headchecks

Yesterday, and the day before: I didn't think of you at all. But today, I punched a door, and you appeared behind it. You walked faster, I went slow I stared at the ground And wondered how you still make my heart Pump so slightly faster But this time, out of fear Even though the worst you've ever said was “queer” I knew you can still be so fucking violent. That one day in Livermore, someone called me faggot You scolded them, then glanced at me— I thought you were looking for approval, but maybe, secretly, you agreed.

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dear derek: i think i was hurt so much because i thought i could imagine a future with you, because i believed in you so much, to become an nhl player. maybe i should've kept my crush on goldie instead.

dear grace: i feel horrible for taking your firsts when i was trying to forget how i felt about someone else. you really do deserve someone better.

dear matt: i miss you, i think, and i miss being passionate about the things that we liked. your hugs mightve been gangly but i still loved you.

dear blake: i'm a fucking idiot. i don't know if you liked me or not but i liked you but i was convinced watching that pets movie with just the two of us was just hanging out, as friends

dear max: i don't know if you're out there. but we had a good time together. let's go on a hike sometime.

dear maximilian: i'm sure you are still in the area. thank you for being my friend.

dear river: i hope you're well.

dear avery: let yourself relax. be kind to yourself.

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i shook your friend's hand— he's my friend, too. he looked me in the eye— so why won't you?

i am tired of your tiptoe— give it to me straight. tell me, when did your love become a kind of hate?

i may have crossed a line somewhere, but god, just ask me nice. i only asked about gambling, i never rolled the dice.

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the difference between you and me is that when you get angry you let everyone know you hurt those around you and make them feel the rage you have when i get angry nobody knows i wish i can hurt you and make you feel the pain you made . . . but instead i hurt myself.

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i want girls to see me as another girl i want guys to see me as another guy but i am neither. i am like my lesbian friends i am like my gay friends but i am neither. this binary was not built for people who look like me i can't help but think i am incompatible— or maybe just bisexual. i read about tribal genders: carnivore, cannibal. head hunter, dog eater. i feel the thrill of belonging— i am ancient, americans say i am american, ancestors say but i am neither.

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“i got crosschecked and almost got another concussion” i said. i was joking, mostly. “what number, what team?” you said. you looked serious. someone laughed at how you jumped to defend me. i laughed it off too. i think where i fucked up, was when your friend died. i don't know how close you were with him. i was a dick nevertheless. my friend died, too, and you rejected me. that's fine. it's alright. did you feel that way? did you cry yourself to sleep? or was it for show—or am i making you be the bad guy so i feel less shit about this? “lets go to the rink” you said. i was stupid. i didnt get it. i said lets get the engineering gang together. thank fuck no one but us could go “let me buy you ice cream” you said. it may have dawned on me. but then i went away what happened? why? you've seen me sit through the pledge of allegiance several times. i'm not american. i do not stand for america and the horrors she has perpetrated. but you still stand awkwardly in your desk to pledge to a country that doesn't want me. do you not understand? do you not understand? do you not understand? was that the reason?

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jag känner att jag återhämtar men dig, jag hatar min hjärt går iväg som hästar men i förstörelse jag skrattar

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isa dalawa tatlo min själ var gjord i Malmö. apat lima anim de hade en sjuk hud som porslin pitong walong siyam jag var din pojkvän och din flickvän.

sampang, tio, sampang.

nio åtta sju nakuha mo ang nararapat sa iyo. sex fem fyra saan kami pumunta? tre två en tahimik na kamatayan.

sampang, tio, sampang

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one two three my soul was made in Malmo's sea. four five six deadly white skin politics. seven eight nine a gender unassigned.

ten counts, ten, ten counts.

nine eight seven you got your armageddon. six five four let's go back to before. three two one a silent hit-and-run.

ten counts, ten, ten counts

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circles. all i've been fucking drawing and thinking about is circles. i don't know why. i only felt happy when i completed a perfect circle, using my hand as a compass. maybe it was the sense of completion, i was getting frustrated when the ends didn't meet where they needed to.

but sometimes i wasn't frustrated. i drew wobbly circles, inside other circles. i don't know if that has any deeper meaning.

i thought a lot about leaving this town. i really like the idea of moving away and starting over, and find myself, maybe. but that also scares me. i don't even know what i am right now, who i am. i just don't want to exist, but dying gives me anxiety. at least that part of me is normal.

(i'm not really afraid of dying, per se, just what people would do after i did— strangers lying about how much they loved me and friends devastated that they didn't see it.)

i hate talking. i hate talking a lot. but somehow i can do this dumb blog thing.at practice today i feel like i played like i usually do. slow. bad stamina. okay positioning. but it wasn't fun at all. i wasn't having fun.

there's only two other times that happened.

1. when i was first starting out and i was dragged to a power skating camp. i couldn’t do any of the fucking drills. i felt so stupid. i could barely do a crossover forwards, and they were trying to have me go down the damn ice backwards, crossovers only. i was crying. some kid told me, hey, there’s 80 year old leafs fans who have never seen a cup, and there’s 6 year old kings fans who’ve seen two already. (it helped me through that, i guess, and i guess he was saying that people develop at different rates, but i still was not having fun and went home wanting to just stop playing hockey.)

2. when i was dealing with symptoms from the emergency contraception pill. i was fucking stupid and hooked up with someone i didn’t know. he bought me the pill the next day and it had me wanting to throw up and die and never ever have sex again like that.

today was different. i don't really see a reason why i had no fun. even when we're losing i have fun, and we had the game tied for most of it. i had just come home from deaf bingo and i had fun there, i guess.

before that i went to the psychiatrist, we talked about fuck shit and i'm still chronically tired and foggy. i told him i was dissociating a lot. he said that's not good. i thought, yeah, it's not. he told me that i need to see my therapist again. i said, yeah, okay, cool. he asked me if talking about gender makes me uncomfortable. i said, yeah, it does, i wish i could just wake up and be what i want to be. he said, okay, maybe you're tired because you keep carrying all of this, like a weight on your back, keeping you from skating your full speed.

i said, yeah. i guess that makes sense, wait, no, i don't know.

then he asked if i want to talk to my dad. i thought, fuck no. i said, i don't like talking.

my progress is like a circle, i guess you can say. i'm going places, yeah, but i always end back up in the same fucking place: not knowing what to do, not setting priorities straight, not speaking when i should be.

i kept on drawing circles which ends don't meet.

i don't know if that means anything.

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