i’ve been delaying this for months/years now. sometimes i decide not to do it. no one can force me to come out. the ones who know know, the ones who are clever enough to deduce are clever enough to deduce, the ones who have always known are the blessed, and the rest, are the rest. my initial plan for my social media was to just keep posting ambiguous content and never directly come out. there are no musts in the genre of coming out. there are safety concerns, mental wellbeing concerns. the news of my transition would finally reach my hometown at large, and my ancestral hometown, all affiliate churches. it would reach all my exes, my childhood bullies, my abusers, and all those people i’d left behind to live a life in hiding in europe. i was standing in front of a wall of fear and turned around many times. i’d lost people. i had no ground under my feet, everything was falling apart und wie! the wall was as large as my wounds and the mountains beyond.

since 2024 when i started to accept myself, i’ve drowned in nightmares, waking up screaming, the fear rewiring my body and dysregulating my spirit more than it was. the body expunging. it seemed for every step i took closer to myself, something precious was taken away from me. this froze me in my tracks. i was caught in a room of thousand griefs, including that of my departure. arrivals afterall demand departures.

the path was lonely and at the same time, i did not want to be seen. everything was transparent, the uneven beard hair coming in at thirty-three, my second puberty and its clumsily modulated voices, desires… everything escaped from my detention to hold their parade in front of all my friends, colleagues and acquaintances who had thus far known and seen me as something fixed. and here i was, regenerating, expanding, spurting, growing new nipples and becoming.

i was afraid of other things: of being called an impostor, of being misgendered or misidentified, of not being accepted, of being publicly shamed and tbh, i was worried about my archive of past lives. in many ways, the “i was born in the wrong body” narrative does not feel close to me. i am a poet who has always seen themselves as many, as (avrina and the invisible ones). i can only tell you i was called. i can only tell you that one day i woke up and knew the only way to live on was to live as a trans man. i can only tell you that this body is water and it moves, it carries, drowns and washes ashore. in the in-between of becoming, which is not at all an in-between, i am also learning / remembering a language. i am thrifted by memories of pasts and futures.

today it feels right to write this. it feels, bring what may come. i shall stand by me. only i have been evidence.

this is a welcome. this is a prayer. this is a blessing. back home in Tamil Nadu, when you are entering a new home, you invite people over for a வீடு புகுதல் (veedu puguthal / inhabiting / entering the house). rituals and prayers are undertaken on this day and gifts handed out. children run around. milk boils over and this milk is then served to the guests before a feast. i would like to throw a feast to celebrate my new life or homecoming. i wish to verwirklichen, mark my milestones and celebrate.

i come from a thicket of silence, entanglements of shame and echoes of damning burdens. i am familiar with the art of leading multiple lives / shapeshifting / masking / holding worlds. an advanced practitioner. i have not lived in Tamil Nadu since 2010 and have not lived in India since 2013. 13 years in europe (10 of that in Germany). till 2024, i visited home regularly. everytime i went back home, to quote an ex-friend of mine “i went back into the closet”. it still worked in my twenties. once i increased my testosterone dosage, i could no longer hide in my usual way. and on the contrary, when i removed the compulsion to go home, i found myself not shrinking anymore. the energy flowed and i held onto that momentum to take me on my path.

i don’t know when i will do this part of the coming out: when i finally take myself back to my hometown. some months ago, i never thought i’d be writing this. time will take us where it does, the rest is simply the rest.