My biggest, fattest crush (and how it abruptly ended today)

My antidepressants have stopped me from thinking and feeling in poetry. Everything used to be a poem: a look from her, a cigarette between her teeth, with the cherry hair and the American voice that sang about cherry wine. She was the sun, the polyamorous trans woman with the guitar: I worshipped her like a dog for a year, hoped and prayed and imagined maybe she could take my virginity, teach me to be like her, so effortlessly. But no one seemed to see it. My friends called me insane, I said maybe she had bad photos, but I saw through it, at who she was, and thought everyone knew it. I met her at work, and we shared polite talks, and bumped into each other a few times during term-time, and I would avoid eye contact and keep going. I thought I had seen Jesus and it was strange how no one had noticed it yet. 
She was older than me by five years, and had a beard, which was maybe why I was in love with her: she had an other-worldly energy about her, while I was a scrawny nineteen-year-old. I confided in my friend and asked if the girl maybe saw me as an annoying little brother, and my friend replied that maybe I wasn’t annoying but I definitely was a lot younger to her. I felt young, too. I still hadn’t had sex, so I looked at her in an abstract way, like someone so out of my league I could hardly hope to touch them. I had to record her and other performers for the open mic event in my college, and my hands shook, hoping she wouldn’t notice that my phone had pointed at her, even if that was my job. I didn’t rewatch the videos, because that felt perverted, but they stayed in my phone. She told me she liked my outfit after her performance. 
I saw her a few times, but never often enough, and sometimes so far apart that I thought my crush would fade, but then I saw her and it would be stronger than ever. Maybe I Pavlov-ed myself, but every time I saw her, I would feel deadly butterflies pool in my stomach, or maybe a pit of dread and excitement. I both dreaded and looked forward to seeing her. We danced together, once, and I was so drunk I stroked her cheek while dancing, and we went outside and smoked, and in that moment, I sensed it: she was attracted to me. Not strong enough to do anything about it, but I wondered to myself: am I not as much of a kid as I seem? I’m nineteen, she’s twenty-four, she’s a fourth year, you’re a second… I guess it doesn’t sound that bad when you put it like that. Maybe that day I sensed it, or maybe that’s hindsight, but I think I was incredibly excited about spending this time with my crush, and thought about it for a couple days afterwards. But I did feel as if something had shifted. 
I think I did try and move on, and took my ex-girlfriend, then, my friend, to a craft event I was running in the college common room. My friend pulled me aside and told me that she’s hot and whispered incredulously asking if I was on a date. My ex did look good, in her long flowing skirt and the makeup she had done for May Day. Then the girl fucked everything up. She asked me how old I was, then gave me a look. We went outside, and I talked about feeling like there’s something a little bit wrong with me and that everyone can tell. She paused for a moment and gave me a smile, then a grimace, and then bared her teeth. I asked her, “what…?”, gently, and she pauses, then says: 
“I’m a lot older than you.” [PAUSE] “I… kinda wanna go on a date with you.”
Of course, I softly said “I’d like that,” and that night, it was all I thought about, and I was riding that high. My friend cheered because he had liked her over my ex. I drank to that, and then when I lost control over the next few weeks, she texted me again: 
“also, i would prefer there to be no romantic undertones as you are quite a bit younger than me and i’m not sure i’m comfortable with that big a gap! i hope u understand”
I had expected it by this point, so I moved on. I did. The whole summer stretched again of me, and I could think about what I wanted from this life, and who I wanted, and who I wanted to be, and how I should value myself over the romance in my life, and God, I’ve forgotten what’s in like when you’re single, how the hunger consumes you and you want want want. But I didn’t realise it was the want back then. I don’t know what I thought, I’m not them anymore. I had lost my virginity by then, and slept with four people. My first was a hookup, which I felt deeply at the time, but now I was sort of glad the floodgates had opened up and I could finally figure out what this sex stuff was all about. 
I saw them again in September last year. We went for drinks the first day we were back at work together, and then, in the ebb and flow of flirty conversation and pointed chats about whether we were tops or bottoms, she asked to kiss me. I melted into it, and in that moment, I couldn’t believe I had ever doubted if what I was feeling all along was physical attraction. I wanted her, and I wanted her so much. We went back to hers, and we had sex: I couldn’t come because of my antidepressants and neither could she, but we fucked a few times and then went to our separate rooms. I laughed at her a little bit for trying to be moral about the age gap. 
We then began what I referred to as our whirlwind romance. We had wine in the park, kissed on top of a ferris wheel, made out in the middle of the street at night, had sex regularly and we were only a few doors away from each other, and flirted at work at breakfast and lunch. One time, my coworker sleep-walked into her room, and she played it cool as to why I was here. When he left she turned to me and said, “I’m not trying to keep this a secret. I am just a private person,”, and she did seem genuinely ashamed. One time in the park, she confided in me that she was still worried about the age gap, but I told I was twenty, which I had turned in the time we hadn’t spoken to each other, and she said that weirdly that felt better than nineteen and twenty-four. I didn’t care at all, and I knew it was her problem to sort out. I knew she was leaving at the end of the month, and that this couldn’t be a permanent thing cos she said so. I was coming to terms with that. 
She broke up with me after two weeks. I suggested we continue to fuck, she said that wasn’t how she worked, and that she couldn’t do meaningless sex. I asked her why, was it the age gap, or the sex, and she said it was neither but just because she was feeling awkwardness on the romantic side of things and didn’t know how to explain further. I cried in front of her, and never felt more like a kid. I’ve never begged before, but I did get damn close, asking for an explanation like that, not even trying to change her mind. I spoke about it to my coworkers, to my friends, even to my boss. 
Since then, I’d only seen her a few times. Apart from today, where she messaged me. I suggested drinks to catch up, and she had invited her around her place. I would have preferred a pub and an open area which I had stated before, but she called me over with the promise of homemade dinner and wine. It was awkward, and I didn’t want to have sex with her. I had a good thing going with two of my friends, and it was fun, and comfortable, and was a polyamorous dynamic I was comfortable with, even if it was only casual. Anyway, I went around hers, and my friends had warned me that she was acting very suspicious, but I went anyway even though I was uncomfortable and that she had also once suggested dinner at her place with her partner and I had refused. I had said it was because of the rain, but it was because I didn’t want to come eat dinner with her and her partner. 
Today, she tried to get me to go 50 minutes out of my way to buy her plantains, which I also didn’t do, after persuasion from my friends to stand up for myself. I went to hers, and I only felt a flirty dynamic only in the sense a two-week-fling flirt with each other, both dyed hair and piercings, except I am now purple instead of red, and they are red as always, gold jewelry on display with their gold eyeshadow. She makes me egg fried rice. I eat it on her floor, and tell her about my life, and the semi-official throuple I had ended up in. I mentioned I was now twenty-one. She listened to every word. We were about to go out for a cigarette when she asked to kiss me, and I sensed a NO in me, one that should’ve, should’ve, had to, come out of my throat, but instead I nodded and kissed her, soft skin grabbed under our hands. It had the clumsiness of a first kiss in a while. We kissed on the bed, and she took a viagra. Her antidepressants and estrogen had made her struggle to get hard. We kissed in a strange, cold, liminal way, me panting and moaning like an imitation of an old porn video. She didn’t eat me out because I was on my period, and she couldn’t get hard enough to fuck me. I felt empty, and I sucked her off, and she asked me to stop, and we cuddled and it was fine. But I walked home empty. 
I think everything I have ever felt for this person has been flushed out of me, with age, time, and repeated offences on their part. Maybe offences is too strong. Or am I just so attractive I made them forget that they are older, twenty-five now, and hold the power: are calling me to their house, knowing they were going to try to get in my pants, a year-ish after a breakup after a year-long crush and a two-week fling that had left me shattered, and empty. And today all I wanted to do was go home, maybe cuddle with my two best friends, and watch Gavin and Stacey, you know? But maybe it was too much to think she wouldn’t take the piss. She was, after all, not God, and had no way of knowing I used to worship her. Although maybe it was obvious. Does she think I’m weaker or stronger than I am? All I feel is shame, now, for kissing and sucking off someone I didn’t want to, because I felt it’s something I should want. That sucks.  
I’m not nineteen anymore, even though they seem like a baby to me. It’ll be okay, though. I just needed to write about her, before it really all washes away.

Did the journal factory explode?

 Dear Blogspot, 

I miss you. It's been a while. I don't know if anyone will read this anymore. I've never known what to feel, and don't want to analyse it much further. Or, I do, but I can't. I am scared to feel again. I cannot wait to feel again after I quit my SSRIs. I am afraid to learn how little I've been feeling. I am scared to know how long this has been going on.  

I don't think my art means anything. I think anything I make is so I don't die, don't fall into the ground and let my shoes absorb me. I paint so I can speak, I dream better than I live, I die better in my dreams than I can in my waking life. Last night, in my dream, I stepped into a lake and felt the world slow down as I hit the bottom, and knew that I had done it wrong, somehow. Died inefficiently, ineffectively. 

And I've jumped off bridges into water. I've gone swimming at 6pm in the Thames on my own as it rains. I've gotten high off an edible and gone clubbing with people I hate and then walked into a river on the way home, and then went home and painted my body red. My body is more water than flesh, anyway. I am not good at being flesh, especially as I cannot be happy with what I've been given. I want to tattoo over it, build myself up from scratch, erase the musicians' touch from my body, bassists, guitarists, even fucking flautists. 

When I jumped off a bridge into a lake, it was with a visiting student from America. We talked about how cold water felt better than sex, and though I had nothing, or no one, to compare it to at the time (with eight unfortunate ghosts following me since then), I agreed. It's the only time I've felt euphoric. It's the only time my mind has gone blank. The girl had had a small sexual experience in her first term at my university. I still had only kissed my girlfriend at the time. I wanted to take it further, but in an abstract, distant way. I didn't know how to say that I wanted her any more than I had already. 

I am always served warm leftovers, like the poem about the threesome. I think it's called "After the Threesome, they both take you home". The one time I had sex with two of my close friends, it felt like that. I cried the first time it happened. I didn't know what I'd done. I still don't. I remember speaking about it to a girl at my college. She was smoking a cigarette, and told me she wanted to have sex with two girls. One of them would be holding a joint, just about to pass it to her, when the air would linger with unspoken tension. They would spend the evening giggling, speaking of nothing, and getting closer and closer, until they were all limbs and lips and hair. I liked the idea. She had a boyfriend in Bangladesh. 

When I get drunk, I find I tell these stories to people who don't care. I talk of l
overs, my menstrual cycle, how I feel like this city is digesting me. What else can I do? It's digesting me. My body, sex, this city. I am Jonah in the whale. I eat fish bones soaked in fat and bile. 

Rage - a poem

 

I have stained my canvas with red paint 

and now I have to work around it. My mother 

says that hatred is like a parasite, that it clings 

to you like death itself. There is a tapeworm 

comfortably in my stomach, and I felt it laugh 

when someone told me that I don’t strike them 

as an angry person. Maybe I’m not. Maybe 

all my anger is love. 

Maybe all my anger is loss. Maybe I wish for you 

to look over me, to see the two dimensions

that I am, to pick at my organs. Take that one. 

My liver, my heart. Untie my intestines like knots. 

Hold death in your hands and pose. Smile. 

Kiss your friends and kiss the wrong people and 

then laugh about it over drinks because we’re alive

and maybe that rage is worth having. 

Maybe rage is alive. Rage is sober. Rage is drunk. 

Rage has gotten high for the tenth day in a row 

and cried. Rage kisses me on the mouth in Hank's Bar.

I catch someone staring out of the corner of my eye. 

It is not God, she doesn’t exist on that day. 

I have her in my phone somewhere. I set a reminder

to call. I think I would be angry if I were her. 

I think I am angry.

I think that anger is love. I hear a girl shout for 

someone to care, not anyone in particular, 

not anything particularly at all. Untie the knot of your intestines. 

Drink red paint and let it settle. Rage is alive.

Rage is dead, it is calling God on the phone and she 

doesn’t answer, she says she’s staying out. I spill 

red paint on my canvas and now I don’t know 

if i can work around it anymore.

Falling Apart, PMDD, and trying to enjoy my hobbies again

 When I first started therapy, I was asked what my aim was. I had recently stopped being friends with someone who had said they didn’t like who I had become, and I wanted to become someone I liked once again. Mostly, though, I wanted to enjoy my hobbies again, and become someone worth the air I breathe on this Earth. 

I can’t lie, the last few weeks have been hard. This week, I was assaulted at the club, and I’ve taken the weekend off from uni to go home to my family. Yesterday, my period came, and I’ve always suffered from PMDD, so it’s a relief I wasn’t completely going insane. While my monthly miseries are frustrating, I usually get through them with the power of cigarettes, coffee, good music and my bed. Today, I took a wonderful nap, and plus, my dissertation supervisor had given me this weekend off, so I was fairly guiltless as I drifted off into a dreamless, non-weed-induced (for the first time in a month) sleep. 

I’ve always been a big partier, mainly because I love to dance and meet new people and drink, so what happened was strange to experience, for obvious reasons. I looked really good, too, so it’s hard to reconcile that image of myself with the person who went to the club that day. I won’t go into details on this blog, but I called my mum up crying, asking to come home. I felt like a kid, and I think she knew it was bad because she let me smoke a cigarette on camera and didn’t tell me off. One thing she told me was that I’ll feel better soon, maybe even in a week. It’s true, I’ve been through heartbreak and bad situations before, and I tend to get over things very quickly. But still, it’s weird. 

I miss this blog. I think I’ll go back to writing. I disappeared for a while to work on my dissertation, and I still have that to do, but my life isn’t any better without my writing. I’ve been so sad recently, and it’s been hard to write, or do anything worthy of enjoyment. But I’m trying to claw my way out of the pit I’ve dug myself into. Here we go.

Andrew in Drag: My (limited) experience as a Drag King

Performing in drag was probably one of my favourite things that I’ve ever done. I’d had the idea in my head for a while now: a campy gender caricature of a typical Dostoevsky protagonist- gloomy, dark-eyed, sexy despite his internal conflict. I’d already had a name - Dykestoevsky - for a while now too, so when my best friend announced he was running a drag show to promote his magazine (who I am still working for!) I knew I had to perform. Originally performing just to support him, I knew drag was just a little bit out of my comfort zone, but I’m glad I persevered, and with the help of a few (free!) double vodka lemonades, I performed. 

He just can't fight it... he's gonna kill someone!

Me and my axe I made from cardboard the night before.

Feat. A very badly-made fag. Oh, and a cigarette. 

    That was back in November. Now, I’m hoping to make drag a habit for me, and I’ve got another show lined up on the 20th January (if you’re Oxford-based, come see me!). There’s something quite comforting about dressing up, and being able to be a caricature for a night. It’s expressive, it’s freeing, it’s drunken and sexy and all things in between. 

    My act is as follows: I begin lying on a couch, and a quote from Dostoevsky plays. “To love is to suffer, and there can be no love otherwise.” Dark is the night (an old Soviet war song) begins to play. I pretend to smoke a cigarette, and take a swig from my flask and I crawl towards a table where I take a (unfortunately very real) shot of vodka, and continue to dance, slowly stripping, revealing that I have had an axe hidden under my coat the entire time. I act surprised, before dancing, almost with the axe. This song ends with me, pretending to murder someone, and a scream plays. And then, Rasputin begins to play, and I end the act by drunkenly Russian dancing on stage. 

    The show wasn’t perfect, and I’d fucked up the audio, so I had to improvise and read the Bible to the audience while my bestie, god bless his soul, sorted the audio. Afterwards, I got a message from one of the full-time drag kings that was at the event letting me know he’s doing another show on the 20th, and that I was very welcome to perform. It was from that point that I knew drag was for me.

    I am not a trans man, although I do want top surgery. My gender is complicated but very simple at the same time: I view myself as, you know, just nothing. I don’t think about my gender, it’s not even there. I suppose agender would be the closest label I could give myself, though in terms of gender presentation, I oscillate wildly between hyper-feminine and super masculine, though most days, I settle for an inbetween, a privilege that my piercings and mullet let me do. The thing that gives me dysphoria, though, is when people try to force me one way or another, or even in between: I really, really hate people telling me what to do. So it’s nice to parody that caricature of masculinity through drag. For that night, I can be a man, I can cross-dress. It’s really such a blessing in my life. 

    The thing about top surgery is I think I would look so hot with it, especially because being non-binary, I aim for a sort-of non-human look anyway, and I feel like lack of tits would complete that somewhat. I have a gorgeous ribcage tattoo which I feel would look so hot. But alas, I have to think about this some more, as my parents do not yet know I’m trans, and I acknowledge my privilege with being able to hide it from them. I’m just glad I went down the route of being openly out and non-binary at university, because I don’t think I could’ve lived several more years, or lifetimes, of being someone I’m not. 

    When I first got to university, I had intense imposter syndrome  with my gender. I’d known I was trans since 2021, but still felt like I was not a real part of the community, and was seriously considering going back in the closet. I was presenting quite feminine at the time, and felt everyone knew there was something wrong with me, that I was faking it. And there was one thing worse than being perceived as non-binary for me, and that was being viewed as a fake. Though, in freshers week, I found myself gravitating to trans people, and even went to a few trans events. I threw on a beanie and a masculine outfit, and I said to one of my close friends - “I feel like I’m cosplaying as a trans person.” That was a horrible thing to say about myself, and I see that now. But it felt so real at the time. 

    I’m glad I stuck with my gender though, because I feel more authentically myself than ever. Hell, I’m a drag king! I write for a queer magazine, I make queer art, I’m dating a queer woman. Everything about me is so fucking queer and trans, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s what drag is to me. It's a protest, it’s fun, and it’s queer joy. And I won’t give that up for anything.

On routine

On seeing this post on Tumblr today, it made me start thinking about whether I have my life together. My instinct is to say no, although I feel a bit guilty about this. I have many hobbies and interests, and I love to create, but I often struggle to eat three meals a day and enjoy cigarettes and weed far too much to feel as if I could feasibly live any kind of healthy life right now. 

It makes me think about routine, and how important it is. Recently, the idea of "leaving a treat for future you" has come into my consciousness, and it's something that I'll start to practise when I'm at university again in four days: things like putting clothes away, leaving the plates you need for breakfast tomorrow on your table, making your bed, things that make it easier for future you. And I do care about myself and my body, despite what I may do to it. I may be fucking up my lungs, but I do appreciate a good meal, and always thank myself for when I can keep to a solid routine. 

Another important thing is being kind to yourself, too. Executive disfunction is very real, and though it often can become easy to confuse "self care" with slipping back into depressive habits, it is also important to know when the kindest thing you can do for yourself is to let yourself rest, even if future you has to pick up the pieces a little bit. Be kind to future you, and they'll be kind back. Take care of yourself. 

And lastly, we have boredom. I believe it's so important to let yourself be bored, because you can always find something to do. Some days will be more difficult than others, but it gets easier. The more time you spend alone with yourself, the easier it will become to be in your own company, to be in conversation with yourself. This is still something I struggle with a lot, learning to be alone. Last term, on the other hand, I was alone too much, due to me smoking weed every day. What I viewed as protecting my peace was in fact isolating myself, so this term it's all about that balance. Not burning myself out, but not isolating myself either. 

It's difficult. All of it is. Making a routine, sticking to it, finding the energy to balance schoolwork and jobs and family dynamics and relationships and friends, and being neurodivergent, it's tough to bring it all together. But I'm staying afloat. It'll be okay.

I fell asleep during the day today, and I woke up discombobulated like I always do after an evening nap. I know uni will be difficult, as I have coursework and my dissertation due. I don't mind, though. This is what I'm here for after all. Ignore my disjointed thoughts, it's 1am and I can't sleep. 

One last thing, I have no clue why, when I follow people, it comes up as my legal (ish) name, so if you get followed by Sasha, that's me! Ignore that. Pffft. 

The Postman: Collateral damage, the trolley problem and violent protests

Before I start this post properly, I would like to take a moment to complain about my morning. My family are super Christian, so we went to church today, and it was the occasion where the priest blesses Holy Water and everyone gets to take some home. On the way there, I was carrying a bottle of holy water and then proceeded to slip and fall on ice, breaking the glass bottle. If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is. 

    Anyway, complaint over. I wanted to talk today about a guy I used to work with, which, I realise, does come under the realm of complaining as well. But ah well. We were taking a break, and I was having a cigarette while sitting on the wall outside my university, who I work for, over the holidays. I was smoking and talking about Luigi Mangione for some reason, and the topic of violent protests came up. 

    “Name one violent protest in history that has been successful,” he says, dangling his feet. 

    Off the top of my head, I give the first answer that comes to mind. “The suffragettes,” I say. 

    He thinks for a moment. He asks me for a cigarette, and then changes his mind. He’s been telling me to quit earlier today, trying to tell me to replace smoking with eating Haribos. 

    He pauses. “Did you know a postman was killed as collateral damage in that protest? What makes the death of an innocent person justified in terms of political action?”

    I say, “The result. Women, without the vote, aren’t able to have a say in topics that affect their day to day life. Women died in abusive relationships, they died because they didn’t have access to medical care or abortions. Hundreds of thousands of innocent women would die if they didn’t have the vote.”

    “I don’t think the loss of an innocent life as collateral damage is ever worth it. I wouldn’t want women to have the vote if it meant that the postman had lived.” 

    Hello? 

    Silence from me at this point. We eventually hop down from the wall, and begin packing up some chairs in another room. He then proceeds to ask me, “What’s a modern cause you would feel equally towards as to votes for women?” I think, then say, “Trans rights.” 

    He then says, “So, would you kill an innocent person if it meant trans people would have rights?” This catches me off guard, and I say, “I don’t know. Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a dumb question.” 

    He stares at me in horror. “That’s fucked, you know. That’s really fucked. I’m judging you right now.” I look at him angrily. He continues talking, “That’s fucked, you know.”

    We continue packing up chairs in silence. I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that innocent trans people die every day, that he wasn’t being as clever as he thinks, that he was just asking me a moral question rather than a political one, one that completely wasn’t relevant at all. I just say to him, “no hard feelings,” and he says, “yeah. And I hope you don’t judge me for not wanting to murder innocent people.”

    Typing this out has made me realise the ridiculousness of the situation, almost like arguing with a right-winger online. I guess in the workplace different people are shoved together with different outlooks and personalities. The idea of the hypothetical postman fascinated me, though: a right-wing strawman. They’d much rather talk hypotheticals than take any kind of political action. At the end of the day, if you’re cishet and white, you can afford to care about the hypothetical postman, because you’re blind to the millions and millions of “postmen” dying every day. The trans people who never make it to the top of their waiting lists. The victims of hate crimes. Those who've lost trans siblings, parents, friends. Those who were denied healthcare for their bodies simply because those bodies are trans, and othered.

    It is easy to be comfortable. It is easy to complain about workers on strike, if it means you’re late to work or have to wait an extra half an hour in the queue. It’s easy to complain about the death of CEOs and to mourn Charlie Kirk because at the end of the day, “he’s a man with a family and kids!” It’s much easier to mourn the postman, or the hypothetical postman you’d have to shoot to achieve world peace, because he doesn’t exist. Or he’s just one guy, and this simple hypothetical stops the violent protesters from being heard. 

    When you make it a trolley problem, you distract from the issue at hand. You silence those speaking about real problems with fake problems of morality. Similarly, like how Rishi Sunak stated that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman, that’s just common sense”, all this has proved is that we cannot rely on “common sense” anymore. Killing someone is bad, that’s just common sense. But it’s not, is it? The lines begin to blur, when there are thousands of indirect bodies behind that one person, like the Healthcare CEO. You can ignore indirect deaths in favour of shooting the postman. Is one worse than the other? That’s the trolley problem, and I refuse to answer the question. I would much rather support my trans friends and siblings. 

    To finish this post up and to not end it on a negative note, here’s a drawing I did last night of Hobbes in a bunch of different poses! Love this silly little guy.

The many faces of Hobbes.

    I hope you're having a wonderful day so far! Talk to you guys soon.