die

People do not want to be seen.

At first, knowing me is exhilarating. I look with both eyes — a fixed gaze, unwavering. I may forget the incidentals, but I never forget the things I love.

Being seen by me means being seen clearly for the first time. I will give you the courage to know you’ve been wronged and the guidance you couldn’t get elsewhere, and I make it look so easy.

We dance. For a short while or a long time, we dance so effortlessly it feels like flight.

But that gaze never breaks. You will hurt me, eventually. When you do, I ask that you see me in return, and apologise the way I would to you — if I had ever wronged you.

And you cannot do it. You cannot bear it. I made you feel so good — why am I taking that feeling from you?

Why did I stop the dance?

And that’s when you realise you never loved me. Sam said it best: “I don’t know if I ever loved you.”

I much prefer that to Fred’s dishonesty, which requires no commentary, though I will provide it:

“now you can add me to your ever-growing list of ex-close friends, you fucking loser!”

“i have to be honest this doesn’t really feel like losing! love u tho”

love u tho. Of course, Fred, you do not know what love is. You have never felt it. Nor has Sam. One wonders why you ever stopped seeing each other.

My “ever-growing list of ex-close friends” — who would you like me to regret losing? The abuser? The rapist? The dog? The cowards and dishonest comforters?

These are the people you want to associate with — and you expect me to think I “did us both a favour”.

“i hope you never regret it” — believe you me, I won’t.

But you? Ha.

all these various theories but i have a simpler one of my own:

consciousness is the lie the human predator tells itself so it can go on killing and destroying and sleep soundly afterwards.

human beings are machines. their configuration differs but they are war weapons.

nobody can depend on anyone. nobody can ask anything of anyone. trust is stupidity. faith is stupidity poured out into the future.

no one feels. no one thinks.

“aren’t you embarrassed to be talking about how you were hurt?”

nope. what would i be embarrassed about? the fact that the world is cruel? that’s a well known fact.

“yes but you should be tough enough to move on.”

that’s not toughness, that’s cowardice. toughness means fighting your enemies, not breaking bread with them.

“fine, but don’t show them your weakness.”

what weakness? is love a weakness?

“no!”

is hate a weakness?

“it makes the soul brittle.”

issuing a correction on an error that has gone on for millennia: weak souls calcify when hatred flows through them. when the weak hate, they hate universally. they become bitter, base, and small-minded. they are right to fear their own hate — it makes them weaker.

you hate blacks and you hate jews. why wouldn’t you hate a mix?

i condemn you. in unequivocal moral terms. your, uh, “sweet boy” turned tail and ran when i asked him kindly to reach out to sam about his documented abusive behaviour. why? that’s quite simple: he’s also racist. as you are.

you do not care about people of colour because you do not have to. white supremacy ensures that you don’t.

you think being queer and trans makes you immune to this rot. it doesn’t. it simply makes you more sanctimonious and more annoying.

know this: i hate you. i have every reason to. i will not look back on our time together and smile. i will not remember you fondly. when i think of the times i helped you, i shake my head with regret. what a waste of time. you did not deserve the gift of my love. i hope you fall back into old habits and suffer.

if you are one of my former friends reading this: i am better than you. better looking, healthier, richer, smarter. on every metric i have ever put in more than a week of effort, i mog you. i did you the courtesy while we were friends of believing in your capacity to develop, but there was not a moment where i considered us equals except on the moral level.

now i know not even that is true — i am a better person than you. compare our accomplishments, consider what i’ve done for you, then consider what you’ve done for me. i never once needed you. if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead/homeless/beaten/suffering from organ failure. if it weren’t for you, i’d have transitioned sooner. not exactly equal, is it?

people are not equal. their worth can be measured in terms of their skills or their decency. i keep decent people around. after sam, i kick the indecent to the curb and i only look back to laugh.

it is funny to imagine [redacted] in therapy crying about how hard it was to be outed as a rapist and white supremacist in a whatsapp group full of their sympathetic friends;

it is funny to imagine [redacted] living in fear that i’ll out them for being a [redacted] after spending years confiding that information in me for their therapeutic benefit;

it is funny to imagine sam living god knows where making dogshit porn and then sending most of his earnings away to my landlord so i don’t sue him;

i broke you all. not with violence, but with words, and all those words did was signal to you: “i see you. now perish.”

i won because i’m better than you are. you know it in your bones. i come from a long and noble line of survivors — wandering jews and free blacks — my strength and my mercy is my birthright. i even hate differently to you: i grieve the entire time i twist the knife.

you’re scum and you know it. there’s nothing interesting to recover in your ancestry, and nothing interesting going on in your life. wake up, do some menial crap for no money, go home, sleep. occasional hedonistic amusement on the weekends.

get used to it — you don’t deserve any better, and you won’t get lucky either.

> put a keyboard in there

> put a really nice flowy checked skirt on

> start improvising cool shit on the keyboard after working out half of only acting from memory

holy shit who knew life could be this BASED???

[the sounds of breaking down]

You should be able to feel a performance

With your whole body and soul

Now I'm gonna teach you everything I know [anguish]

And you, and you, [anguish] and you, and you

[anguish]

[ironically joyous guitar solo]

Oh — I sometimes make up all of my lines on the spot

But I will always give what I got . . .

[dead air]

I thought I was only acting

But I felt exactly like it was all for real . . .

—

I gotta be honest, it disgusts me that this was my exes’ favourite track off this album. I suppose there are at least two ways to hear it: the narcissist style, where “acting” is all one does; and the sincere style, where “acting” is what one is consistently told they do.

I’ve found myself hearing more and more texture in music, and said texture plugs itself directly into my other senses. I used to hear the guitar solo from Only Acting and think “wow! sick solo!”, but now I realise that it’s a lament. Only acting. One suffers, one teaches everything they know to everyone they love, one is inevitably not understood. At times like this, I suppose all you can do is laugh.

—

When I was a kid, I would post song lyrics to my MSN messenger, to my Twitter, to my Tumblr, because music was always the way I expressed myself when my own words were so often insufficient. This instinct was trained out of me, as so many of my instincts were.

- my promotion is working through the HR process, with a tidy few ten thousand extra pounds per annum waiting at the end of it

- i am considerably more popular as a girl: the details would be crass to mention, but hey, it turns out i’m a t4t dyke after all. i hope the novelty of being described as a “hot woman” never wears off. and it’s nice to be amongst people where my “intensity” attracts instead of scaring

- my health has never been so good: turns out that estrogen affects eye shape, and i can’t even wear my prescription glasses because my eyesight has already improved too much. even my eye colour has changed — a beautiful light brown, just as they were when i was a kid. meanwhile my senses are more vivid, my thinking is clearer, i smell amazing, and i’m alarmingly soft

- i’ll soon be getting my deed poll signed by two friends who have eagerly gotten back in touch. bonding with one of them over the horrors of period cramps (which i experienced after foolishly double dosing estrogen) was very “affirming”, as they say

- i’m essentially doing this all on instinct, and look what i’ve won: success at work, love, and soul