I know it's bad

I know it hurts

I know it doesn't work

But I still can't stop myself

It's so much easier when it's a non-action

To forget, to go without

Pain resides in my whole body

I shake and fall down

No energy to get back up

The reasons are worst of all:

'I don't actually need this'

'I just need to lose a bit more'

'I can go just a little longer'

'Do you deserve it?'

I don't have a gender.

To many people, that may seem like a strange thing to say.

"But you love dresses!"

"But you wear makeup and jewelry!"

"But you sew and cook and knit and clean and, and, and!

"You never seemed masculine at all!"

That's the thing.

I am not masculine.

I am not feminine.

I am a secret third thing.

I am

empathetic,

strange,

curious,

loving,

passionate,

divine.

Those all define me,

not my gender.

I may do feminine things,

enjoy dresses and makeup and jewelry,

enjoy cooking and sewing and knitting,

but

I also do masculine things,

enjoy suits, short hair, having a flat chest,

enjoy engineering, getting dirty, working with numbers.

Those do not show my gender

My gender does not exist

I exist

I am more than gender

Gender does not limit me,

define me,

relate to me,

or have any bearing on what I do.

Gender has no importance to me

And I can't feel it anyways

So why does it matter?

What matters is that I cook,

I knit,

I engineer,

I get dirty,

I sew,

I tangle with numbers

I love,

I am the caretaker and the taken care of

I am beyond gender

It does not matter to me anymore

I feel free.

Nails digging

freeing my skin

from danger underneath

bloody

scarred

there was never anything there

1. Minute from The Wassailant by Kofi Young

2. Fight Gods from The Garages Kill the Gods by The Garages

3. Liquid Friend from Percolate by The Garages

4. Shrove Tuesday by Kofi Young

5. Sirens from Ulysses Dies at Dawn by The Mechanisms

6. Téir Abhaile ’Riú from Believe by Celtic Woman

7. Cyborg Abominations from Lolina: Origins by R. L. Hughes

8. Kulupu Jan Tempo from (disambiguation) by jan Misali

9. How the Story Goes from Half-Sin, Half-Virtue by Ben Below

10. Rocks from Night Visions by Imagine Dragons

My taste in music is pretty obscure and kind of all over the place, but this is what I’ve been listening to recently!

On a brisk fall night

When the air holds just a bite

Children dart here and there

Asking for candy or a scare

When the leaves have fallen down

And everyone’s back in their hometown

A turkey sits on the table

While we all listen to a fable

When colder fronts move everyone inside

Children stay up, bleary-eyed

Waiting for presents to appear

While ‘Santa’ waits for the ‘all-clear’

And through another year, it holds clear: we love to gather near.

In the beginning, there was the Earth.

Just as it is now, except for one tiny thing in a hidden corner of the world.

And that one thing grew, and grew, and grew, until people noticed it.

And when they noticed it, they saw what it was doing:

birds fell fell out of the sky, dead mid-flight.

trees collapsed it spread up them, the dust-turned trunk unable to hold the still-green leaves.

lakes evaporated, leaving behind flopping fish that quickly perished too.

boulders fractured and split apart, leaving behind only a dusting of the finest sand.

air stood still without the joyous buzzing of bugs to fill it and give it life.

turning their beloved land to dust and ashes, gone and inhospitable.

They tried to stop it, built walls and shelters to hide from it, but as it grew it moved faster and faster, killing all they knew.

But the world did not want to die.

It wanted its birds and trees and water and fish and rocks and bugs and everything to survive.

It did not want its creations, all its work, to die.

It would not let this disease kill everything it had made.

But it could not stop its corruption.

So it cut off part of itself,

severed off a section of world before the plague infected it,

and this small fraction of the great world survived,

on its own,

forcibly abandoned by its creator,

in isolation,

alone,

but alive.

That is the world we know today,

The sole surviving piece of a world once much greater, bigger,

Incomplete but existing,

a miracle, from a sacrifice.

I yawn,

I stretch,

I roll over,

Clinging to warmth

That hides, trapped, beneath my blankets.

After a while I force myself out,

Into the frigid air.

I shiver as it steals my warmth,

I wrap myself in my blankets,

An improvised shield,

And head upstairs.

Later, as I eat my breakfast,

I look out my window,

Watching the horizon as it changes from pure black to navy blue,

royal purple,

crimson red,

something orange,

Colors bouncing off of frost and thrown around by buildings.

I pull on my jacket,

Clothing myself in layers of fluffy fabric,

Sealing in warmth,

Protecting me from the frozen land outside.

As I head outside, I take a second:

Watch my breath billow in the late morning sunshine,

Hear the crackle of the nearby lake as the sun heats up the night air,

Feel my nose freeze, already beginning to stick together,

Smell the crisp scent of snow on the ground.

And as I start the long walk to my destination,

Snow starts to sprinkle from the sky,

(not enough to worry about my driveway,

and clearing it when I get home,)

But just enough to stretch out my tounge,

And catch one,

Tasting it before it melts,

A tiny pinprick of ice.

I saw you every day.

You'd walk in five minutes late,

hang up your coat,

and join us in morning meeting

I always saved a chair for you,

Even if you didn't take it.

I'd sit far away from you during writing,

Sneaking peeks in the middle of phrases,

Stopping sentences to look at you.

Then you'd head off to class,

The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, different grades.

The next time I'd see you was lunch,

laughing in the sunshine

Or smiling through the winter cold.

I'd eat my lunch, silent before your glory,

Not knowing what more I could say than,

"You're fun, you're cool, you're amazing."

After lunch is more the same, until the end of the day.

The roar of the bus calls me,

And I must go.

One last time I see you, on my way out the door.

I would give you a hug,

If I dared be so bold.

Maybe even hold your hand,

Swing it back and forth like we were 6 again,

Back on the playground where we first met.

Or maybe I'd do the secret handshake we made up when we were ten,

meeting for the second time.

Or maybe even kiss your forehead,

Like you do when we're alone in your room.

But I do none of those things,

Just wave and head off,

Saying goodbye,

Until tomorrow.

Sometimes I wonder

What comes after

I know it's not that rare of a feeling,

Stories through the ages have told about it

The Greeks and Hades,

The Christians and Heaven,

(And also Hell)

The Buddhists and Reincarnation,

And many more, lost to time and repression and apathy

I wonder if someone, somewhere, has felt like me

When they considered the possibility of nonexistence

Of just not thinking, not feeling

Becoming just another set of bones for some future archeologist to dig up 1,000 years from now

It doesn't matter, and it matters a whole lot.

Because if I'm not alone

(No matter what seems to be true in this small town of mine)

Then maybe, just maybe, we could meet each other when we are just dust and imprints of what once was among the earth

And talk about what experienced when we were alive

And maybe, maybe, we would exist, even if just to each other.

A blanket-

No.

An absence-

No.

Reverence-

Still not right.

Peace?

Certainly not.

A weight-

No.

Yes?

Yes:

A weight,

a shape,

a hand,

is pressing down

Twisting my throat,

Covering my lips,

Keeping all air out

My lungs bloat,

My tongue trips,

And I know without a doubt-

It is back.

That invisible thing,

That creeps and crawls and springs

Into everything around it

And forces us to submit.

Isolating.

Unwelcome.

Intruder.

And once it comes

(And it always comes

sometime,

eventually,

inevitably)

It controls us

Though we never discuss

Our ways

For holding it at bay

Just in case it may stray

And upon us set its gaze

We try to stave it off

With a cough and a scoff

And it works-

But just for a while

A much-too-short while

Before it again descends

And rends

Our ability to speak

From us limb to limb, wing to beak

I hope you never fall prey

As I was lead astray-

It is never good to be alone

When control of your voice is not your own.