Lets pretend

I pretend I don’t notice the space before “Us men”

You pretend it wasn’t hard to hear that your daughter was a son

I pretend it wasn’t hard to hide for all those years

I pretend not to wince as you pretend you don’t rack your brain for the right greeting

Together we pretend this isn’t fucking hard

We think together that if we don’t pretend we might break under the strain of a world pretending that gender is simple. settled. at birth.