I’m seven years old. I’m in bed with two of my siblings. The rest had yet to be born. We shared a bed. All of the siblings are just in one bed. At night, we tell stories. One of us will say a sentence, then another will follow, and we will build a story from this one foundation. It was creative for illiterate children. We couldn’t read books. We couldn’t even write, yet somehow, we could tell stories. We all played a part.
I always played the princess. The damsel. It was instinctive. It was also the only part of the day where I felt natural. The next morning, I would wake up with a sense of guilt. It was a sense of shame. My brothers never wanted to play the dame. I’m acutely aware that I have the wrong body.