Hello, everybody. My name is Maikobi Burks. I go by "Mia" or just "Kobi." I am a 34-year-old single person who identifies as a transgender woman. Soon I will start hormones and begin to live my everyday life as the woman I have always identified as. It's taken me some time to become healthy enough to take these steps given that I have what I call an original sin ( my therapist's words, not mine ) . I have a spirit that will not allow me to give up but that spirit was forged in horror.
What you are about to read is about anger, pain and yes, choices. If you have grown up in a perfect world, you have been accepted for your differences and allowed to be or become whomever your heart desires. If this is the case, God bless you. However if the worse and sometimes more common case scenario is true, you have had to face some tiring opposition to being whole, happy, yourself. I have lived through such trials and, I'm sad to report, have not done so with flying colors. Thus the reason I'm writing this. It is my hope that others will pass the life test I failed.
I remember vividly each and every day that led to my breakdown. And although it is painful to recount, I do so with the purpose of healing myself first, and secondly to provide a mirror of sorts for those of us who may be on a similar path of self-destruction from which I assure you there is no return. I hope this glimpse into the life of a child murderer does cause you to pause and think. If it does, I will be on the path to redemption. Please read on.
I'm sitting at the desk in my 8' by 7' by 14' cell, in the only maximum-security mental facility in the state of Illinois. I've just eaten a very modest dinner of fish sticks and pasta salad ( sans dressing ) while security stood nearby to collect the plasticware and break up the all-too-common fights that have to a patient losing an eye to a chicken bone. Security yelled profanities at a patient who stood without permission.
This is my life. "Why?," you might ask. Because one day I made a choicethe choice to explode, the choice to kill.
Although born male, I have always identified as female. It's just who I am. However my father, a Chicago police officer, could be quoted as saying, "Those people are disgusting and should be killed; that's why God created AIDS." Surely having a transgender daughter would change his mind?
Father would handcuff me to radiators and beat me with extension cords, with a waiting salt-water bath, or have me sleep with dog feces in my bed. All this happened because I was different, and my mom and sister watched, unwilling or unable to help. I thought I had nowhere to turnnot even to my "straight" and sadistic older lover.
At 17 years of age, I made an emotional choice. With my father's service weapons I took the lives of those closest to me, my parents and sister. I have spent the rest of my life since then in a mental institution, having been found "not guilty by reason of insanity."
In the weeks to come I would like to let you in, all of you. I want to share honestly who I am and what I have experienced so that others might avoid making choices similar to mine. It's easy to allow our anger and rage to build up and consume us, easy to feel justified in a moment of blind passion. It is much more difficult to realize that we all have choices, and the choices that we make can lead to sorrow and pain that none of us could have imagined.
My aim is not to sound preachy. I am in no position to give a lecture. Beyond that, I am tall enough without a soapbox. I just want to do what I can to help others, young and old, in poor relationships or stressful home situations. I want to help them to realize that I am traveling a road paved by the horror of poor choices. I really hope and pray it is a road I will not have company traveling.
All too often, I wonder how many other young people feel like they are out of options. This is my opportunity to make a difference and I hope that you will read with an open mind and heartnot only to learn about me but so you can, hopefully, understand any situation you may be in that you feel has limited your options. I humbly accept any thoughts you, the reader of this, might have, as I see this as a growing experience for me and if your life is relationship anxiety-free, bless you.
Yes, I failed the testbut no one else has to.
E-mail klemenst@comcast.net .