The smell of dirt envelopes me as i run down the street and turn the corner.

Sliding down the wet pavement i feel my bare feet rub raw.

i can taste blood from biting the insides of my cheeks, maybe even my tongue.

i finally escaped after so long.

In the distance i hear a dead girls name being called.

They dont really care i tell myself.

If they did they would be calling a different name.

Mine.

Its only a matter of time once the cops come, searching for a girl they will never find.

A girl who doesn’t exist.

Once upon a time there was a little boy.

He lived inside of a girls body, hiding under layers of soft, silky skin.

Under an itchy dress with sparkling gold thread that chafed his chest as he moved, leaving rashes across his sensitive shoulders.

Despite being pressed into the mold of a young girl, he managed to survive.

His long hair tumbling down his shoulders, in sheets of brown that shined with honey in the sun.

His eyelashes were long. His eyes were dewey.

Freckles sprinkled across his cheeks and small freckles on his arm.

His mother called them angel kisses.

That boy was me.

In first grade he got his hair cut short. His parents warned him that people might think he was a boy. That was okay.

It stayed that way until 4th grade. His hair was in a short bob, shaved on the side. His neighbors called him a dyke. One of them bullied him so he poured the kids sprite down his face.

The bully stomped on the boys toe and he bled. That was okay.

In 6th grade, he told his best friend a secret. He wasn’t a girl.

His best friend called him handsome.

She was the perfect friend.

Now the girl doesn’t exist. Her parents pretend she does. She has been gone for a long time.

She is dead. Her parents know that she is gone, but they think if they pretend enough, that she will come back, that if i am denied love and support i will eventually waste away into oblivion, and she will come back.

i’m still running, but now i yell out too.

i am here.

i am real.

I am Ronan.