a bi mess

I am in elementary school. I have discovered something in myself that is different from my peers. I have no words to express this feeling, so I instead live in discomfort for years and years and believe it to be normal.

I am in seventh grade. I have lost my entire friend group because a rumor was spread that because I am queer, I must be a creep. My last sleepover with those friends was spent sitting in the same room as them while they texted each other talking shit about me.

I am in seventh grade. I have endured homophobic bullying from snarky comments to food being thrown at me in the cafeteria, and today finally swing back. I get one of the bullies on the floor and the teacher breaks us up. I get in trouble for fighting while she continues to bully me. Nothing is done about the bullying when I speak up about it.

I am in seventh grade. I am being outed to my entire classroom by the people I share a table with. They are walking to every single desk and telling each classmate I am queer. I watch as every head turns to look at me in disgust. I am completely alienated from that class and spend my days working alone.

I am fourteen or fifteen. The discomfort I have lived with my entire life finally has a name: dysphoria. I have come out to my family as trans. I am in my room alone on my birthday, crying because every card has "girl" on it.

I am fourteen or fifteen. I get a tone with a family member because I am tired of her excuses for continuously misgendering me. Her husband corners me outside and threatens to hit me if I ever talk back to her again, and tells me my identity is made up. My family sides with him.

I am fifteen and sixteen. I wish I could die instead of living in stagnancy.

I am seventeen. My country is passing law after law to restrict my community. Trans people are going missing and being murdered, and their lights are snuffed without so much as a whimper. I am disgusted and afraid and grieving alongside my trans brothers, sisters, and siblings.

I am twenty. I do not speak to much of my family anymore, my mother has only ever called me my birth name, and I have lost every single friend I ever had except one, and had to rebuild myself and my circle from the ground up. Family holidays are hollow. I have self harm scars permanently etched on my skin, purple half-moons under my eyes that are like stains at this point, and I will never forget how I have been treated and what I have endured. My heart breaks knowing millions out there experience the same things and worse.

I am twenty. I am crying in my boyfriend's arms about not feeling like a real man. I am hearing him reassure me that he sees me for me and he loves me as the man I am. My small friend group strictly calls me by my chosen name and pronouns. I am in love, I have more support than ever, and for once, I'm starting to feel glad I'm alive, glad that I held on. For once, I have hope.

i think i drew him somewhere…. hmm

Based off this post by @7-inches-of-satanic-panic

and i'm feeling so soft about the idea of shane finally having enough of this and just slooooowly releasing a few pics on his insta now and then that are Real Ilya. and it's not that the world has any right to this, but enough!! that's shane's person!!! understand that he's fucking amazing!! stop insininuating that he mistreats shane or isn't shane's favorite person to be with!! the fuck!!

i'm just very emotional about the idea of shane's perfectly curated instagram that he tbh? didn't even have the password to before he started doing this.

but now among all of these carefully composed and cleared and crafted posts are pictures here and there that are like. ilya at a team bbq getting used as a climbing structure by three kids while a baby is teething on his thumb and he's carrying on a conversation like nothing's happening. ilya with a smile over his shoulder back at shane while he's carrying anya because her little baby feet got tired of keeping up on this walk. ilya in golden hour lighting at the cottage looking like something out of a fucking greek myth with the way he's limned in sunset and fucking GLOWING and not even looking at the camera because he's watching the duck family that came back this summer.

and shane clears all of these photos with ilya because he would never post without permission, and at first ilya is teasingly like oh?? you want to show off your sexy husband?? i should give you some shirtless pics, too??