Writing

I am agender non-binary. I want to live my life free to use any pronouns and have any presentation. I don’t want to hide or be afraid. But I am not accepted by my family. I am so nervous about wearing a binder for the first time. I am alone and fighting.

Black Trans Lives Matter. The blue is sky blue, the pink is just pink, white is titanium white, black is embers, and bricks and figure are cochineal red. I made the bricks and figure the same color because I had no clue what else to do for the figure, skin tone is a wide spectrum. The bricks are for Stonewall, the first pride, started by black trans women that quickly turned into a riot where bricks were thrown.

Ollerenshaw, Tracy, and Michael Baggs. “Black Trans Lives Matter Protest: 'Why We're Marching'.” BBC News, BBC, 27 June 2020, www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53192703.

The glass, an invisible force, surrounds me. It holds me and confines me. I swim through this water of mine, to every edge of resistance. I allow the water to flow through me and around me. It consumes me and suffocates me. Yet I swim with all my strength to find every crevice, to know every inch. The only freedom is above, where the glass does not exist and the only limitations are how far I am able to reach. I slow my pace to look upon the dancing lights that ripple with the movement of my limbs. Maybe. The surface quickly approaches me. My body moves with everything it has. Just Maybe. The water breaks over my head and the lights solidify into a single source. Just Maybe. A weightlessness entangles my body. Just Maybe. Suddenly the weightlessness vanishes and my body falls. The surface of the water breaks once more and the light dances once more. For a moment my body is suspended by the water like the strings of a net before I once more regain my balance and move my fins to continue my endless search for freedom in a cage.

So far from perfect.

I am just so tired. I numb myself to the pains of life anyway I can. I have to stop running. I know that, and yet... it is so hard. It feels like confronting the mountain in a fight. Tomorrow my queue will post the poem I wrote that was rejected from the school magazine, a magazine that everyone’s writing and artwork gets into. It hurt to see that I didn’t get in. I couldn’t move. Beyond eating, attending classes, and showering, I haven’t really moved since. All I did was watch shows and listen to music and played mind numbing games. I am so tired of laying there. I am so tired of running away. Instead I will stay in the ring with the mountain and let my emotions get torn to hell, because when it is all over, I will be stronger. I won’t be tired from running but strong from refusing to run.

After a week passed without me posting, I thought I had lied to people. People liking the post made it feel worse because it felt like people were actually watching and waiting. Today I finally came back with the intent to write something and I read my previous post to know whether or not an apology was warranted. When I read the post, I realized that I hadn’t saddled myself with certain expectations, instead I wrote how I really felt. I said that I “wanted” to post weekly. I hadn’t lied. I was entirely honest to how I felt and hadn’t realized by how much. I write this post in relief that all the feelings of disappointment in myself, related to this, has left me. I thought I was a liar but I wasn’t. I hadn’t disappointed my intentions but I have let myself feel disappointed. I guess that is the power of a single word.

I think I’ve officially entered an emo phase because I’ve really enjoyed this song lately. I want to start writing weekly and this is my explanation for why.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Americans. For everyone else in the world, have a good day. Make everyday special just for the sake of doing so. 

Life has been a rollercoaster for me and your concept was nothing new to me. I have faced my own mortality already due to poor genetics in regards to my heart. I have been in a situation where it feels as though I’m about to die. So your message was never revolutionary to me, but I must say that I was always so depressed to try to make something more of my life than an invisible ticking clock. This past year I made the effort. I have found ways to manage my depression and resolve my stress. I have put myself to learning electric guitar and writing as often as possible. It is exhausted at this point that I posed a challenge to myself over the summer to write every single day without fail and it to be one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Music and writing are things I hold close to my heart and I believe you are a part of this new motivation to make something more of my life than an invisible ticking clock. Thank you.

“The people aren’t actually going to die. The characters Unus and Annus will be the ones dying with the channel but no soul will grace our brimstone,” replies the demon, then they immediately walk away. At first I struggle to process their response and then it hits me. The demon is right. They aren’t going away only the characters. The crowd suddenly feels too loud and too enthusiastic. I leave and return home to view the final moments in my own space. 

Part of me wondered if everyone would have left after this time. I haven’t been consistent since I was forced to end the challenge, but people are still here. Have you forgotten I’m here? Will you take this moment to walk away? I am unreliable and sporadic; I am changing my subject matter everyday; I am nothing special at the end of the day. I fight to fly only to find the ground. I so badly want to reinstate the challenge but I just can’t keep up with it. Life is busy even though I don’t leave home most days. And I know the more I push the more space I’m giving myself to fall without something to pull me back up. Let us find joy in our abilities and understand our limitations I guess, for we will see if weeks pass between this post and the next or if my next post comes out sooner than any of us could expect.

I want to be something. Like every other person on this planet, I want to be something. I don’t care if it is something so small as some online writer. But I hope beyond all my judgment, that I could be so much more than I am. I reach to the stars as far as my arms would allow without dislocating my shoulder. I walk on water like a fish swimming upstream. I do my best in a way that will never be enough to achieve my greatest dreams. Maybe it is ok to just remain some online writer; Maybe it is ok to allow the stars to remain too far away; Maybe it is ok to allow the current to wash me away. I know better though; I know that when I reach for the stars I won’t give up; I know that I will find a way to make the water support me. I will never want to fall short even though my dreams couldn’t be reached by the best of us. In the fog of ambition, the only clear outcomes are success and defeat. I want to be something just like everyone else but my ambition won’t allow me the opportunity to find a place between all that I want to be and only a sliver of it.

More important than I could ever know

Everything I now hold dear

Wear your mask every time you leave your property. A step out of your apartment door or off your driveway means it is time for the mask to go on and stay on until that threshold is crossed again. When talking with a person that does not live with you, wear a mask to be courteous to them. I assure you that your neighbors and friends don’t want anything you got including coronavirus. If you live in a country that has been massively effected by the pandemic, act like you got it because there is a decent chance you do. Even if a test comes back negative, wear a mask, stay away from people, and wash your hands like your life depends on it because it might. I honestly don’t care what you think of masks. I don’t care that you think they’re difficult to breathe in; I don’t care that you think they’re ineffective; I don’t care if you find it uncomfortable. We are all in this together, even though none of us want to be. 

Unwelcome constant