I’ve tried to spend the last few weeks actively reviewing what happened in my life over the past two years. What happened when I was with Clarity and the kids. It’s hard to read my journal entries or archived text messages, I don’t want to know that I had a good time with them I don’t want to remember that. I also hate remembering all the bad that happened and the treatment I allowed myself to accept. Seeing how I interacted with my emotions and own well being is horrid. I fought suicidal thoughts and self-harm tendencies for years in both therapy and my life only to ignore those same symptoms for over a year before I got so close to death I had to do something about it.
The thing that drew me to the kids at first was Clarity, she was my people and I hadn’t been around my people in so long. She listened and saw what was going on, she was a real person of which I feel like there are so few. I was so drawn to her that I didn’t care what I had to do to get her attention to get to spend time with her. I went on many smoke breaks with her at work just to see her for a few minutes. I saw what she was doing with the kids and wanted to help out, it was so obvious that there was a lot of need. I always knew there wouldn’t be money in it, at least up front.
As time went on I started to see that all the progress they all seemed to make would be undone almost immediately. They needed me to be around them all the time or any effort I put in felt pointless. Their need kept drawing me closer that and the reward I got when I showed up for them. I was good at what I did, I liked the challenge and felt in awe of my ability to be so good at showing up for the kids, at first the middle child, then the younger child, it always felt like a challenge I could take on, but I lost almost all of my energy and couldn’t figure out how to crack the oldest one. He knew what I was trying to do and would tell me I wasn’t his family.
And there I was in a weird in between. I didn’t want to be forced into their family but I wasn’t part of their family that was clear. Clarity treated me like family but it only felt like I was family to her. At first she called me her wife or her platonic femme-dyke partner. But the words and explanation got to be too much and I just became a nanny. Erasing so much of the work I did, care I gave and the fact that I didn’t have any life outside of them. Within 4 months of living with them I had begun to almost never see my friends. Clarity became scared of me not being at home with them and tearing myself apart from them to visit my parents for only a day felt impossible for all of us.
I ground myself in other people, I know that about myself. And I grounded myself and my self worth and my meaning up in them. In January a friend of Clarity’s asked me if I was going to stay in their life for the long-term and if not I needed to leave. I said “yes” as though “no” was a preposterous answer. In return Clarity agreed to make space for me to live my life so I could have friends and not have my only experience be with her and the kids. My promise hung over me like a contract, to me my word means something and I stay true to what I say I’ll do. Sadly in return I never did get time to see my friends.
When living with the kids I started feeling overwhelmed before I officially moved in, we would try and take turns decompressing, though at first I gave most of my turns to Clarity for she had been through more. By March I was having constant suicidal thoughts, that’s 6 months into meeting this people. A month later I cut myself on my forearm. I stayed because I thought it was going to work out I thought it was all temporary and it was gonna get better. I began looking at my growing debt and shrinking bank account and began to feel trapped. At first I would think about leaving and spending my remaining money doing whatever I wanted, 16 months in I no longer had access to any money, not that we had any money amongst the two of us to access at that point.
Clarity grew apart from me pretty quickly. I’m not certain exactly when but it’s around the time that she starts working fulltime, probably 6 months in. She doesn’t have the time for me. That and she knew I’d stay. I began to feel like a burden to her and she tried to avoid me or at least I imagined that’s what was going on. I tried to hard to get her attention, cleaning, buying random helpful things from the internet, being really nice. I would desperately try to get her to talk to me or like me after she comes home from work. She would just goes into her room. She only talked to me when I do things wrong, when the house is messy, when I fuck up something.
There was always a corner we were gonna turn and it was always going to work out. The kids were gonna be back in school, we were gonna move into a new house, she was gonna switch her position at work, she was gonna get a new job, we were gonna implement a new system. It was always on the upswing but never really swung upwards. After holding out for things to get better for months it became clear to me that it was never gonna get better and I was going to die if I didn’t leave. I waited 22 months for it to get better and it did, we lived in a home we rented, had 2 cars that were legal. But I was miserable and not treated well. I was never good at setting boundaries but I began to realize it was because I knew they wouldn’t be listened to. Oh my last day I set a boundary for Clarity’s new boyfriend to not come over, and then he did. So I left.
It was the beginning of a new story that has been really difficult thus far but is finally going to be my story. Not anyone else’s story, not a story where I’m a side-kick but a story where I am the one leading it. It’s great, I’m doing things I only dreamed of. I’m standing up for myself in new ways, and since digging through a good chunk of what happened I’m excited to begin figuring out the question I’ve been wondering forever, Who is Jenny? I don’t know the answer yet but she definitely likes riding bikes still and she likes music a lot and can play at least a few songs on the Ukulele (even singing along to them while she strums). I’m anxious and kind of excited for the future. I think it’s gonna be an alright place for me.
1. From Here Till Utopia (Song For the Desperate) – Ramshackle Glory
The entire album, Live The Dream, is great as far as I’m concerned. I exclusively listened to this album from September to November.
“I don’t know where I fit between the vegans and the nihilists That might be the first thing I’ve said that wasn’t a lie tonight!”
– This has described me for the last 8 years. I still don’t know exactly where I fit between the vegans and the nihilists, though I know I’m not a very “good” vegetarian so maybe I do know where I fit.
This song feels like having too much free time and not knowing what to do with it, it looks like grey, dead grass, lifeless trees, and decay as I walk for walking sake.
“My friend William came to with a message of hope It went: ‘Fuck you and everything you think you know If you don’t step outside the things that you believe They’re gonna kill you.” He said: ‘You think no one’s gonna stop you from dying young and miserable? You’re right! If you want something better, you gotta put that shit aside.’”
– No seriously, fuck you and everything you think you know, if you don’t step outside the things that you believe they are gonna kill you, they almost killed me.
2. More about Alcoholism – Ramshackle Glory
I can’t tell you the number of times I rode down the street on my bike screaming these lyrics. At the time I didn’t have a boss. I thought twice about singing these lyrics when I had a manager, though he sung the lyrics out loud which just felt insincere.
“Aw, shit, I wish I had a job to quit
I wish I had a boss that I could tell to fuck off
Give me the satisfaction of a dramatic exit, and not just a long car ride and a short goodbye in a parking lot.”
3. Day Gaunts – Days N’ Daze
Started listening to this at work per the suggestion of a customer who heard Ramshackle Glory playing and said he can’t stop listening to Days N’ Daze.
“Bugs in the kitchen and mold in the sink
Chuggin’ down the whiskey and you never stop to think
What do we do tomorrow?”
4. Urine Speaks Louder Than Words – Wingnut Dishwashers Union
I found out when I was writing this that it’s commentary on the inaction within activist communities and how meaningless their action-less words are. Stating that instead urinating on authority figures will cause more change.
“But will somebody say is this resistance or a costume party? Either way I think black with bandanas is a boring theme.”
5. We Are All Compost In Training – Ramshackle Glory
“I eat meat and drive trucks and shoot guns and don’t trust in the federal government to solve our problems. You might think I’m joking, but I’m not a republican”
“So I’ll dig up the dirt and I’ll throw down some seeds, because the world needs more spinach, not more motherfuckers like me.”
I’ve song this song dozens of times riding along on my bike. All the while motioning like I’m digging dirt holding a shovel with my two hands. And then throwing down seeds with my right hand, as I bend over closer to the ground. I agree.
6. Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist – Ramshackle Glory
This song helped get me through the hard times at the beginning of being gone. With my right glove-less fist thrust in the air I’d sing, “Your heart is the size of a muscle the size of your fist, keep on loving, keep on fighting and hold on, hold on, hold on for you life.” And I’d stare at my first, realizing how small my fist and therefore heart was and how I needed to keep on fighting, keep on loving and hold on for my life.
“Like the time that our friend Chuck came over to our house
He said he needed somebody to take care of his pets
‘Cause he was going out of town
I asked him, “Where,” and he said “New Mexico”
I asked if I could get a ride
He said: “No, you don’t want to follow me
Where it is I’m going” He backed out of the driveway That was the last time we saw him
‘Cause he drove straight to his parent’s cabin And put a bullet in his head”
7. Misanthropic Drunken Loner – Days N’ Daze
“Cause relationships are overrated
Maybe I’m just tired and jaded
But I’m sorry I just like myself more than I like you”
After burning out, I spent a lot of time by myself and I’ve hated a lot more people that I’m used to. At the beginning I’d agree that, “I’m just far more comfortable alone.”
“Human beings are a waste of breath and Don’t think I exclude myself
I’m an asshole just like you
Cause people are ugly and people are hateful
Destructive and greedy
We’re proud and ungrateful
The world would be so much better off without us”
8. I Listened – Apes of the State
This song is the first of Apes of the State that caught my ear. I love the earnest hopelessness that it contains. I have felt in increasing inability to listen and remember about other people and would adore singing this song to someone else – this is totally a move I’d do. I exclusively listened to them for a month or two.
“And how you make poor decisions with the people that you choose to date
And you’ll probably think I’m crazy for this and I’d tell you that I don’t give a shit but that would be a lie because I care
What you think about me
And I just really, desperately want to be your next poor decision
Your next poor decision
Your next poor decision”
9. My Idea of Fun – Wingnut Dishwashers Union
“Like if you don’t want to work, then that becomes your job
There’s a lot of overtime, there’s not many days off
I hope you know that I’m not trying to complain
It just gets hard to explain to people that I know, or kids who come to shows That I just don’t want to talk about the office today.”
– It’s nice to hear this because I relate to it a lot. And have in multiple points in my life.
“And the cops say its a crime for people like me and those friends of mine to want to die
Like my neighbor in St. Pete
She’s been on house arrest down here If she tries to leave her yard they’ll lock her in a cage for years
‘Cause sometimes she wants to die And she shoots dope when she thinks she could die And the law they caught her one too many times Shootin dope when she felt like she could die.”
– The fucked up way we deal with mental health in this society. She can’t kill herself because that’s illegal so she self medicates by shooting dope when she feels like killing herself. But then she gets thrown in jail for doing that.
“Please help me be, please help me be
Please help me be enough Fuck the law, because we’re enough…”
We’re enough.
10. Plate Glass Apology – Apes of the State
I feel this song so much. After obsessively listening to Apes of the State for over a month I realized what they were singing about and why I felt so drawn to their music, cause they are angry, hurt, breakup songs. The best part of this one is that it’s angry, it’s angry, and then it’s honest, apologetic and sad, but only for a few seconds before she gets angry again. Also her craziness of jumping through a plate glass window and stopping a car in the middle of the road feels so close to something I’d do.
“You broke my heart I hope you die, emptier than how I feel inside
And when you lay your head to rest at night I hope that you never fall asleep when you
Think of all the things you do I wish I could just hate you oh I wish all of
These words I said were true”
11. Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35%– Against Me!
For months every time after I’d hang out with the kids I used to live with and co-parent I’d sing this song. As soon as I’d leave after visiting them, I’d put the song on and I’d shout, “My heart is anywhere but here!” I’d write it on my arm, I’d write it on my chest, and I would stare off into the distance, looking at nothing.
“I can’t believe how naive I was to think this could ever be so simple.”
My recent memory from this song is biking while singing along to this song. I was biking down Penn ave, without my hands on the bars as I often do, as I was crossing Main St the following lyric came on, “Dear Jesus are you listening.” I put my hands together like I was praying, closed my eyes, and turned my head towards the sky as I suddenly screamed those lyrics
12. Olde Tyme Mem’ry – Mischief Brew
Branching out from Ramshackle Glory and Apes of the State this song grabbed me. It’s a song I just want to sing along to, it’s not the lyrics so much as it is the way they are sung. The song is somber, lamenting the past, while at the same time these lament-ers who “settle for white rooms and hollow doors, paper ceilings, padded floors….”
13. Strangers – Apes of the State
“Cause sometimes the people who don’t know the things you’ve done are the only ones who will bother talking to you
Sometimes strangers are the best people to tell your secrets to
Cause they don’t know you”
– So true, I often tell all my secrets to people I’ve just become friends with – often the people I’ve been friends with longer don’t have the patience or the attention span for the secrets I want to tell them – that and they know the importance of them.
“And today I wish that I could put new glasses on your eyes so you could see the world the way I do through mine
Cause then maybe you wouldn’t wanna die you wouldn’t have to stick a needle in your arm
Just to survive!
Cause I see myself in every single part of you and I made it through
So I can’t just sit back and watch you throw away your life”
– This line hurts me because of how much I relate to it. It’s why I don’t have any energy for anyone these days. I used it all up, with a lot of it going to trying to put new glasses on her eyes.
14. Wherever is Your Heart – Brandi Carlile
This was the song playing in the kids car in September. Clarity told me so. I listened to it very briefly and never again. That’s until I heard the littlest one was listening to a song on the album and replacing parts of it with “Jenny.” I don’t know what song that is but I think that it is this song.
I listened to this song on repeat, over and over and over again as I started to regain my emotions, sadness was the first one.
“Even when you’re high, you can get low
Even with your friends you love, you’re still alone
We always find the darkest place to go”
Caught me and made me cry. It felt like it was right, like I had left my home and despite the fact that “your feet may take you far from me, I know wherever is your heart I call home.” I was alone in this world, wandering around by foot. I’d hear these lyrics and stare down as my feet as I walked. Miles I’d walk just to deal with my emotions, one night I walked 13 miles on a whim and never did I find home.
Eventually the song got to me, I pulled up my left sleeve on a cold autumn night, flicked out my blade and waited. I knew like so many times before I’d wait for days, putting off this feeling only to act upon it. It had already been a day and I didn’t have the stamina to outrun it. So after my arm had been chilled I heard the lyrics, “Oh god forgive my mind, oh god forgive my mind, when I come home, when I come home.” And I did 3 quick cuts on my arm. They all drew a blood that I regretted slightly when I was later in a convenience store restroom shoving paper towels in my sleeve so I didn’t get my hoodie covered in blood. This was the last time I cut myself.
Since then I’ve figured out how to deal with my emotions in a more productive way. My new favorite coping mechanism is singing. I sing all these songs all the time. That’s where my emotions go. Having never experienced a normal childhood and therefore never learning how to cope with existence, I now am experiencing being a teenager for the first time. It’s odd, but it’s going really well this time – even if it’s 15 years after it should’ve happened.
For about 8 months I primarily listened to Against Me! It was a hard time, and it’s hard to touch all of the emotions that were present in that time. Music is the easiest way for me to have a snapshot of an emotion and this is a snapshot of that time.
Against Me and Myself 2018
1. We Laugh at Danger (And Break All the Rules) – Against Me!
This song is screamed at the top of my lungs in the car, so loud that a friend heard and saw me jamming and texted me to send me her approval.
It also inspired this line in a poem from May:
Screaming punk lyrics in the car dreaming of being homeless. Wondering what the future smells like searching for convertible tights in the kids section of target.
“Mary, there is no hope for us
If this GM van don’t make it
Across the state line
We might as well lay down and die
Because if Florida takes us
We’re taking everyone down with us
Where were coming from
Will be the death of us”
I feel those lyrics. While I can’t relate to those lyrics anymore I know I did in a way that startles and terrifies me. “Where were coming from, will be the death of us” It feels odd and scary to me that I would feel suicidal feelings in such a way. People congratulate me for leaving the situation with the kids but I have to tell them I left because I knew the other option was dying. I knew those feelings would only get larger and larger and would end in an inevitable way. I didn’t decide to leave so much as I decided I didn’t want to kill myself and the only way to prevent that was by leaving – something I had been considering for many months.
2. Walking is Still Honest – Against Me!
“Can anybody tell me why God won’t speak to me?
Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas?
Why death is easier than living?”
Walking over homestead bridge, walking through squirrel hill for hours, walking for hours and hours, every time I need. Walking until 2am because I can’t fall asleep.
I relate a lot to her, with spirituality calling me the Christian concept of god felt like it was constantly rejecting me. I spent years reading the bible, I went to several bible studies and studied an Evangelical Christian group for a class. It never felt right, and now I am rejected by most of them. which is pretty alright to me. I found my spirituality in Buddhism, it’s sufficiently empty and non-judgmental.
“Dear mother
This is just survival
Cannot promise your children everything
But you would lie so they can sleep tonight”
I didn’t listen to this song at first because of these lyrics, I didn’t hear them for a while or think about them because of how they may or may not reference Clarity and the kids. I continue to not really look into it while feeling it relate to me and my life with the family.
3. Cavalier Eternal – Against Me!
This song caught my ear and made me laugh, I sung this in the car, I sung this in front of the kids. I hid this from Clarity and I told my therapist I knew why this song spoke to me – because it was about Clarity, that was probably April that I told my therapist that, wasn’t but a few weeks later I told her I couldn’t do it anymore.
4. 1-800-237-8255 – Logic
“I’ve been on the low
I been taking my time
I feel like I’m out of my mind
It feel like my life ain’t mine”
I hated the second half of this song for a while, just like I always re-winded Blink-182’s song “Adam’s song” half way through every time.
5. Because of the Shame (Black Crosses Version) – Against Me!
I found this song after reading Laura’s book, I didn’t believe her at first that she didn’t write Thrash Unreal about CC. But after rereading it and listening to both songs, I believe it. The White Crosses version reminds me of Queen’s Album Made In Heaven, the Black Crosses version will make you cry with very little to separate you from her words.
6. Searching for Former Clarity – Against Me!
The first time I really heard this song was late April and I was at home in the basement. I played it at again and cried on the floor the type of crying that is angry and hurts. I cried and flailed about kicking random things in the basement, it was the hardest I’ve cried in years.
The second memory is a 9 days after I wrote the Poem, “Today’s The Day”
The day I want to kill myself
it isn’t the day I have a crisis
it isn’t the day I cry for hours
it isn’t the day I cut myself
it isn’t the day I am angry, miserable and filled with rage and hurt
That’s the day I want to scheme
to tie a noose
to make sure it fits over my head
to find a spot
to make sure it’s hidden from sight
to find a stump
to make sure it’s easy to knock over
to write a note
to cry and scream in frustration and hurt when I realize today isn’t the day
The day I want to kill myself is
when I feel the cool breeze over my face
when I can hear the birds chirping around me
when I feel calm and present in my body
when the day has gone well and there isn’t a thing in the world making me knock over that stump
That’s the day I want to kill myself
a good day a happy day
a day where I say that was a full life
a day where I say that was a good time
a day where one tear escapes my left eye and runs all the way down my cheek until it reaches my chin and then it hops off to land on and be absorbed into my shirt
a day where that tear has to run past a smile before I knock over my stump.
I went to Schenley Park, parked the car, called my therapist and left a voicemail as I had promised myself the night before. And I put on this song. I felt calm and collected. I smiled, I smiled as tears rolled down my cheek they were happy, relieved tears. “Not yet,” I told myself – fearing that I’d get too emotional and threaten the certainness that today was the day. I played the song over and over again as I searched the park for a rope, any rope to hang myself with. After walking for 2 hours I found a tent held together with ratchet straps and as I was surveying which one would be best to remove my therapist called back. I was fucking pissed and I told her so, she made me talk about it over and over again and eventually I tired of trying to kill myself.
7. 8 Full Hours of Sleep – Against Me!
“When you sleep no one is homeless
When you sleep you can’t feel the hunger
When you sleep no one is lonely in a dream.”
This song is my first week out of the house. No where to go, uncertainty around sleeping spaces and what and how I would eat food, with my main goals being meeting basic needs. Biking around listlessly in the morning before anything opened trying to find a place I could go, trying to find a place I could sleep following a hot, miserable, sleepless night with rain, mosquitoes, trains, and a fox barking. I found myself at the Cathedral of Learning on Pitt’s campus and chatted with a new friend on text as I tried to figure out how to survive in this new world.
“The sun’s always rising in the sun somewhere.”
8. The Disco Before the Breakdown – Against Me!
This song is about dysphoria
“And if you follow the jawline down over the heart. Because of your bone and muscle that make up your head to toe. it’s just skin and threat stitches and ligaments.”
9. Creature Comfort – Arcade Fire
This song is driving fast in the silver car, faster, faster! Maybe you can outrun these feelings, vooRRRRR, vooRRR, vooRRRRR. Or if not maybe I can crash into a median and die trying.
“Assisted suicide
She dreams about dying all the time
She told me she came so close
Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record
Saying God, make me famous
If you can’t just make it painless
Just make it painless”
This is a song I put on repeat, over and over again, this is a song that I would cut myself to as soon as I heard it a nice quick slice on my almost unscarred inner forearm – shit you are supposed to cut under your underwear, on your left lower abdomen the equals sign you’ve been etching in over time. What will they think at the JCC, what will the other parents think!
“It’s not painless
She was a friend of mine, a friend of mine
And we’re not nameless, oh”
10. Tonight We’re Gonna Give it 35% – Against Me!
This is my favorite song by Against Me! right now. She wrote it in Pittsburgh while Anti-Flag was trying to court her to sign onto their record company. “On a balcony overlooking nothing”
First I caught the beginning and I laughed at the lyrics, and read how much she despised bottled water and thought of how much I did esp at that time (2002) (not that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable now).
“We drank bottled water together, and talked business, I think I played the right moves.”
“My heart is anywhere but here”
“How tired I was from the past couple of weeks from the past couple of years, but it hit me all at once.”
I relate to so many parts of this song and I relate so hard to it.
My memory associated with this song is on a sleepless night, one I knew all I could do was walk if I ever wanted to sleep. So I drove the silver car fast as a rocket through the tunnel and over the bridge, eyeing up the Jersey barriers for future spots that I could crash with our crappier car. I parked the car at the top of the Homestead Gray Bridge. And walked over to it and dreamed of jumping, instead I just walked it. With this song on repeat. Tonight I was stealing hours from my sleep time so I could live for a few minutes. But I didn’t know how to live anymore. I only knew I wanted to die. Tonight wasn’t the night, I was to frustrated. Tonight was a night I had to walk down the bridge.
These were some of the first nights I lived in so long, one of these nights I walked across a long railroad bridge while a cargo boat past underneath me. I ran the final bit worried cars would see me, no longer scared I would fall through the rickety floor, I was more worried I would die before I was able to do this crazy shit again. I finished the night by burning a small American flag on the middle of the bridge as I walked back to my car.
“I can’t believe how naive I was to think this could ever be so simple.” (how I feel about the family)
11. Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart – Against Me!
I found this song on another night I stole the same night I was walking on Bigelow Boulevard past the french fries trying to finally find out where the sidewalk along it goes Something I’d been wondering for 4 years.
Packaged between, “Problems” and “Even at Our Worst We’re Better Than Most” This is the soundtrack of that night. As I walked on the sidewalk I found where I would hang myself. A quest I had been on for over a year. In one of the parts of this sidewalk near the strip district there weren’t any businesses but instead there were trees that would hide me, hide me from anyone seeing me. I would simply tie my rope to the fence and dangle against the concrete wall attempting to scurry up it until I could no longer breathe.
12. Even at Our Worst We’re Still Better Than Most – Against Me!
“You can have it all, I ain’t got the heart to fight, no.
Total exhaustion, complete breakdown. For the asshole I am,
apologies in full, please leave me alone.
Pull over the van, let me out.”
Exactly, that is exactly what I wanted to scream every day after every conflict with Clarity for the last few months with the kids, I was just truly exhausted.
13. Problems – Against Me!
“An inventory has been taken of every belonging
An estimated value sold in event of emergency
The only back up plan in case it doesn’t work out
While losing semblance of coherence to a former self
You know I am becoming the choice’s we’re making”
This was my plan. I had a car, I had a no obligations. I was going to get my shit sorted out a little bit, sell a bunch of bikes and bike parts and then go on my road trip. Then my partner never changed the oil in my car that she drove all the time and it imploded.
14. What We Worked For – Against Me!
“May the likes of this song never make one fucking dollar, leave it for a demo tape to be played until it’s broken and be remembered for only what it was, that we gave ‘em hell”
“There is a distance beyond the freeway” was going to be the motto of my road trip
This song so much reminds me of who I was in college and what I believed and what moved me. And what is moving me once again, I understand that you give up on the idealist things that you believe, but I don’t want to, not yet. I want to live them for a bit more time, I still want to be a child, because it’s more fun that being an adult, because it’s what makes me glow.
“Sleeping under plastic stars glued to the ceiling…. But we gave ‘em hell”
15. Burn – Against Me!
“Burn burn burn, like they did to the anarchists at the stakes
Burn burn bun, like the histories they stole from us”
Laura said they never finished the lyrics of the bridge, which is why it sounds weird and she sings hurriedly, “One day patriot thugs will dance to songs of justice, and cringe and rack guns of shame.”
All I hear when I think about this is this famous picture of a Nazi book burning. This isn’t just a library this is the Library of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science. Hirschfeld was the founder of modern transgender theory, and it was his students who fled the Nazis and founded transgender advocacy in the US. This book burning was a theft of transgender history a theft of my history, a history that if played out differently could’ve easily drastically altered my life. #fuckfascism #noplatform
16. White Crosses – Against Me!
“I wake up in the morning and I drink from the fountain
I wake up in the morning with the same unanswered questions
I don’t know what’s going to cure my unsettled stomach”
This song feels like walking through Squirrel Hill, wandering around after dropping of the kids. Loud head banging music to forget my woes and softly head bang as I walk though the quiet streets of Squirrel Hill.
17. Thrash Unreal – Against Me!
“No mother ever dreams
That her daughter’s gonna grow up to be a junkie
No mother ever dreams
That her daughter’s gonna grow up to sleep alone”
This is a piece that I wrote on April 13th. I put pictures to it and put some of the text on pictures as well as adding some text but it is a piece that lives in a certain time and place, I can’t relate to all of it, nor do I want to. It’s a sample of where I was two weeks before I tried to off myself.
This is a picture of my room when I was living in Brookline, I lived in an unfinished attic.
Thank you, that was in the womb of my mine for 2 years before I awoke to see it on my wall. I lived with it for 3 years and then I tried to cover it up but it’s still there. I have a photograph of me trying to close it up. I have proof. You can’t see it anymore but the hurt person who lives in that room feels it every night and it watches over the horrors they see helpless to do anything.
I think if I were born elsewhere, another time or another place I would be called magic. Instead I feel like I don’t belong here like a splash of red in a black and white movie. A friend who sees me for who I am calls me witchy – they understand who I am. For there is a reason for all the things if you let there be and a way the world will take you where it wants if you just let go.
These are my middle child’s shoes tied together, something she requested while we were at the gym.
The nickle plating on the outside edges is covered up with grease and gunk so you can only see splotches of it and there is a dark brown red covering all the silver that shows. The inside is black with a tint of red. There are chunks of food in there and I know the pan is hot when it begins to smoke. The inside of the pan has a figure 8 shaped wet spot in the middle where the seasoning on it has been heated to a liquid. I turn of the burner and hover my wrist about 2 cms above the edge of the pan as I try to line it up so it is a horizontal line straight across. My hand is flexed upwards away from the pan with my fingers drawn in with the second knuckles showing.
I press it down and it is hot, I press it down harder to get a larger area a longer line. It begins to really hurt for a split second, I hold it on the pan for a short while before a jerk my hand off of it. All that I feel is pain. Searing pain for that split second and then a short time afterwards I feel the pain of the burn strong and it focuses all of my energy and all of my thoughts on my wrist.
This is the place I wanted to cut, I wanted to bleed but no on can see that, that cannot happen. So I do my best to make there be few burns and make it be hard to see. But in the end I have one on each hand, the one on my left is a 2 inch long line.
My thoughts are about being an imposter, being too much, and coming into my old self. And suicidal thoughts that left as soon as I had the time to embrace them. And it was a flooding of bad feelings that I didn’t have space to feel over the past few crazy months.
Healing is never done, but that’s how it goes. I think we’d miss it if it ended and we would prolly just look for things wrong and drive ourselves crazy.
Been thrifty my whole life, eating out of dumpsters digging through people’s trash. Pieced together how I should act from the letters they threw out.
Must’ve been 10 when I started thinking of bulk trash day as a holiday. Taking people’s furniture trying to arrange my room like theirs.
Too scared to be myself, too worried what others would think. So I borrowed someone else’s life, they had an extra room.
Living in their attic wasn’t bad, I can be myself in one room. Too hard for the mom to climb up so she hasn’t seen the new window I put in.
Breathe in deep every time I climb up, finally feel at home in a house I spend all day as a homemaker in. Wondering if it’s the cleaner making me not able to take a deep breathe in the rest of the house.
I thought I’d be alright, the life fit okay, ’til it gave me a rash around my neck I couldn’t stop scratching. When I realized I was itching for a rope I knew something had to change.
Done tried this before, wearing some boy’s clothes for 25 years. Found myself on the edge of a parking garage, convinced if I was flying they’d fit right.
But here I am again, smile popping on my face when they call me mommy on accident. Thinking about how I should’ve been a mother, should’ve been a wife as I tire of being a true trans soul rebel.
Saw you and thought you needed a side kick and you were an impersonation I could do. 19 months later I realize I’m just kicking myself right now.
Know how to be that kind of mom but I know it ain’t me. Digging through your change purse trying to find someone else to be.
Now I got three kids staring up at me asking what’s for dinner. Ain’t cooked nothing for myself in months, been starving myself with gummy bears and ice cream.
168 hours later I don’t think I can keep it up. Catch myself staring at the sheets counting how many threads, wondering if they’ve been washed in the last 4 days.
Peering in the garbage cans as I walk into the kids fancy preschool wondering why I’m here. Hiding the dirt under my nails only to show the scars on my forearms.
Screaming punk lyrics alone in the car dreaming of being homeless. Wondering what the future smells like searching for convertible tights in the kids section of target.
Trying to piece together which way to go. Feel like I’m juggling chainsaws but I ain’t got the certification to even turn one on.
Got 5 people talking to me making sure I don’t practice tying knots. Wondering what’s the point in not cashing out now.
Can’t make sense of what else I could do. Trying to play poker by myself because I’m tired of solitaire.
I love you and the kids with all my heart. Nearly all of my energy over the past 20 months feels like it has been dedicated to healing you and the kids. It’s been rewarding and satisfying to watch your growth. It hasn’t been sustainable or healthy for me. As it continues it also doesn’t seem healthy of helpful for any of us.
I got to watch the littlest child come out of her shell, watch middle child emerge from the boy she was, watch the oldest begin to verbalize his emotions in a way that few adults can. And, of course, watch you grow immensely as you shed years of trauma and break through old patterns as you begin to remember the real you. You all are hardly the people I met, it makes me cry tears of overwhelming joy and hurt to think about it. I think I can confidently say there isn’t much I would trade for that.
All the while I have pushed and pushed myself to do my best, better than my best to show up for all of y’alls healing. This has caused me to deteriorate. Suicidal thoughts and self harm was nearly gone from my life but has now reemerged and is stronger now than it ever has been. I spend hours some days unable to move as I collapse on the ground, feeling like there is someone standing on my chest. Irritable, depressed and apathetic, I’m starting to see the kids trying to avoid me, trying to get away from my angst. I am starting to see this not only as unhealthy for me, but unhealthy for everyone involved. As I snap at you, as I distance myself from you, as I am unable to show any love towards the 4 people I love so much. Instead I feel myself growing increasingly irritated with you, and increasingly view y’all as burdens.
As I take a step back I realize just how overwhelmed and stressed I am. I step back and realize how unhealthy this is and how I have immersed myself in your family’s world to the point I feel like I have almost ceased to exist. This isn’t a new struggle, it’s an old one that’s tied in with being trans. It’s a clinging I did and still do to other people and getting lost in them and their problems.
I can’t do it anymore, I can’t do this anymore. I wanted to be everything you needed to help you grow and get better, I wanted to want to be a caregiver, a parent, to have 3 kids and a dog. I wanted to want all of these things I was given and all of this security. But I don’t, I just want me, I want my life back and I want you to be in it, but not be it.
It’s not about holding out for the next time we move, or the next routine we develop, or that break through in therapy or that new job. It’s about me needing to be Jenny, a person that has only existed in name for 4 years. I am not ready to be a parent. I’m not ready to have 3 kids a wife and a dog. I have so many dreams of my future and what it looks like. This life feels suffocating and I don’t want to have people I love so dearly feel like they are just burdens suffocating me. I want them to bring joy and desire to see them, I want to have glee playing with and seeing y’all. This is something I haven’t felt in a long time.
Now, I’m sure you want to talk logistics now that I got my feels out, you want to understand what I’m even asking for. I don’t have a solid grasp on a healthy and thoughtful way to make this transition work for everyone but I know what my soul needs and I need a break before I can plot out long term logistics, otherwise I’d be planning based on my current desires to be around y’all. My end goal is to be an auntie and a nanny at times. I love you all so much I can’t imagine being happy not seeing y’all.
I know I’m going to be needing days instead of hours. I know I desperately need to heal to feel like a person to have time to connect with my people. I don’t want to disappear. I want to step back and become less involved. I think that would be the healthiest thing for all of us. I don’t have a timeline, but I do know I want to live elsewhere within this year.
I hope you understand how much this has torn me apart thinking about how I do and don’t want to do this. But I know in my heart that this is what is the best for me and what i have to do. I think this will also be great for y’all though it’ll definitely be hard at first but it’ll allow for a lot of much needed growth.
I want to talk more about this and can whenever you’d like. I was hoping to share this info last Monday at our group therapy since that didn’t happen I had to write it out. I will always love you in a way in a way I have never felt before.
The day I want to kill myself
it isn’t the day I have a crisis
it isn’t the day I cry for hours
it isn’t the day I cut myself
it isn’t the day I am angry, miserable and filled with rage and hurt
That’s the day I want to scheme
to tie a noose
to make sure it fits over my head
to find a spot
to make sure it’s hidden from sight
to find a stump
to make sure it’s easy to knock over
to write a note
to cry and scream in frustration and hurt when I realize today isn’t the day
The day I want to kill myself is
when I feel the cool breeze over my face
when I can hear the birds chirping around me
when I feel calm and present in my body
when the day has gone well and there isn’t a thing in the world making me knock over that stump
That’s the day I want to kill myself
a good day a happy day
a day where I say that was a full life
a day where I say that was a good time
a day where one tear escapes my left eye and runs all the way down my cheek until it reaches my chin and then it hops off to land on and be absorbed into my shirt
a day where that tear has to run past a smile before I knock over my stump.
I have come to a lot of new understandings in the past year due to changing experiences and perspective aka, being poor and having 3 kids. These aren’t the things I want to share, they aren’t the joy, the love, the compassion, the growth, the power, the strength I have gained. No these are the ugly, the horrible, the depressing and the crushing I have experienced. I share this here because I have nowhere else to share it. No platform, no time, no people except y’all. Thank you for lending your ear, err your eyes.
And remember, I am currently the best person I have ever been, I’m struggling, sure, but I’m growing. Growth doesn’t happen in times of happiness and joy, but through hardship and challenge.
Luxury is so very perspective based but whatever you deem luxury feels luxurious.
When I was a kid luxury was a bar I couldn’t achieve. Over time it lowered and a few years ago luxury felt like a watermelon, and fresh cooked corn on the cob. Now my bar for luxury is much lower. Peeing alone and undisturbed is a luxury, having 3 dollars on me feels like luxury, having time to write, make art, putting up insulation in my room in the attic feels like luxury, having the ability to ride a bike or a long board or even just go on a walk feels like a luxury. Heck, having a adult conversation feels like luxury.
The luxury I failed to fully comprehend though I acknowledged it was the luxury to dumpster diving. There was so much joy there and the bounty was just that, a bounty of luxurious goods. But this luxury no longer feels like one though, my bounty has begun to feel like a burden. That’s because food from the dumpster feels much more liberating and exciting when you don’t need it to be there. It seems to be how you come at it: without expectation. Meanwhile I jump in these cans questing for a lunch, I have 5 pennies in my wallet and $8.55 of my ACCESS card and I plan on using that to buy something for the kids. These frozen donuts feel like my salvation. Yet they crush me when I realize their importance to me.
Immersing myself in emotions, while normally these were negative emotions, cutting, suicidal thoughts, depression, now feel like luxuries too. I long to feel my hurt, to have the space and the energy to have them consume me. I currently feel a dark cloud that I used to call nihilism and depression. I keep it at arms distance most of the time, but I call upon it when I have a chance to feel it’s overwhelming pressure. I can conjure up tears sitting alone for just minutes now. Time has become so much more valuable and much more well used.
I even have a fucked up day dream along that same line. When the kids are older and the time is freer, I desire to go on a journey like the journey’s I once had and often dream of. A journey of nothing, no destination or point, no resources or burdens. A wandering journey where I just go. A journey where I have my bags and my transportation. Maybe I sleep in a tent outside, maybe I sneak into a hiding spot in a building somewhere. I use what there is around, I just walk a lot, sit a lot and ponder and explore. Then when this time comes to an end, when I am off the map alone and lonely for a few days or few weeks, I disappear to hang my last moments from a noose or dead in a ditch.
I hope to be back to write more for ya’ll. I have a poem called “Bloody Fists” coming out next week or so.
The first time I missed winter solstice in 7 years was December 21st 2016. Here I am sitting cross legged on a crushed Domino’s pizza box on a cement-floored, covered porch pressed in the corner against two cold brick walls of a house. Clarity, my platonic partner, is standing feet from me taking puffs from her cigarette and occasionally turning to blow them outside of the covered porch area we are in. She’s waiting for me to be present again, to talk to her. I’m absorbed in my phone frantically typing into the search bar of my web browser, “winter solstice 2016 time and date.” I press enter and the page promptly loads displaying a page that clearly says at the top of it, “Winter Solstice is on Wednesday, December 21, 2016 At 5:44 am EST.” It is currently Wednesday, December 21st at 12:18 pm EST.
I should be sleeping right now after staying up all night. I should have covered my windows with blinds, curtains and sheets to keep out the sun. The sun that came up because I stayed up all night with only candles to light my surrounding. My hands should be finally warm after a long brisk journey adventuring outside to see the sun rise from the top of a tree covered hill in the cemetery near my house.
But here I am sitting on a pizza box cursing, “fuck, fuck, fuck!” I didn’t stay up all night. I didn’t wish my friends “happy winter solstice.” I didn’t even know the date or time of Winter Solstice. Why, why, why, why, why!?
Because I am a mom now. Because I suddenly and abruptly have 3 small children. Because I have a house that needs cleaned, clothes that needs washed, dishes that need done, food that needs cooked, mouths that need fed, voices that need to be listened to. I may sometimes call myself their theraputic support staff, other times Clarity’s platonic femme dyke partner, but what I really am is a mom.
I am a mom to 3 kids, I am a partner to Clarity. They drove across this country and the country north of here to be in this city, my city, her city, our city, a place where she hopes to finally feel safe, a place where they are all finally free of his abuse. A first stopping spot where she will raise her kids in a safe environment where they can be who they are and not be mentally or physically abused any more.
And here they are starting to feel safe, starting to explore themselves more, starting to tell us that some of them are girls. Starting to get enough attention and not having to worry about words and fists being thrown. Instead we all are growing into the magical beings we are. And I am here as an essential part of this, part of them all processing what has happened to them. Giving them all the attention and support they need to overcome and finally cure generations of abuse that has happened to these 3 native kids and their amazing mother who has been through more than I can grasp.
Two of the three kids I care for
So here I am on winter solstice thinking about how this is a time for reflecting, for staring into the darkness and seeing the sun rise out after 14 hours of darkness. I didn’t reflect on winter solstice, I didn’t even realize it was winter solstice. But here I am watching a family emerge from the darkness, watching myself emerge from the darkness. I may have watched the sun fall or rise, but over the past 3 months and more I have been watching 5 magical beings including myself emerge from darkness. We all been emerging whether it be from an abusive home, a male identity that isn’t ours, a controlling an abusive relationship, a shitty job, shitty friendships, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks and self harm.
We are all emerging from darkness to become powerful beings. And as I stand back and take time to reflect I can feel my chest filling up with strength, puffing out and taking up space in a way I never have before. I can feel my power bubbling up. I can feel my emotions and see others feelings with a new clarity, I can even grasp emotions that I don’t yet have words for. As I lift my arm I feel energy shoot out of it across sidewalk moving the leaves on the ground and shaking the trees. Energy flows from my head to my feet and into the earth as I ground myself on command. I am not just a person anymore, I am a being filled with magic, compassion, anger and love. And on this winter solstice I can’t say I saw the sunrise, or that I stayed up all night by candlelight, I can’t even say I knew when the solstice was. But I can say I am growing, I am reflecting. I am becoming Jenny, I’m not a flighty spaced out tranny who is insecure and unsure of herself. I am a magical being who has powers that few can grasp, call me awakened, call me an indigo child, or call me crazy. But I am Jenny and I move worlds, hear me roar.
Here is my most recent playlist. While most of them focus upon a time in my life this one more seems to focus around a person in my life, Half Elegant (previously known as R). We were involved for 3 months, most of this time I wasn’t really into it. I was trying to find a balance between friends and lovers, we clearly weren’t friends and I didn’t feel like she was a lover. The balance was never reached. This is why the cd is being release now, it’s the end of an time period, the time period I call “Summer Love.” I can’t say this title isn’t ironically named, but I will confirm that “love” is a complicated thing with our without quotes around it.
1. Totally Confused – Beck
This is what I listened to at the end of Half Elegant and my relationship. Melancholy, raw, disorienting (other songs on the album highlight this). This is how I felt.
2. Skinny Love – Bon Iver
I first heard this in the Wire Tap episode Never Say I Love You. The episode has a segment about people in love, without their lover anymore. People holding on, struggling, feeling sad, and still feeling love. It is followed up by this song. I started to cry when I was biking home, I started to feel. Half Elegant made it hard for me to feel she just wanted too much. Now that we are apart I am able to feel what I wanted without holding back, finally. And I biked home listening to this on repeat while getting teary eyed and feeling love.
3. Betty’s Bomb Shell – Group Love
Earlier in the day (months ago) I felt awful, I tried to cut myself with my work keys, they weren’t sharp enough. I went back to work and when I finally left work I felt the same way. I looked incessantly at the ground looking for a piece of broken glass. When I finally found one I found out just how dull glass from the side of the road is, so I kept biking. I stopped in Arsenal Park and sat on the ground. I thought about what I should cut myself with while listening to this song. I played it over and over again and finally I found a pepsi can. First using the tab, then using a small piece of the side of the can I repeatedly cut small cuts horizontally on my arm. This is the biggest cut on my arm and it happened whilst listening to this song.
4. Signs of Love – Moby
I can’t remember when I listened to this song, but it is one of my favorites. It reminds me of staring at the sky and smiling while listening to another Moby song, it reminds me of biking along the river in Philly and crying to Moby. It’s happy, it’s sad, it’s melancholy, it’s real.
“I fly so high,Then fall so low”
5. It’s Only (feat. Zyra) – Odesza
I am long boarding on Ellsworth near Oakland. I am singing this song so loud. I’m singing this song to Trish, to Kelly. I’m singing this song loud and proud and I feel good, I feel sad.
I’m again on my longboard, it’s 2am and I’m back at it again, I’m in Oakland singing and carving.
6. Not In Love (feat. Robert Smith) – Crystal Castles
Half Elegant gave me this song. She listened to it after we broke up the first time after “dating” for a few days. We listened to it under 40th st Bridge and Half Elegant banged her head all around. She jammed to it when she was drunk and I came over. We were in the hallway of her house where there is a built in shelf that holds records and the music player. The lights were mostly out and she danced like a maniac. This is our song.
7. Sorry – Beyoncé
There are countless memories around singing this song. The one that is most recently and strong in my memory is with Half Elegant. It was the day we hung out with Jesse and tried to go to the pool. She was an ass. We were driving her home to drop her off and this song. I felt this song. I felt pissed at Half Elegant. As I drove my arms were out stretched leaning on the steering wheel with my middle fingers up.
“Middle fingers up, put them hands high, Wave it in his face, tell him, boy, bye”
8. No Role Modelz – J. Cole
“Don’t save her, she don’t wanna be saved.”
This is the lyric I heard when I felt Half Elegant trying to save me. This is why I started listening to this song. That isn’t exactly what Half Elegant was trying to say, but I’m still singing I don’t wanna be saved.
9. For Free (feat. Drake) -DJ Khaled
The beat caught me on this song, while driving around Fight for Fifteen workers to go to their conference. The song also constantly reminds me of Half Elegant. I must admit sex with her was the best sex I’ve ever had by a long shot. So good I thought I should pay her, especially cause she had no income for a while.
10. Panda – Desiigner
The beats of this song are great, the fact that he keeps saying Panda is hilarious. I first listened to this song because a Pittsburgh activist and USASer posted this on a Penn State USASer’s wall with the description, “I broke my bed while listening to this song.” That’s what I think of every time.
11. FUCKMYLIFE666 – Against Me!
I was getting gas on the Northside and I looked hot. Grey tank top, maroon tube skirt, brown knee high boots with grey leg warmers sticking out. This guy walked about 20 feet from me looked over at me and turned around. It puzzled me, but it made sense when he and his friends walked by and yelled, “that’s a dude.” I was mortified and eventually just put on my middle finger and stewed over it. The person next to me muttered, “She doesn’t have a choice.” which felt nice to hear.
I got in the car pissed and I put on Against Me! and started screaming along to them. As I was about to turn them off and then this song came on from their live album. The beginning of the song just caught me and I couldn’t stop listening.
The song also reminded me of an important fact, I had been trying my damnedest to “pass” as a woman for about 2 years. I’ve been slowly realizing I am a woman. But Against Me! reminds that I am a gender warrior. I am a woman and a man. I am here to fuck with your concept of gender. I am a trans-tomboy. As the shirt that Laura Jane Grace wears states, “Gender is over (if you want it)”
12. The Writings On The Wall – OK Go
Half Elegant gave me this song. I feel this song, this song often feels like our relationship.
“It seems like forever since we’ve had a good day, the writings on the wall
But I just wanna get you high tonight, I just wanna see some see some pleasure in your eyes”
I would listen to it most when I was sad. Because OK Go was staying to me, that it’s horrible, yes it is, but “I just wanna get you high tonight.”
My most recent memory and the one besides watching drunk Half Elegant dancing to this song is as follows. Half Elegant biked off in an agitated hurry to go no where and I stopped. I couldn’t handle the frustration she was expressing towards me so I stopped biking. Instead I listened to this song. I felt sad I was having a hard day and I just wanted to get high tonight, to feel some pleasure. Half Elegant came back and said in a accusatory tone, “Why are you listening to that song? Are you trying to say something? You know that’s a break up song.” The next day we broke up for the second time.
13. I Hate Hate – Reagan Youth
This song is amazing to sing along to. I song along to this endlessly along the bike path. I remember biking up past Millvale on the bike path, I remember biking down to the northside on the bike path, all the while I would sing this song for the haters. Because I hate HAAAAATE!
“I as in M, E, Fucking Me, Hate as in H, A, T, E, Hate… HAAAAAATE!
CASBALOG 