La Voce to Me

by Jennifer Lee Rossman

It was never my movie
She was never my princess
The prince wouldn’t love her unless she had working legs, and I didn’t need a movie to tell me I
was too disabled to be loved
And anyway
Belle had a nicer library

Grew up thinking mother knows best
But Mom was a sea bitch
And this girl who had everything, she wasn’t a girl and she didn’t have anything, and I ran away
to be where the people were
They taught me about this whole new world
And that I can sing

And I cut off my hair
And I dressed like a guy
And all right maybe that’s a different princess and a different movie altogether, but I wanted my
reflection to show who I am inside
I asked to go on T
And that doesn’t stand for thingamabob

I’ve never been happy before
Never had the confidence to sing
Went down a seashell size, no more monthly caviar giving me… what’s that word again, oh,
gender dysphoria
But magic is a double edged spinning wheel
It always comes with a price

My voice
It wants my voice
And I get it now, it’s not that he couldn’t love her without working legs, he couldn’t love her until
she loved herself, until she was happy like me
Is this a nautilus shell at my neck?
Or a poisoned Adam’s apple growing?

Jennifer Lee Rossman (she/they) is a queer, disabled, and autistic author and editor from Binghamton, New York. She’s pretty sure mermaids are a type of platypus. Follow her on Twitter @JenLRossman and find more of her work on her website http://jenniferleerossman.blogspot.com