Samurai / United States
My name is SAMURAI
And yes, that is my real name. This girl couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl, so to avoid asking the taboo question she tried to ask me my full name (I was going by “Sam” at the time)/ In a stroke of inspiration, I answered “Samurai” just to be a pain in the ass, and it just kind of stuck.
I haven’t always been a man, and I haven’t always been a woman, but I have always been a pain in the ass. I don’t accept anything just the way it is so I feel if I’m not being a pain in someone’s ass, I’m not doing enough.
When people ask me what I am, I like to reply “nothing” To me, it’s the honest answer. Am I who I am in this moment, or am I who I was, or who I want to be? Am I my job, my religious, affliction, my sexual orientation, my gender? In choosing to be something, I felt like I’m locking the door to my own cage, because I now must exist within boundaries to avoid the cognitive dissonance of not being who I say I am. By being nothing, the only thing left to be is me, truly, wholly me.
“I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam”
-Popeye the Sailorman