Two

"You are two people," she said, holding my chin in her hands. "One is the person you want to be, and one is the person you are."

They aren't the same person, she didn't say. They will never be the same.

But can you blame me for hearing it that way?

So I disguised myself as the first person, the one I wanted to be. I wore her clothes and dyed my hair to look like her, drawing on the eyelashes she had and I didn't.

I played dress up, cementing the idea that what I wanted wasn't real. This character I play-acted, this game of make-believe was all in my head. I pretended to be her because I knew I wasn't her, and the longer I pretended, the farther away any chance of ever really being her went.

"You are two people," he said, stroking my hair. "One is the person who wants this, and one is the person who doesn't."

Which one is the real you? he didn't say. Was that what he meant?

And the problem was, I didn't know. I never knew. Was it the real me, or was it the fake skin I wore, wishing it was mine? So I never knew what I wanted. I could move with her confidence out in the world but when it was time to act for myself, I just didn't know.

Who am I?

"You are you," she told me, gazing into my eyes in the mirror. She reached up to twist my blue and purple hair around her finger, tucking the strands behind an ear. "I am me. We are us."

Why would you listen to them? she didn't say. But then, she did; she whispered it right in my mind. They see two because they can't imagine one person as full as me.

We're not two people. I'm a thousand, thousand people all wrapped up in one.