I first came out to my Nintendo 3DS

on mobile? turn phone sideways!

by bravely customizing a female avatar in Fire Emblem: Awakening.
I kept her as short as me because it’s so becoming to briefly become a woman
and still be 5’5. I gave her the polite smile that I was too shy to wear,
the voice I was too quiet for, and the brown hair
I wanted at the time. I wanted a man

to touch me, but Nintendo hadn’t yet canonized homosexuality,
and neither had I. So I deconstructed
my cells into heteropixels,
and threw myself at the hunky sprite art
of the swordsman with the deepest voice

actor. Kicking my feet and handheld held in hands, we fought in times of war
and made a family of our own. I don’t remember giving birth,
only late night parallel play: those school nights
cooped in Christy’s Spark, the glow of our consoles, going,
“I’m only playing as a girl as a joke. I thought it would be funny,” because

I’m so confident in my masculinity, I choose not
to acknowledge it. Only comical castration and magic tricks where I slap my knee
and grow myself tits. Get it? I’m straightly playing it straight, roleplaying as this straight,
brown-haired girl, and blinking straight at Christy in code. Lit by the light of my console,
choking on irony’s iron hold, going, “I trust you and I love you, and I will need you

by this time next year. I know the words to tell you, but I won’t find them
for another winter.”