Talking to Myself
Poems from a Transgender Woman during Transition
by
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Courage
Oh! I sit looking out my window
at the challenges I am soon to face.
Yes! The same challenges
I have faced my whole life.
Hurray! I finally have courage
to face not just you but me too.
Oh! For so long facing you was off the table
because I couldn’t face myself.
That’s right! I was in denial to not only you
but also hiding from myself.
Now I step into my future with hopes
that went unfulfilled since their birth.
Alas! I no longer need to face you,
It is critical I learn to face myself.
Hallelujah! Contrary values no longer phase me.
I am so esoterically in my own place.
Crying! I look back with such sadness;
why not brave in the first place?
Finally! I have found the courage,
retired and old with so little left to lose.
Guess what! “So little” is still more than nothing, and
that “little” is critical to how I leave this place.
Guess what! I am Lukcia! I am Lukcia! I am Lukcia!
Oh, did I mention I am Lukcia?
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About the Book
My joy, my tears, are sincere. Is this girl real?
I really like being a girl.
I don’t miss the male me.
I don’t miss the him and he.
Away from him, I’m finally free.
Since birth, Lukcia Patricia Sullivan lived a false existence first as a boy, and then as a man. What no one knew is that she desperately wanted to be a girl. But as she grew, she learned that this desire had to be hidden and never discussed. Still, she knew she was a girl in heart and mind, and approached life with the emotional sensitivities of a female—until she was finally able to transition at age sixty-seven.
In a soul-searching collection of poems originally penned to maintain her sanity, courage, and to survive the challenge of male-to-female transition in her hometown of twenty-three years, Sullivan lyrically explores a lifetime struggling with an unfulfilled want, lost and false loves, and the unwavering hope that she would somehow find her way to her true self. While capturing the pain of unresolved gender dysphoria, Sullivan’s poems also provide uplifting encouragement to others in transition that happiness is on the other side of tears.
Talking to Myself is a volume of poetry that reflects on a transgender woman’s courageous path to personal fulfillment and her true self.
About the Author
Lukcia Patricia Sullivan is a retired military officer and veterinarian. She is a lifelong girl who finally transitioned at age sixty-seven after suffering from gender dysphoria for decades. Divorced and without immediate family, Sullivan happily resides as her sober, true self in Hampden, Maine.