Anything that glittered, dresses, rings- most of all I treasured earrings! Not just any for this man. I only wanted, I mean needed, pearls- like my favorites I wore in my own ears. I was like my mother- the youngest sibling-small like a grain of sand, unsure of my transformations, unsure of why I liked all the pretty things. The next best queen. I wanted to be classy, a dame, with gem-stoned ringed fingers, pin-up-girl figure, a seductive sway, perfectly smooth hair that told you just how elegantly female I could be standing in your sights. Yes, I should’ve been a girl. I should’ve been stunning, instead of living a fake for all these years. Sometimes when I’m alone I put on a skirt that glitters. Sometimes I wear matching jewels, and heels. I twirl and twirl, as if my living room were my childhood, and being a shimmering man in a dress makes the world something I could dazzle, and take in like light. Ben Westlie holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author of four chapbooks of poems, most recently, UNDER YOUR INFLUENCE all published by Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in the anthology Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 (selected and edited by Naomi Shihab Nye), and in the journals: The Fourth River, Third Coast, Atlas and Alice, The Talking Stick, the tiny journal, Trampset, ArLiJo (Arlington Literary Journal), The Voices Project, and Otis Nebula.