Wearing fleece in my house in the summer. Sleeping facing the wall. Headaches and heartburn. Consequences consequences consequences of the decisions I’ve made and have yet to make. An act of condemnation I didn’t know I could make. six feet deep. mice in the walls. mom’s a light sleeper. dry skin and wet hair against my face. i’m a virgin but i do my homework and i learn fast. on the up-and-up. something that’s so full that it’s empty. volatile blankness. singing in the car. it continues. the pressure promising tears. my brain’s hiding things from me. we weren’t waiting, we were stuck. everything’s a little bitch, me included. and I even called insurance. June 10, 2021 “shay.” July 14, 2021 estradiol. August 14, 2021, “clean.” June 16, 2022, “breakup.” Clearing out the bathroom sink drain the day I broke up with her. Premonitions at the playground. Abundance and integration. speed limit sign bleached by the sun. sat down and cried a quarter mile to the peak. Drinking tea and sweating through my shirt. Dug it out of the drawer in the desk in the garage. And she was concerned about me and my future because I’ve never gone to college, never tried to start a career, never fallen in love or tried to start a family, and it makes some sense. The guitar’s a little out of tune in that Sea of Something song. And I covered her eyes for the bad scenes in Hereditary. That night, on the basketball court, when she drank on her meds, she would start crying every time she looked at me. And all my friends were fucking centrists. Don’t fucking say that shit to me, don’t say that it’s possible. Growth. Evolution. What does that make the relationships of my past? And it’s upsetting because I hate Freud. What I mean is that I’m a nightmare in relationships, but it’s made all the worse because I start out as a good dream. It’s cold again, and I wish it smelled like coffee when I came downstairs. It’s 4 a.m. again and I’m aching and I’m nauseous. This sweater was mom’s and I hate the way it fits me. Sick & selfless. And what if I’m her and she is me!? I feel so happy to have a clean house, but I hate cleaning, but I don’t trust anyone else to do it, and isn’t that just because I am her and she is me? And that house was too big for you, and you lost me – but I was lost too, unprepared and broken as I was. And so I snapped my fingers for you to find me. I still do. Do you notice, little animal? With the red ‘rejected’ sticker on dad’s windshield. Getting lost in Callaghan State Park. She’s not your mom, you aren’t the point, and you’ll silently beg if you keep wanting it. Don’t be so sure that you’ll get it, no, don’t want it, don’t hope for it, because you will not get it. Cause I came downstairs and the pie was so sweet that it prickled my tongue, but you were laid out exhausted and it wasn’t for me, wasn’t about me, how could I forget? dropping the octave when I wish I didn’t have to. and yeah I was treated wrong by my mom I bet you can see it on my face. and the cops drive sedans up here so I’ll have to get used to the headlights. When the wine’s flowing, their politics chase the hue of their drinks. Brushing the blood off of my teeth. AND I USED TO HATE IT WHEN SHE SAT ON THE EDGE OF MY BED. SOMEHOW, SHE MADE IT FEEL WRONG, INVASIVE, DEMANDING. If you braided my hair, I think I’d cry. How did I never know my own capacity to need, and need, and need? And, yeah, I’ve got some wires crossed, and sometimes I indulge in it, and it feels wrong, but I just want, and I want, and I want. There’s a braided cord around my neck, so constant that my eyes skim over it. I made it, but it was tied on by someone important to me, and then again when it broke by another person important to me. I made it, but they kept it on me. And how weird of me, to exist in a library, looking at books?? Sleepless and sober. Vince snores like a draft horse. Guttey kicks in his sleep. I’ve been up for 38, and I wonder when it’ll be over. I don’t want to make you drive, Katarina, but it’s gonna be over 50 by the time we get on the road. And Katarina it’s okay, you have bad eyesight, and it’s not your car, so let me take care of it. And I had fun flirting but I’m terrified of texting. “Animal fur, sour and matted and curled into knots” - The Devil in Silver. Turning the lights off on the way down. I washed the spare bedding for you even though I could barely get up today. “That’s it by the way. Ethan moves in on Thursday. No more living with dad. No more blender at 12 noon. No more listening to him gripe about work. Or half-listening, he somehow never seemed to mind if I wasn’t all there. No more seeing him try to get something done after work and he’s stuck on something and he hasn’t eaten dinner yet so I start cooking. No more ‘it’ll be okay!’ No more turning in early. No more ‘do you want to come to the grocery store.’ No more groaning when he gets killed in call of duty. No more “noping out.” No more easy understanding. No more ‘I can tell you need to talk so I’ll subtly let you know that I’m here for you.’ No more unwritten rules we both know by heart. No more. And if you couldn’t tell, I’m a little sad about it.” -Mon, May 30, 2022. I made a promise to the moon, and it didn’t means shit. For the first time in my life, I have a body image, and I fucking hate it. And I’m sorry I hit that rock on parker street when it was snowing so thick it came down in bunches. I know the car’s messed up and I don’t wanna make more problems for you. The blood on my fleece turned brown. Thinking, for the first time in my life, about what I want. What I want. You can love me, but you can’t have me. Cold hard confusion. The last time it was May and I thought I had allergies, it was covid. And I’ve missed you these past few months, and it hurt when you could only focus on the money, when you didn’t trust that I was doing the right thing. I’m sorry I dropped out of school. You know how hard it was. I’m sorry I quit my last job, but I was sick. I’m still sick, every day just like the last. I never want to be cared for again. Is there an ‘again?’ Or has it never really happened. Either way, I don’t want it to start now. It broils and distorts. “I definitely got a lot out of the learning-how-to-listen-especially-to-women thing, but eventually I just felt taken-advantage-of.” “It literally feels different to own and operate my body; like being the sole proprietor of an empty fucking lot.” Spring’s a pretty terrible season to be dying.

There’s pain in that. There’s pain in the cord around my neck, tied on by someone who wouldn’t accept me. I was born sick and gifted, and I’ll die sick and gifted, and by god I hope it comes soon. One of life’s little dysfunctions. You know, I’m like an injured crow. An injured bird by definition, but smart enough to be annoying about it. Nobody else is gonna tell me to get a life, he says. He’s willing to be the bad guy, he says. Everyone has their burden, but they get through it. He wonders if it’s a choice, wants to go over my head, wants to talk to my therapist. Olives in wine glasses, charcuterie, the hems of dresses. It’s so wonderful, I said. It’s so wonderful to be safe. Fingers, eight of them, pull at my waistband. There’s poison in my life support. Video essays and informative posts teach me that I am made of statistics: one of the lonely, suicidal trannies that inabit this country. Rejection is my birthright. I am suffused with hate at the very sound of his guitar and his whining, uncompromising voice, played too loud for such a small house, over and over, over and over. Scarring my retinas again, the afterimage of a thousand bodies like the scalding tongue against the roof of my mouth. Hideous. I know now that when I die, it will be atop a toilet seat. Coming to the realization that this lifetime is just a rusted link on the chain. I am now very certain that when I die, it will be atop a toilet seat. All that I am is limestone: I can give you six months of it, and you can chip away, revealing further layers; circumnavigate me, prying away my theater until you find the bedrock beneath. And you’ll be excited to see the bedrock, accomplished as you are to have gotten through the limestone, but the bedrock will only say one thing, and say it unequivocally: “Get the fuck away from me.” “Be still and know,” as in, “stop and realize what your body’s telling you,” as in, “stop spinning your wheels and trust your gut.” When you drive up north you leave the AC unit on. It won’t fix me, but it’ll give me a break. Guys like me, they need to feel clean. It’s a lot to tell someone “I can’t take any more of you.” Praying that god, in his infinite wisdom, will decide that it’s time to show me the door. You have to appreciate the sunset in winter. You have to. Something about dad and benadryl. The state of my mental health is at-risk. The morning sun glitters the swamps with hoarfrost; dog walkers on mount misery.