that starts out marred by sadness, violence against themselves and others, and that starts with them hiding themselves to do what they think will make others happy (or miserable depending on the time). But one that right now and hopefully much later down the line is happy. I’m Ezra, an autistic trans man,poet, and writer. This is my story.

I was a hard-headed kid. There’s no doubt about that. I often started out doing things purely out of spite. As I got a little bit older and started feeling like that wouldn’t work (around kindergarten), I began to believe the opposite was true. In case you couldn’t tell, I was never good with understanding shades of grey thinking. I stayed the way I was at home for the most part (some slight changes but not much). Maybe a little bit more reclusive,but it’s still basically the same. But at school and around my friends, I became subservient.

I became the nice meek girl that I thought everyone expected me to be. This somewhat caused me to act a little stranger at home.Even their sometimes, I would just close up, just wear the pretty makeup, don the pretty dress or skirt or earings, be quiet, listen. Then there would be moments of me just lashing out in emotion. I guess that was a sign of what to come, though that’s said with the benefit of some hindsight. My parents ended up feeling like it was my way or the highway with me. My teachers, and friends (well some of them) ended up seeing me as a doormat, quiet, detached, daydreaming of something else some other life or world,but easy to handle or control if you knew the right way. The sort of feelings of anger, sadness, and a general disconect from realities that I didn’t want to face only grew worse.

Eventually, this system broke when the emotions became too much for me to handle around roughly puberty for me. Now, granted, I started earlier than even a few people I knew, which also added to the maelstrom growing in my heart and head. That year, the anger became worse till I lashed out at school, becoming minorly physically violent with one of my friends. People looked at me differently (with the exception of my family) I was isolated told I was horrible person, told all the things that people probably wanted to tell me all along, but never had the guts to. The few things like sports and dance that had been my outlets either were left to go by the way side or abandoned completely by yours truely.

By the time 5th grade rolled around, everyone was over it, but I guess I never completely forgot. Then again in another effort to appear normal I smoothed things over with that friend, and in order to prevent another freakout on my part, I locked myself down even more.I tried to make my way through the school world as meek and tolerable as possible. Then seventh grade happened, and I realized something.

I realized I was bi, I started “dating” a girl who was in eight grade, and people as they always did in places like that judged. They quoted the bible around me, they made me feel embarrassed (intentionnally or no) about even holding my girlfriend’s hand that along with each of us having at least parent that struggled with our identity each left us nowhere to go. We broke up after a month because I had struggled with things like cuddling handholding or kissing, when almost everyone else around us seemed to hate who we were where we ever gonna have a surviving relationship.I wiped my hands of it all when I moved later in the school year. 

I quickly found myself at the height of my popularity in eighth grade. I became a hard worker in track, made 3 genuine friends, and went into sda (speech, debate, and acting), doing monalouges on stage for everyone to see. I don’t know why or how I did it, but good for me right.Things started taking a turn again in high school, however. Most of my friends were in different schools to begin with, leaving me with mostly assholes and one kind of connected friend. I became miserable again and started acting out everywhere home school,public, I didn’t care as long I got heard somehow.

Now parallel to that last paragraph, I was diagnosed with depression, big shock to pretty much just me. How could I have a disorder or mental illness. I thought I was doing well. Sure, I felt sad and disconnected from the world 90% of the time, but that was normal, right. I was normal, right? I told myself that repeatedly through all of the tests, the meds the first therapist. I thought I was hiding it better than I was, I guess. I eventually found myself escaping into fictional worlds to dull pain in addition to masking. 

Who I was became who I would be for the next few years. Through my parents’ miserable divorce, everything that entaled, through moving again not long before that, through beginning to escape completely, and totally through poetry and creative writing. Then I failed geometry , which, for me wasn’t the biggest deal. Then I went to online school, and nearly would have  failed it again if not for mom. Then I went to an adult learning center, found some really great teachers,and ended up graduating and doing okay, I guess.

Sike!, kind of.  I ended up in the mental hospital that year for the first of 4 in about 2 years, or so.  I ended up getting help, and finishing school seemed kind of minor after that , but we still had pizza to celebrate that valentines Day right before covid hit.

I started to realize soon that something was still wrong, tho I didn’t clock a lot of the stuff that was . I started indefiying as nonbinary around age 19 finally and fully done letting anyone else define me or make me meek. But that’s not how the story ends.

It took me forever ( 2 years) to learn this, but the right meds, along with a good therapist and a lot of extra help, can actually work to make you better as long as you actually care or want to get better. You can fight the truth as much as you want and resist change, but in the end it’s only when you admit this stuff that you can truly be better. Even then, sometimes there’s a piece of the puzzle missing. Find it, and don’t let it go, not if you can help it..

I ended up finding a great therapist, case managers, doctors, and phsycatrists who actually carred, and it made all the difference. I got on all the right meds (including a thyroid medicine, more recently) that really helped me adjust.I stoped being afraid completely and start identifying as a trans man, and slowly but surely I started seeing myself again. Now, finally, tentatively, I’m happy truly, all ecompasingly, thrilled about what life could bring. Because I’m never going back in that meek little shell of the “Girl” that cared so much about what other people thought that he hid himself away completely. I am here,queer,autistic,alive,free, happy, and most of all proud of who I am and whoever I might become in the future.

Sincerely, Ezra.