Unlabeled 🌈

Chapter One – The Mirror I stand in front of the mirror, trying on a shirt that feels too tight and too loose at the same time. It clings in places I don’t want and hangs like a flag in others. Today I want to feel sharp, untouchable. Tomorrow I’ll probably want to vanish. The mirror doesn’t ask questions, but I still talk to it. “Do you like her?” I ask my reflection, tilting my head. My hair is pinned back, messy but intentional. “Or him? Or… anyone at all?” The reflection smirks, but it’s my smirk, so it doesn’t count as an answer. It’s stupid, I know. People out there are confident, strutting around like they were born with a manual: This Is Who I Am, Step One: Announce It Proudly. Meanwhile, I’m stuck flipping through catalogs I never ordered. Bisexual, pansexual, genderfluid… it’s like a bad multiple-choice test where none of the options feel right, but you still have to pick one to pass. I don’t pick. I dress how I feel instead. Clothes are safer than words. Today, it’s the loose shirt, the boots, and the jacket that makes me look like I have somewhere important to be. Like I’m someone important. Pronouns? Don’t ask. They change with the weather. Some days I want she, some days he, sometimes nothing at all. Maybe if I don’t name it, it won’t hurt so much when people get it wrong. Outside, the world doesn’t want me. That’s not paranoia; it’s practice. The jokes, the stares, the too-long silences at family dinners. My kind doesn’t get invitations, just warnings. I sigh, shove my hands in my pockets, and head for the door. In another part of the city, the world keeps spinning. A gay man lights a cigarette on the corner, waiting for a message that won’t come. A trans woman adjusts her wig before walking into work, rehearsing her smile like armor. A nonbinary kid scrolls through their phone in the back of a bus, earphones drowning out the whispers around them. The world doesn’t want them either, but still, here they are—breathing, dressing, choosing. Existing. Like me.