I feel like such a rebel whenever we climb over the fence to skip rocks by the reservoir's shore. I imagine myself a noble maiden fair with her long-suffering, yet forever loyal knight when I ask for yet another piggyback ride on the way back. I am a warrior queen who grows in power with each and every victory in our thumb wrestling matches.

I am transgender. 

You saw past that when I told you. 

"Never would've guessed in a million years, you look perfectly normal", you kindly assured me. 

"Just normal?", I teased. 

We laughed, then hugged, and moved on to talk about bioengineering microbes.

I have such a wonderful person like you as my friend and in my life, that I feel selfish for asking for more. But everytime I get a text from you I swear my heart skips a beat. I look at the pictures of us together to motivate me to tackle that physics problem set. My heart just melts when I see you smile or hear you laugh. I actually wonder if you just pretend not to notice when I lean my head against your shoulder everytime you agree to carry me on your back.

I've been rejected every single time before due to being a trans girl. I fear confessing to you, as it could tear our friendship apart like it had in the past with the others.

I fear simply to forever be an artificial flower waiting to be picked up and smelled, but cast aside time and time again.

I dream always of castles in the clouds, and ships sailing through the stars, just give me a chance to fly.