Then I’d step out in an Ibanese women garb, which I’d seen before in some civics textbook when I was in secondary school. Always, I’d wake up at that point, and there’d be a rattle in my bones. I got used to it as I grew up. But when I was a kid, ine would be right there if I woke up afraid. It’s always like she knew when I would make that dream. She’d hand me a glass of water. Then she’d stroke my hair, and her soft coos faded into the night only as I returned to sleep.
Then she’d go on to tell me I’ve forgotten about that dream of becoming a shaman again. She’d always talk to me about it as if she was actually inside that dream.
‘Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? You are a vessel of the celestial. You’ve transcended; you can heal!’ ine always says. ‘I’m supposed to tell to heed that dream, that calling. But you already have enough worries weighing on your chest.’
Eden
︎
Though, as a child, I did think about being a woman before, when there was no need to accept my biology. After I bathed, I would drape my towel on my head, trying to imagine myself with long hair. And in the deep of the night, when everyone was asleep and I was alone in my room, I’d wrap my blanket around my body, pretending that I was a celebrity wearing Givenchy for the Emmys. But now, there is only a temptation to continue growing my hair into endless locks, and buy crop tops from H&M—though I’m not sure if I’d ever wear them.
So it’s no wonder there’s another line by Smith that sends chills straight down my spine.
A man was a man was a man.
I know the sentence is taken out of Smith’s context here, but reading it haunts me, because I'm not sure how to reconcile with my biology. Or maybe there’s a fear of reckoning with the fact that I want another body. Even if I do get it, this other body, would anyone still know me then? Would anyone still love me then?
