Tonight's Poet Corner: Vanessa Doll

Vanessa Doll
by Belinda Roddie

My name is not Vance Dubois,
ma'am, so please don't call me
Vance Dubois, ma'am. I'm not
from Woodstock, Illinois, ma'am,
and I wasn't meant to have been
born a boy, ma'am.

I grew up in a seven-child household,
see, and didn't like the way my siblings
looked at me. They made me shave
my head more than once, you know,
and I tried running away from home
about twelve times or so.

All the boys wore suits and flannel
at the bars, and I stole tubes of lipstick
from my girlfriends' cars. Thirteenth time
was a charm when I fled at seventeen,
started hormone therapy once I was
three years clean.

So my name is not Vance Dubois,
ma'am, so please don't call me
Vance Dubois, ma'am. I'm a small
town girl in my own private world,
and I've never been from Woodstock,
Illinois, ma'am.