Salem Ariel Reid is an aspiring author, photographer and digital artist in New Hampshire. They go by He/They and read lots of horror novels and romances in the LGBT+/OwnVoices genre. He's currently producing three-hundred new WIP ideas instead of finishing one, and saving up to be with the love of his life in the UK.

the skin grows

salem ariel reid

Survival was a word stitched into every sweatshirt and pair of sweatpants that I wore from the age of eight.

Gender was etched into my skin, a scar trauma-born. I thought who I was was based on what I wore because of what people saw me as. My body became accustomed to violence, but the hands that hollowed my identity were not only my own.

Queer was a word that defined my older brother in high school. Our mother still loved him, but didn’t shield him from her husband’s hate, a hate that was disguised as love. I toed the line between that love and hate; at ten, anyone would be greedy for the wax on their mother’s poisonous apple.

At eight, I stole my brother’s prom dress, stuffing the black-sequined monstrosity into my school bag. I changed out of my long pants and sweatshirt at school and into the dress. Many of my peers said I looked beautiful. It was the first time someone other than my mother complimented me, and I bloomed without feeling confused or ashamed.

I was too young to know who I was, but I knew that I wanted to follow in my brother’s footsteps. He created breathtaking portraits of horses, and I begged for the same sketchbooks and markers to replicate my brother's happiness and passion. When that didn’t work, I turned my attention to the 2000s drawing kit, Fashion Plates, where I could design outfits by switching out stencils of skirts, dresses and shirts. I spent countless hours designing outfits; my dream was to dress real people, to be under the spotlight making those clothes.

As I grew older, I discovered that depression is one hell of a joy-killer. I found myself unable to focus on any one thing at once. My interests were short-lived and dispassionate. I thought I was too fat, too sad, too nothing to be what others had the privilege to be. One moment, fashion was all I could think about, and in the next, it was unattainable. It was years before I thought about fashion again. I kept millions of hours of Vogue designer runway shows on my laptop. When I came out as a trans man, looking back at those men on the runway opened something in me that I couldn’t bear to shut.

I didn’t care whether clothes were intended for a man or woman—those long white and frilly couture dresses seemed to only belong to pretty and thin girls, and all of the feminine men wearing low-cut silk shirts were athletic. But I wanted the clothes all the same; I wanted to be like those models. But the clothes were all designed for people who were much, much smaller than me. My wanting was depriving myself of things I could actually have.

I survived living the way the world expected me to. My goal was to be the person everyone wanted me to be, and to take up the smallest amount of space possible. After all those years, I realized that I didn’t have to limit myself to what others thought I deserved; I could sculpt myself to fit who I really am.

I still struggle with my body today, but I have someone who loves it for me when I can't stand to look at it. My boyfriend inspires me to use my creativity to fulfill my dreams; nothing feels as good as when I’m holding fabric between my fingers or sketching the costume designs of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s contestants. Nothing has felt better than learning to walk on the road of self-love.

Love is when you escape the binary, forcing the whirlpool of the world to reverse. Alone, it seems impossible, but I’ve learned that there are communities out there waiting for who I am and who I want to be. There’s a gorgeous, breath-stealing man at home with his arms wide open.

I am more than a fat queer man, more than the labels forced upon me or that I placed on myself. I don’t have to survive anymore. I am living in skirts, suits, and lingerie. I exist in this skin and body that I am learning to forgive, to give tender care to. Desire lives in my own home and within myself. It has a name which changes from time to time, but I own it—it belongs to me and no one else. It can be whatever the hell I want it to be. I’ve decided that I wasn’t surviving all my life. Survival wasn’t the right word for what I’ve been through, what I did day to day to get up—it was fighting.