#ryverthoughts

It's been forty years since the world's worst nuclear event happened.

Ryver of the Night

☆ She/Her ☆

"Somewhere between confession and disappearance"

somewhere between nowhere and never

I bloom in decay

teeth in the wallpaper

static between stars

resident of the in-between

I have no mouth and I must scream

Child of Saturn.

Time eats all his children in the end.

Maybe Cupid wont miss.

I let you know me.

Hello, It's Ryver of the Night.

I have admired Tumblr and AO3 from afar, knowing how much my friends love it.

I am eighteen and prefer that minors I don't know not interact with me. I also prefer that if you're 30+ and I don't know you, you don't interact.

I am a polyglot, currently at twelve languages. So if you send an ask and tell me what language you'd like it in, I can do that for you.

Please do not ask me to do strange, out-there kinks. I will not answer to homophobic, transphobic, ableist, misandrist, misogynistic, racist, incestuous, rape-related, minor-involved, or non-consensual things. You will be removed and reported.

I love to Dance, Sing, and write.

Soon, I'll get my Notion working so you guys can have my stories. 🫶 I'll add more to this when I get all of it fixed.

Don't be afraid to ask, I want asks, I love to see people out there that have silly little questions.

I am in the shower.

With hands on

scars where breasts used to be.

Scars that now allow me to take off my shirt when I am hot.

However when I do sit down to enjoy the shower.

I think about when I was nine, in the bath, when my mom first noticed the dark specks showing up in my pelvic area.

And that meant I had to shave my legs and under my pits and down there. But I was always bad with a blade and sometimes, I feel sick that I would rather flay the skin, than deal with the world.

And I think… When did this become my body?

Why haven’t I thought about how big my legs are now, in the tub.

When did I have blue hair? And start hating my natural color?

When did these scars and bruises become my identity?

Before I knew anything was wrong with me. Before I knew I was in a community so hated.

When I had a mom and dad. That is the last time I paid attention to my body in the shower.

And now my body is so big. And I will never be that small again. And the curtain seems too close to me now. And the bathroom walls and ceiling are closing in. Cramping me in place, because I’m not ten anymore.

And I can’t play with barbies in the shower, now I have to have those thoughts in my head.

Now, I have to think about everything I did wrong.

Because I’m not eleven anymore, and it’s not okay to be oblivious. Because little boys will stare now. Because boys will want to touch you, now.

And when you’re twelve you still think about cartoons, and not about your friend's father who likes your bright two piece swim suit, before you learned how to move with breast and thighs and ass.

Because when you’re thirteen and you go to middle school, boys will want to know if they can dance with you.

Because boys like girls who kiss them, and girls who have bright blue eyes and bright blonde hair, and shave without giving scars.

And when you’re fourteen, young men like to talk about you in clubs and say her hair was so pretty long. But they don't tell you they’ll grab that pony tail. So the mother is forced to cut it off, and encourage it. Because mothers like young ladies who look mature, not confused ladyboys.

And when you’re fifteen, you have scars that cover your thighs like maggots cover decaying flesh.

And doctors ask you if you're a young lady or a young man, and you say young lady, remember that time you had blue hair, because you loved blue more than pink?

Because pink isn’t even a color you think about at sweet sixteen, and the men only want perky breasts on pretty redheads and that's it.

And in the shower once the red looks like blood going down the drain, and that man's favorite shade fades to a pale pink. You realize it was never about the color pink.

And seventeen all the boys go away, and all the men don’t want you. The boys like women, not ladyboys with buzzed hair.

And eighteen that hair becomes blue.

And I can't remember the last time I paid attention in the shower. I just remember I hated what I had.

And now I wish it all back as I touch the scars where my breasts used to be. Because it’s harder to be a man than it ever was as a young tomboy.

And maybe that’s all I was. A tomboy. . And now I pay attention in the shower because I can't feel my lips and I can’t look down at the body I created.

Trigger Discipline

I don't want to teach Corvid how to shoot a gun.

Yet I find it a necessity she’s never held a weapon.

Not that she would admit if she ever did.

My hands slide against her arms, my chest against her back.

As if I wanted to wear her skin, or crawl inside and forget the man I am.

I breathe her in, fitting my body against hers.

Raise her arms, my fingers over the barrel.

“You always want to practice trigger safety. So you don't shoot yourself, or shoot somewhere you didn’t want on them.”

Her shoulders stiffen under my hands—just barely, something most people would miss.

Not fear. Not quite.

Something quieter.

“I don’t like this,” she murmurs, though she doesn’t pull away.

My grip falters for half a second. Not enough to release her—just enough to betray me.

“You don’t have to like it,” I say, lower now. Closer to her ear. “You just have to know it.”

The metal feels colder than it should. Or maybe that’s just her. Corvid always carried that chill, like she belonged somewhere the sun didn’t reach.

I adjusted her stance, slower this time. Careful. Like I’m afraid she’ll vanish if I move too quickly.

“You hold it steady,” I continue, though my voice has lost its edge. “You decide before you ever—”

I stop.

Because this isn’t about safety. Not really.

My forehead dips toward her shoulder, just brushing. A mistake. A confession.

“This isn’t you,” I say, quieter now. Almost to myself.

Corvid tilts her head slightly, just enough that I can see the corner of her expression, something unreadable, something sharp.

“No,” she says. “It’s you.”

“I don’t like how calm you are about this.”

A faint pause slips in between us. The kind that makes a room feel smaller.

“I’m not calm,” I answer.

It’s honest enough that she doesn’t argue.

Her stance shifts slightly under my guidance. Feet set. Shoulders aligned. The kind of posture that looks simple until you try to hold it for too long.

“Now,” I say, softer, “don’t rush it. Just bring it up. Slow.”

She does.

Her arms are steady, but I can feel the hesitation in them. Like she expects the moment to bite back.

“Good,” I say before I can stop myself.

The word sits wrong in my mouth. Corvid notices.

She always notices. And damn her for it.

“Aim.” I murmur. A flash of my Captain in front of me. Aim, you stupid Commie. The American way.

“Aim like your life depends on it, then cock your firearm.”

I whisper. —one day it might depend on it.

And I take her recoil when she fires. My chest against her back, my head next to hers, my groin against her ass.

Like I wanted to crawl inside her and hide from the man I am, as if I could wear her skin.

How can one be sure they love another?

When my voice feels so tiny in comparison to the roar of people who want to hold your hand, and the band screeching its melody, I feel so small, a composition of my heart thundering in my head. When I finally go in for a kiss, and when I finally decide that the liminal space between us means nothing, maybe for a moment, someone as neurotic as me doesn't have to be afraid. Not when I can act bold around you. When it feels like the gravitational pull of eachother is enough to rip the world in half just to be together, and when the distance between us makes it feel like our magnets are two of the same, it will be okay as long as our battery is charged. The Universe sees us and puts trials in pur way, darling, remember the rituals the animals do? Remember the Eagles Death Spiral, or the Dance of Trust that Stingrays do, The Swan Love that only me and you can replicate in our painfully human bodies. My lover, remember how you felt when I told you the song I confessed to you? Remember when I told everyone I knew in school and showed your picture and said you were mine until the day we died? And remember when I said I'd hid behind a wall of people just to protect our love? I remember. I wont forget. My body makes it impossible to, I feel sick when I think about leaving you. So physical, so real. You have become molded into my soul, and if I had to choose me or you, I'd choose you and give all my most treasured organs, my blood, my air, anything to keep you with me for another moment. To tell you how much I devoted myself, Dear, you are never alone, not when I hold you in my eyes. . . My sweetheart, I shared both halves of my heart, and how much more beautiful is that? I'd wager more beautiful than any saxophone or baby grand could sing. More wondrous and awe-striking than an organ weeping God's mindful words in a church or the angels coming down with their trumpets. If the world was to end for me, I would have it in place you got all the letters I wrote to you. If you were to leave this plane, without me. You would never truely die, you would haunt every narrative, every speech I gave. Because you've become a pearl in my Oyster of a soul, and I will keep you away, your memory a shining pretty, for me to have. For others to wonder what a magnificent person you were.

I love you. This song is how I felt, when I first held you in my dream.

October 18th

Didn’t sleep much last night. Wind kept scraping the branches against the cabin roof like fingernails. Thought I heard tires on the gravel around three in the morning, but nothing was there when I checked. Just frost and silence.

Tracked the deer north of the creek around dawn.

Buck. Large. Smart enough to double back through the pines to break the trail. Fresh prints pressed deep into the mud. Heavy animal. Probably injured too — right hind leg dragging slightly.

I followed him for close to two hours without firing once. Forest was dead quiet except for crows and my own breathing. That’s the worst part about hunting sometimes. The waiting makes you aware of every sound your body makes. Every snapped twig feels like a gunshot.

Caught sight of him near the ridge line.

For a second he just stood there between the trees with steam rolling from his nose. Big antlers. One ear torn up from an old fight. Looked exhausted. So was I.

He saw me before I raised the rifle.

Didn’t run immediately. Just stared.

Funny thing about deer — people think they’re stupid because they freeze. Truth is they’re trying to decide if you’re worth wasting energy on.

Guess I made the decision for him.

One shot.

Clean enough.

Dragged him back before the storm rolled in. Snow’s coming early this year. Cabin smells like wet fur and gunpowder now.

I keep thinking about the way he looked at me before the shot.

Like he already knew how the morning ended.