Gender Fuck What 2

Speaking honestly, I have had enough of myself and the things that I have lately made. Eight out of twenty pages are done of Gender Fuck What Issue 2, and I wonder how quickly I will tire of it and have to make something new. Page for page it looks better, yet less raw. Page for page it contains the same fears and thoughts I had about the first one, except now there is something to compare to.

I have no reservations about being compared to other artists or people who's work makes mine looks like scribbles and chalkboard doodles. I fear self comparison and getting worse instead of better.

Fewer copies of GFW 2 because I am ashamed of how terrible it is.

To

To the girl who said write soon, so I can write back sooner,

To the girl who whispered every word of my songs as she wrote in a pink notebook.

All the pictures I have taken look the same.

From one horder to the next,

We give each other the things we cannot throw away.

It is no wonder I am bored, I am used to being busy and handsome.

Here I am an unoccupied, ugly girl, dressed in fake pearls and sweat,

Wasting my youth staring out the window at the handle of a kite that is caught on the power lines.

It looks like a little scorpion.

You are no longer my biggest fan.

I am no longer my biggest fan.

Words have found their way up.

Irritable for no reason other than I am incapable of doing too many things.

At times like this, it is best just to go to bed,

At times like this it is best to be around other people, find crowded places.

There is no obligation to talk to strangers, but thoughts dissipate

I am aware that the words I use are too small.

Welcome home?

Fall into bed, sobbing, silent stains.

It's ok.

The long ago pen pal said today:

"I thought you killed yourself and couldn't bring myself to email you, fearing no response."

I take this, and put it in my back pocket with my receipts, change, and a red plastic pencil sharpener.

"Don't think about it anymore, forget it."

It's hard, and hardly advice. I miss the intimacy of cutting, the depth of skin and the amount of pressure needed. Things you don't need to know, knowledge that will never make it into any formal essay, and likely never any fiction you write.

The word September hits my stomach like a punch. I am sicker than I think I am. Another year, I don't know how well I will do on another year of the grind. I am rubbed raw, rubbed raw from all this trying. It's like scraping your knees on concrete, getting up, and doing it again. Continuously scraping your knees on concrete until all the skin wears away.

Why would you do that? Something has to change, and I don't know what. How am I going to handle school for another year? It never gets easier. Life gets harder, work gets harder.

Yelling. There's more yelling. It's so fucking hot. Heat makes me anxious. It's better when no one gives a fuck, like your mother, like your father, like the friends who are busy, and the friends who have boyfriends and would rather hang out with them than you, the friends who are too cool for you, the friends who don't understand the things that make you happy, the friends who party.

Captain.

A few days ago, a girl who was in indescribable bodily pain took the stage. Wheeling herself to the middle of the stage, the campfire pit surrounding her, she begins to recite a poem. As she says it, she signs it to her deaf friends. The poem was Invictus, one I probably should have known, but heard for the first time that night.

I tell myself: I too am the captain of my own fate. I too can direct my own stories, tell my own tales. No matter what pain or thoughts I am feeling, I can survive it or choose not to. Making zines has helped a lot with that.

Slowly I am learning that some people don't care about the stories I have to tell. Slowly I am learning that the competing desires to stay and go, the desires to make something of myself or make dust are always going to be there.

You found my video on youtube

You found my video on youtube. You were thinking about me. It's kind of funny. In a weird, sick way, its funny. You're fine, and I'm fine, so that's all I wanted to say to you. You cared too much, I cared too little. Then I cared too much, then you cared too little.

I'm over it.

And I was like

Kids in our cabin were doing a spice girl dance to "Stop Right Now".

To introduce it, a girl and I went on stage and acted as if we were getting married.

I put on a leather jacket in the August heat, painted my face with facial hair.

She wore a white veil and held fake plastic flowers.

I acted like a bad husband, and they interrupted our fake marriage with the dance.

"Stop right now, thank you very much, I need somebody with the human touch".

That night we were on night duty.

On night duty we sleep in the cabins down the hall from the kids just in case they need us.

I joked that it would be our honeymoon.

It could have been.

I call her Tay Tay, and she makes me smile every time I see her.

I think she's the sweetest girl in the world.

Straightest girl in the world,

But sweetest.

We talked for hours asking each other questions.

She is scared of death, I am scared of not accomplishing everything I need to.

Her ideal date was a picnic, mine was city wandering and photography.

Her favourite movie is Ten Things I Hate about You, mine was Waking Life.

We both disclosed our insecurities.

She told me I made her think of things differently.

She liked my thoughts.

I have never met a nicer more genuine person in my life.

I'm learning to play her favourite song on the guitar.

This might be a summer crush.