I am:

a warrior

a wife

a crafter of golden bands

to wear around ankles,

covered in story.

I will tell this story in the way I know best.

Golden Band 1: 7th Birthday

Do you see the birds?

I made them: feathers and beaks

hanging above the horizon like the sky,

light as air,

light as a child's golden band,

as my thoughts.

Learning to ride, to write, to sing, to burn alsar:

all was mastery,

even my self.

Golden Band 2: 15th Birthday

Wear gold into confinement:

horizon scenes, sky scenes,

chive-collecting scenes, hunting scenes,

bird scenes,

as open as the caravan is closed,

until marriage, until the safe unit of two.

So many questions:

"Will you marry just for practicality or for sex, for love?"

"Will you marry a woman, a man, those who are neither?"

"What name will you take?"

And I—

I didn't know.

Golden Band 3: 17th Birthday

A marriage, at last.

She chose her name: Falna.

I chose—

Choosing is easy:

name

body

self—

We can be our selves. Easy!

Not so easy to reach under skin

under breasts

under clit and vagina

and find self.

"Tadi," I said.

On the band I made for her,

two birds circled: wary.

Golden Band 4: 20th Birthday

I struggled with words:

woman—fine

wife—fine

mother—fine

but not quite true;

they sat on me like plain jewellery: gleaming, comfortable

but mute.

I embossed my golden band:

a woman in a bird-mask,

a man in a bird-mask,

dancing across the chive-sweet land

and I thought that I could be both, I could be neither.

Maybe.

Golden Band 5: 25th Birthday

See the dancers? How

their wings spell out their songs,

their feet grow talons,

their tail-feathers lash the dirt,

their beaks open wide with joy.

I'm 25: I'm getting good at this.

I can't find a form under my skin, a single self

that is my self—

so ignore my skin.

I still use words like "woman" and "wife"

out of habit—

ignore all the words

but one: my name

is the best word I have for who I am.

I am my self: Tadi, a crafter of golden bands

to wear around ankles,

covered in story.