i cannot write poetry lately… everything feels so derivative and unimpactful, and i cannot find the words to describe things in the way i want to. i have decided instead to let these words and thoughts be what they are.

there is so much that i want to do. so many aspects of the world i hope to witness. people to meet, places to see, emotions, connections, sex, pleasure, art, craft, nature community. i have ambition beyond my means, not to raise myself in the context of this stupid, moneyed world, but to be large, and to do much, and to be known, at least a little.

let me be more specific. i want to see the mountains of the Pecos wilderness again, to climb the Baldy and meet the child-self i left there once more, and recall the change the land and peers wrought upon me. i want to learn to dance, to unknot my legs from themselves. i want to read so many books, to experience other worlds. i want to discover what clothes feel good and appeal to my inner eye. i want to have cool furniture. i want to ride a bike far and wide, and feel the wind in my hair. i want to trudge through snow at night as frigid wind buffets my face, and see those lampposts again. i want to cook all sorts of delicious foods, and share them with friends when i am able, and see their joy and their smiles. i want to feel warmth and closeness and connection. i want to have the bandwidth to truly be a part of a community. i want to be naked. i want to have more sex with more people, whatever that may look like and in whatever time. i want to describe the world in ways that are impactful, and to truly understand and make peace with it, such as it is. i want to stop feeling so isolated, so different, so unknowable, so at a loss for words.

i have always been different, and i knew loneliness early. it’s important to know my past to understand this. i remember telling what was genuinely a funny joke in hindsight (“i already have a belt!” in response to an explanation about karate belts) and feeling shame instead of pride when people laughed at the joke. i thought they were laughing at me. i was bullied in elementary for seemingly no reason at all, except perhaps that i was better at math, or for the reason that kids somehow Know when someone is Other. i made friends often with people who were likewise isolated, for being different. i remember standing up for them in ways i could not even do for myself. i remember how unkind, how cruel people were to them. i played childish games with them for longer than was apparently socially acceptable. only among family were my quirks ever praised. i don’t think they ever truly understood them. i was always good at inventing games, right up until that social mode became obsolete. i had a cousin who was often very mean to me, and one time he upset me so deeply with the way he could cut deep that i tried to attack him, and someone had to hold me back. i remember how i would cleave to one cousin or another, how i would love them so blindly for the stability and familiarity they could bring. i remember rejecting my parents in favor of “found family” that failed me again and again.

i remember finally feeling belonging when i did set construction. i remember meeting queer and neurodivergent people for the first time, not understanding yet what i was seeing until much later, now that i am familiar with it, the love, the care, the understanding, and i did not perceive the gravity of it. i remember when what i know now to be lesbians took me under their wing a little bit, then when i did not know i was one of theirs. i met the right people in the right moment, and i didn’t know how to find their ilk again once they left, not until years later. i remember looking into the theatre instructor’s eyes, someone who i loved very much, and realizing that i felt nothing, no connection, only fearful loneliness. i remember enduring and surviving my first burnout and the accompanying panic disorder. i was my only friend then. my parents did what they could, but to this day what happened is incomprehensible to them. always i was trying to belong, wearing the mask, overextending myself and never quite hitting the mark.

i felt human once again when i met M. he did not know he would be called that at the time, but i felt like i knew him like nobody else, and i came to find that he was among the few whom i could exist freely around, with no fear or expense of energy. he introduced me to K, and E, and A with whom i lived for a time. many times we cried with each other for the difficulties we both faced. i grew to love him dearly, and indeed i would not be in this city at all if not for him. our friendship has changed since then, and we are both nothing like who we were when we met. still i cannot understate the beauty he brought into my life, especially when i was forced to learn to be without him for a long time. i learned how to be someone and to make friends. i finally had a good relationship with sex, and found that woah! people found me attractive, by then more than ever since i had discovered my transness. i felt community, so much as one can when you share a university campus in a small city. i felt radiant, like i could actually give myself to the world. i could go to nightclubs and actually enjoy myself. i could talk to people, and i felt like i was fun to be around. i felt at home for the first time, even as some people abandoned me as they always tended to. i am sure i failed others too.

then i graduated. the high lingered for a time, even as i endured living with my parents again, and coming out to them. i came to this city for my friend, with my little bombo boy in tow. i met my now-lover shortly after. i made new friends. i met B in this time. i also met two of my favorite people at a temple of speed: P, an adhd lesbian and musician with a love of makeup, and W, a video-photographer car lover guy with a firey shirt and autism. i began to grow closer also with people locally, with W and S and C, and i reconnected with A. i became more and more like the woman i want to be, and tragically began to get attention from men.

it’s getting hard to write. we’re on to more recent times, and those times have been heavy with the burden of processing trauma, and achieving peace with the wrongdoings of my past, and accepting the nature of the life i have lived, and the circumstances of my family bonds. all very heavy and for now i feel fine about it all. by this point one could hand-wave over everything and say that this is all just the specifics of another autistic’s journey through this world that is hell to traverse for all of the disabled and that this, too, is derivative and unimpactful. just kidding, i don’t think anyone i care about is thinking that about me. still, what matters is that this is how i got here. i have always wanted so much, to live, to do, like my peers seemed to always be able to. for a time i felt like i still had my spark, but now i have been too long burdened by responsibility, by dysphoria, by social cues, and again by belonging.

i want to feel like i can connect with people more deeply. i want to stop subconsciously holding people at arms length, i want to love wholly and unashamedly and with all the intensity i can bring. why then am i afraid to give that? i am so afraid to trust people with my deepest self even if i can share all this in writing with some ease. and now i am so tired. i can’t start anything. i can scarcely spend an hour in public, i can’t go to the store, all i want is to sleep, and i feel like i’m treading on my own eggshells. i feel like no one likes me and that i’m boring, and that i never know what to say to people in conversation. i feel cut off from intensity, from liveliness, from excitement, as if those are things i can never count on to have consistently in my life. i have come to terms with the need to rest, and i am doing well at being kind to myself. i love to hide in my dark room, where my boy has made a habit of finding me and keeping me in good company. i love to have tea and light a little candle and nap and have quiet time. i suppose now i am just mourning this reality. there will come a time that i can be like the person i was years ago, but so long as the world remains as it is, inaccessible and sucking me dry for all i have to give just so i can survive, i will return to these depths. i cannot endure the sensory hell for too long, it seems. i just want to be able to do things. i am so tired of being tired.

anyway thanks for reading babes. i am going to be okay, just have a lot to say about it in the meantime. i am gathering strength for my huge comeback that will rock the world, or whatever.