What Kind Of Person Are You?

what kind of person are you?

he said what's wrong? i don't know, i'm just not much of a morning person. it's not the morning, he said gently. oh, well i suppose i'm not much of an afternoon person then either. but you're not a night person, he said. i know that much. well i'm not much of a person in general, i think.

how to know when to stop

When there stops being a want -that ache in my chest for more more more- that’s when I’ll end it. When every day stops being a battle, when there are more no’s than yeses, pleases than try’s, lined up in a row and counted like a ratio of would you mind if I stay? to it’d be better if I go. When there are more reasons to stop than there are to continue on with it. It’s not so much that I want to die. It’s just that I want to stop existing, stop moving sluggishly through life like a half-asleep shadow. When the time comes when I feel like I can’t stand it, when there is no point. When there is no one left to miss me, no one to cry and ask for one more day. By now they know that asking won’t get them anything so they pack my bags for me, ready for me to leave. More no than yes, just sooner than later and leave a note telling us where you’ve gone. When there is no one who would miss you. Would it be so terrible?

For John, all of the people I love and to celebrate a day with no hatred. Gender is what’s between your ears, not what’s between your legs, and love is love no matter what.

to those who are held back by an ill-fitting skin

my friend, he cried in my arms I held him close and let him weep until he could let it go and talk without fear of trembling.

He told me they had done nothing it was just words that had hurt him so left bruises and cuts and scars all over. They said that there are only girls-who-are-girls and boys-who-are-boys and there was no in between no either/or no and.

He cried for the wrongness of it, the idea that he was not supposed to be who he thought he was. The other day, he said, someone asked me what I was. I didn’t know what they meant I didn’t know I didn’t know

The question was not what are you but who are you and no one seemed to ask.

I told him they were right and he screamed, beating at my chest and crying I was just like them. I held him tight within the cage of my arms and did not let go, waited until he had worn himself out with the agony of perceived betrayal. Then I whispered softly that I had a secret.

I told him that they were right there are no boy-who-are-girls and girls-who-are-boys there are girls, and boys, and either/or and and you are what you choose to be and who you think you are is what you am

You are not a girl-who-is-a-boy and I am not a boy-who-is-a-girl you are a boy and I am a girl Let’s hold hands instead of the broken halves of our hearts.

I don’t mean to demean the struggle you have endured, the part of your being that comes from living for years in an ill fitting skin. That has and always will be you, it has made you and shaped you to be who you are.

But until we realise that people are people and you cannot change that no matter the gender or non gender you are a boy and I am a girl. When we can be recognised as boys and girls

then, maybe, if you want you can be a boy-who-used-to-be-a-girl and I will still call you John.

Through my words he stopped crying and beating against my chest, rested his head on my shoulder and held on for dear life. His skin felt a little less constricting a little less ill-fitting, broken and burnt. With that I said my secret- the one that kept me here.

you are what you think you are and that, my dear, is beautiful.

Nietzsche’s horse’s eyes, pt. one

how did you get those scars?

cats and curling irons and accidents I say, rattling off excuses in a list three pages long when all I really want to say is knives and needles and scissors and my own two hands, I did this I did this I DID THIS LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT THIS COULD BE ANYTHING BUT MAN MADE, ANYTHING BUT BROKEN AND ABUSED. THIS WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT AND NEITHER AM I- I CANNOT BE WASHED AWAY OR HIDDEN. LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT YOU DO NOT SEE YOURSELF, REFLECTED IN THE BEAST WITHIN MY EYES.

mother, i am stupid

(nietzsche’s horse’s eyes pt. two) the eyes that reflected a field of fallen horses, the absent recognition of cruelty. the eyes like empty vacant houses and somewhere, quietly, a child calling out if anyone is home. the eyes that saw too much within the body that bore too much containing the mind that knew too much, that had to live with the knowing. look into the eyes of every victim and every animal and you will see the same dull resignation to a fate they think they deserve. the eyes turned blind, clouded with acceptance that has not been earned. with what else could we see kindness if not for the lack of it?