The Mermaid

I didn’t want to be this way,
I never had a choice,
I awoke from slumber in the past,
With seemingly no voice.

A man with legs? Is this right?
I asked myself one morn,
Of course, is there another way?
This was how I’s born.

But nothing dared to fit, it seemed,
Damn the evidence,
I felt so wronged, I shall not lie,
I needed recompense.

“This body, it’s not right,” I claimed,
Crying, begging still,
Hysterically they laughed at me,
A boy, against my will.

I needed to escape this life,
The sea it ever called,
This form, this life enclosed I was,
Shut within these walls.

But suddenly a path appeared,
A mermaid? Could I be?
A life of freedom ever more,
A life beneath the sea.

They said it’s just not possible,
"You're crazy, even ill,
A human being belongs on land,
Never growing gills."

To the sea I ran, as it called,
My vision never failed,
Gills I grew, and fair I was,
With my mermaid’s tail.

How could they believe I was,
Anything but me?
Despite their claim, “You are a man,”
A maid I’ll ever be.