The duckling

I never liked that story Maybe I never understood it Stories where ugly is beauty bore me And it's not like I ever fit Gender is a game That I always longed to quit But forced to play all the same I became a counterfeit

Some ducklings grow into a kind Of beautiful conformity But what of those get left behind In the realm of normalcy Or folk like I who never change Cast with abnormity Never enough, always strange A social deformity

Some ducks will be tarred forever Never quite right enough I stopped trying years ago, however The scars still, to touch, are rough For if I had been left alone And never call their bluff I think of all I could have shown This world without rebuff

Some swans are never beautiful And there are some ducks as well Thought we might not be usual We have our stories to tell So much of who I was is lost Too much now to dwell When growing up inside a box I never may dispel