The Binary

With our first breaths we are packaged and

itemized. We are placed on a conveyer belt and

processed through our adjacent existences

of Pink and Blue.

And I wonder what my colour is,

as a person who is both, and neither,

and nothing, and everything.

Sometimes I think that it must be White.

I feel as though if I close my eyes

I will be absorbed into that nebulous space

where I am supposed to exist.

My brother and sister sit on opposite sides of the same room;

I look at them and see that I am neither.

I do not belong in this space,

and in this realization the void has never felt so harrowing.

From within quiet rooms I hear whispers

about my hair and clothes, and I

begin to feel certain that I have contracted

some deadly, unnamed disease

that needs to be purged from my body

through medication, exorcism, or persistent self-laceration.

For as long as I can remember

my lungs have been full of bitter, ice-cold water

and all I have ever wanted is to expel the coldness.

But how can I explain the crushing weight of being coded a 3

in the never-ending, clamorous stream

of 1s and 0s.