To Die Twice

TW: mentions of gender dysphoria

she was called handsome,
complimented on her jawline and height
she feigned a smile
and walked away
with her heart torn apart
and sunken into
the crevices
of her ribs.

and on the pupils of her eyes
the trauma of her reflection was carved,
sketches of the perceived
broadness of her shoulders,
the squareness of her forehead
thickness of her eyebrows,
the masculine shape of her body. 

if she was a portrait
like Dorian Gray’s
her face would be blackened
she would be a caricature 
where every insecurity would be magnified
she would be crying.

and all of this just because
she was fated to die twice. 
once in her true self,
feminine and beautiful,
and another as him, 
the name that was already dead
and everlastingly engraved
to a tombstone
in a graveyard
of memories she wished she could
forget.