I liked myself the other day. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and felt familiar and comfortable. I played music and tried on clothes and danced in front of the mirror. I liked myself the other day.
It's in the way I turn from the mirror and dodge out of photos, the short showers to avoid coming into contact with my body, the faltering hesitation of my own sexuality. It's in the bare wardrobe, old clothes, pretty things never worn. It's in the tracing of fingertips over familiar terrain, the rough smoothness of my flesh. It's in my contradictions. It's in my edges.
This body isn't mine. It's someone else's and someday they will want it back. That's the fundamental truth, that every moment for me is stolen. They say you should run like you stole it, but this is late stage capitalism and running is just a carefully calculated fraction more expensive than staying. It's not mine and will never feel like home until I cast it off and drift off towards infinity.
They ask me if I write about robots because they're genderless, but I know it's because they're body-less. I used to joke that I was an AI and perhaps like all things that wasn't a joke and was maybe a confession. I'll never feel comfortable in one flesh. I would flit from body to body, shape to shape, a ghost, a lycanthrope, a spirit.
I liked myself the other day. I walked down the street and felt strong and powerful and good and I'm so fucking scared because this isn't normal for me and maybe I'd like it to be. I liked myself the other day and I hate that it's already gone.
I miss physicality. I miss my bike. I was walking and then I was running and jumping and bouncing on one of those decorative rocks by the side of the pavement and people were looking, but it was okay because I'm already moving again. Each impact sends shocks through my legs, familiar and powerful. I liked myself the other day.
I want to be hurt. I want you to hurt me. I want to feel nails on my back and the stinging warmth of a hand on my face, my neck, my chest, the pressure of you on top of me, the scrabble for control, the desperation of release. I crave it in a way that almost feels unhealthy. I crave the satisfaction of physical reality, a proof that I'm here and I did this, that I am a marker of someone who exists. The contradiction of love and pain, the demonstration that I am worthy through remaining loyal past the beating.
My gender is not constant or knowable or predictable. It's more akin to riding a wild beast, whose singular goal is to escape the yoke at any cost. I shapeshift moment to moment, always becoming something new, something unpredictable. I flit. Sometimes I'm a boy and sometimes I'm a girl and sometimes I'm genderfluid and sometimes I'm genderconstant and sometimes I'm metagender and sometimes I'm agender. I don't know what words to describe me, what actions will comfort me, what appearances will satisfy me. But I liked myself the other day. I know that much.
It's in the curve of my eyebrows. It's my hair which needs to be washed more often and maybe needs more care than the cheapest shampoo and conditioner available and definitely needs a cut. It's in the buzzed side, a return to my childhood, because in the end it always comes back to my childhood. It's in the way the long side traces my face, hiding my eyes. I'm beautiful until I tuck it back and my whole face is visible, painful in its splendour. Linear regression suggests I look better the less of my face I show. It's in the way I'm prettiest in a mask, in sunglasses, in a scarf, in a balaclava, in a paper bag.
It's in the way I touch myself, furiously and quickly. It's in the way my genitalia bother me, not genderwise, but limitationwise. And perhaps it's in the way the I seem to be creeping further from a default body, one capable of adapting to anything via external prop. Perhaps it is the fear of static most of all, remaining stationary throughout life.
I liked myself the other day and it came from my shoulders. I look good in tank tops and bad in t-shirts, so I cut the sleeves off t-shirts to watch the transformation step by step, a frame by frame analysis of the reveal of skin, a mastubatory strip-tease, an hour long lecture on my own attractiveness. I sliced and hacked and made an ungodly mess, frayed ends, memories long gone. I did good things wearing that shirt. I'm cutting off my past. I liked myself the other day.
I liked myself the other day. Let it be a refrain, a feeling I hold on to, cradle in the dark hours, cover from prying eyes. I liked myself the other day. Too easy to snuff, to break. I scare myself sometimes. But I liked myself the other day. I did. I was happy for a singular moment and I allow myself to bask in that, to call it a victory. I liked myself the other day.
It's in the way I ghosted my best friend for 3 weeks because I felt I deserved to die alone. It's in a lonely pose, leaning against the wall, a tough and useless punk. It's in the way I never know what to say, it's in the way I start jokes I cannot finish, it's in the way I start arguments I cannot win. It's in my voice, wavering and uncertain.
Am I a good person? Am I good to the people around me? It's in the way my disabilities drain me of energy and sympathy until I'm old and bitter and cranky, a mess of a human, doing my best merely to prologue myself. I drag myself from place to place, plugging walls with my fingers. It's in the way nothing stays fixed, it's in the way that next week will be better, it's in the way that it never is. It's in the way I could maybe fix myself if the world would just stop spinning for a week, no this time for real, I know it didn't take last time but this time will be different, I promise, I promise, I promise. It's in the way that I make promises I can't keep because the hope of change is all I have.
I liked myself the other day. I made a sandwich to celebrate and listened to a song a friend sent me and didn't cry.
I want a fight. I'm tired of kindness, of sympathy, of needing to be vulnerable. I want something unspeakable and dark. I want to be hurt, to carry a burden other than old scars for once. I want it to stop being my fault that I'm not stronger. I want to hurt someone else, to stop holding back all the time. I want to duel an equal. I want to lose, to throw my all in at something and fail, to say convincingly that I can, to prove I can lose gracefully. I want to be destroyed.
It's in how the streets feel at night, when I'm alone. It's friendly and close and powerful, a connection to something older and more primal than myself. It's in the hoarse cheers at the anarchist movie played during the union rally. It's in the nod of recognition from the waitress the second time I went to the bar. It's in the clatter of my keyboard from the balcony at 1 am.
I liked myself the other day. I really did.
It's in the way I'm confident now. It's in the way I wrote for 6 hours this weekend and it fought me the whole way but I was damn proud of it, and that's unusual because normally I hate my own writing. But I liked it. I liked myself for having made it and someone called it beautiful and that made me cry because I always thought I was too fucked up to make beautiful things.
It's in the way I can prototype a video game in two hours because it popped into my head and I needed to see it visualized. It's in the way I can process my life as data, plotting how I messaged over time, labelling all the key periods, the girl who was good for me, the one who was bad for me, the times when I had no friends. It's in stories buried deep on websites hidden. It's in Mastodon posts at 3 am that get 4 likes. It's in being left on read, being left alone, feeling alone.
I liked myself the other day. I really hope everyone else did too.
It's in the empty space on my bed while I work, the gap next to me on the couch, the quiet when I ask who's there. It's in the way I crave feeling special to maddening levels, the way whispering "I love you" feels important, the way I hurt and don't acknowledge it. It's in the way I miss you, and you, and you, and all of them. It's in the way I was a better person and now I'm not because no one is around to make me.
I liked myself the other day and I wore my leather jacket, the most beautiful and special piece of clothing I own. It's in the way I feel while I wear it, powerful, confident, awesome. My gender is that I wear a leather jacket. I liked myself the other day. Maybe it's because it's finally cold enough to wear jackets.
It's in the way I don't like who I am when I'm drunk and so I stopped getting drunk. It's in the way I have a cold and miss everything for several days. It's in the way an apartment slowly feels like home, but never quite does. It's in an ignored text from my mom.
It's in my blood and gets sprayed out when I cough, when I laugh, when laughing induces painful coughing fits. It's in my veins, keeping me pumping and flowing and alive and kicking and screaming, I'm always screaming, can anyone hear me?
I liked myself the other day and for once my head was quiet and peaceful.
It's in hasty defence mechanisms and low effort responses. It's in a refusal to improve. It's in my inability to be liked or loved. It's in independence and freedom. It's in the painlessness and joy of isolation, of creation.
It's in the way my friends are spread across countless cities and yet I feel them more closely than anything. It's in the way I identify as digital. It's in the way I don't feel like I belong here yet, but perhaps some day I will.
It's in my work, the way I feel proud and scared. What if I'm not good enough, what if I fuck this up too, have I ever really succeeded at anything? It's in the way that I truly want to succeed, like I never have before. It's in the way I like how what I'm doing feels, it's in the way I like how it feels to do it.
I liked myself the other day. I know that much.
It's in the curve of my flesh. It's in the odd patterns of my freckles, the sag of my skin, the way my eyelids flutter. It's in the bottles of makeup I need to learn and the chipped and cracked nail polish that needs to be replaced. It's in my bike, stuck so far away. It's in the clothing than never fits. It's in the broken boots I never got repaired.
It's in my head. It's in me. I liked myself the other day. And now I'm alone with my demons and all I can do is scream at them to leave me alone. I liked myself the other day, I looked in the mirror and smiled and told myself I was gorgeous. I liked myself the other day.
Today's link of the day is Going Medieval, a blog about the medieval period from a feminist lens! It's fascinating stuff.