How many blows does it take to crack an egg?

How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Is a question I never expected to ask
If you don’t know, I should tell you, an egg
Is what they call the girl inside the male mask
When she doesn’t even know she’s got it on
Doesn’t even know it’s there
Says “everything’s okay, everything’s fine,
I’m supposed to feel like this all of the time
A shell all around me? What do you mean?
Am I not supposed to feel like I want to scream
Until blood runs and bones break, and everything’s done
Is that not the way that this life’s race is run?”

How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Is a question I never expected to answer.

It’s many.

Many blows of different types, at different angles
Emotionally, physically, mentally, tangled together
In a series of steps,
leaps,
falls,
retreats
and tears

As you smash away the shell that was crafted for years
And emerge not like a bird, all blinking and shy
But like a velociraptor, a T-Rex, a pterodactyl wanting to fly,
And to hunt and to kill and to stalk and to hope
That some great big asteroid isn’t about to nope
You off the planet, and into the mud
To be dug up in the future by some archaeologist
Who will push his glasses up his nose and say ‘male’

How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Let me count the ways.
Let me talk about testing the waters with a new pair of glasses
A tattoo
A cuff
A scarf
A kilt
All of them manly, when worn by a man.
But when you’re starting to see through the shell, then they can
Suddenly seem so different to you.
To others it’s nothing, to you it’s all new
It’s nerves and it’s shaking, it’s sweating and quaking
It’s wondering who’s going to point, going to laugh,
It’s wondering who’s going to know.

And then with some lace,
Some silver,
A black rose on a necklace
A dress
A bra
Shaving the beard
With each thing that should feel weird,
Not
feeling
weird
The shell fractures and the truth is exposed.

How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Is the wrong question.
The question should be. What happens next?
What happens when the egg has cracked, when the shell is no more
What happens when you walk out the door
Not dressed as he, but now dressed as she
What happens when you finally see
How the world welcomes you when you’ve hatched and you’re free

How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Who cares?
The cracks are how the light gets out.

Cally Ann Kerr, in a former life, was known for her flash fiction. Transition has brought with it an outpouring of poetry charting her new existence, its joy and its challenges. She is currently working on a collection entitled Cannon Events.