VegetableRumors™️ text emojis. Just, you know, in case you needed that. Anyways I have to distract myself with something else before I do my homework now.
€B þ ) Ambiguous Gourdfriend
( 8 P ) Larold the cucumber
{( 8 o ) Type A the tomato
£( 3 0 ) suave peach
<%%_8_[)____) uptight asparagus
<%8_\)__) anxious tiny asparagus
( : • ) peas of sarcasm
==8_•____) a leek of some repute
=)}B{þ ) Elder Grape the Unraisined
I came in
-Rex M
to work tonight
for my dad
at midnight,
as I have
been tending
to do lately
so the majority
of my time
can be free
of Christian music
and misgendering
and deadnaming,
and I saw
that my mom
had turned
on the
Christmas lights
on a cool
mid October
midnight.
I automatically smiled.
Then I appreciated
that smile,
and the fact
that I could
appreciate
that smile,
and how far
I have come
to be at peace
with myself
while they
be them.
Suddenly
my dad
walks in
while I am
writing this,
to check on
whether my brother
left his office
light on.
Just me.
Tapping on my phone.
He mutters
about the doorknob
needing work
and says
his goodbyes
and wanders
in to bed.
I fix the doorknob
when he leaves.
Sometimes
it feels like
all the effort
towards a relationship
is on my end,
other times
the conversations
between us
flow incendiary
and the world burns
and societal norms burns
and spiritual standards burn
but then on such a fundamental level
they just don’t get me,
they’re waiting for
this phase to pass,
they hope if
they just ignore
Halloween
they can skip
the demons
visiting their house
and head straight
to the celebrations
they understand
so here we are
hopefully lighting
Christmas lights
on a cool
mid October
midnight
and waiting
for the demons
to pass.
I’ve realized what’s been missing in my life. I’ve had a general level of lazy survival distraction filled with ennui and a simmering craving for death. Just- existing. Not managing to get anything really done or use my habit trackers or do my diary cards or show up to therapy consistently. I realized that it’s time to dig in, make the effort count. I’m getting back into the system and if the journal entries from here on out aren’t a whole lot more consistent, well, I’m fucking human and progress isn’t linear. So I’ll cope with that. I can deal with gaps in dates for entries, but I cannot survive long term lack of any structure. I try. I try so hard. But I do not do. Must do.
I was listening to the MBMBaM podcast and the topic of unlicensed food trucks came up and the strangest thing happened. It just hit me like a punch to the gut. I processed my feelings for a moment and came up with what it was touching on.
When I was a child, I was super entrepreneurial. To my detriment in many ways, honestly. But I remember putting together business plans and sketches and studying about loans. At one point I put up a couple sawhorses and a board with a sign I made advertising a dog boarding service. I sat outside, waiting for customers, apparently thinking that people are just driving around with dogs they need boarded. After a while, I went to ask my dad why I wasn’t getting any customers.
He had no idea what I was up to, naturally. So he said “you can’t do that!” and took down the setup. I do not remember exact words of the lecture as much as I do feelings and a sense memory of a sneer. I was crushed in this moment. I think it may be a root memory for fear and inadequacy.
But I realized… this is just a harmless kid thing. Anyone driving by would probably be going too fast to read the sign and they’d think it was just a lemonade stand. No one stopped, but it was totally normal and developmentally appropriate kid behavior. I hurt no one but they hurt me for it.
And that was the lesson I learned from the unlicensed food truck.
On the days
when I forget
to eat anything
but my
weed laced oatmeal,
sometimes I still have
Grief Pickles.
When my depression
or my disordered eating
grabs a hold of me
and prevents me from moving,
I can lift a Grief Pickle
to my mouth,
the temptation
to feel again
too great.
In a moment,
the tiny sweet gherkins
yield to my teeth,
meaty matter crumbling
into itself
along the structures
that created it,
and I remember
my Grandma.
I remember
every Saturday night
when she would
consider it
something special
to break out
a frozen pizza
and some
potato chips
and some
tiny sweet gherkins.
Not a balanced meal,
nothing like her
homemade roasts
or goulash
but she thought
it was special
(probably because
it took less work),
so I thought
it was special.
I bite into a
Grief Pickle and
I remember
my Grandma,
who kept the house
at 76 degrees
for two years
after my
Grandpa died,
never thinking
that she could
change it to
what she liked.
I remember
my Grandma,
who played
strategy games
as if she didn’t
quite fully
understand
everything
she could do
to screw
other people over,
until the time came
that she didn’t quite
understand
strategy games
that deeply at all,
not for the benefit
of others
or herself.
I remember
my Grandma,
who would
subtly rib
on my weight
by suggesting
things like,
“perhaps you
should check
the weight limit
on the chair.”
I remember
my Grandma,
complicated,
human,
trapped
just the same
in a society
and a family
with such profound
generational trauma
that we don’t
speak of emotions
much less feel them.
I remember
my Grandma
on the hospital bed,
looking lost and tiny,
a wrinkled fetus
abandoned in the
slow gradual breakdown
of the prison
that holds
our consciousness.
I remember
my Grandma’s
hand, small
and soft and spotted.
I take another bite.
My father says I can’t be a man because I express too much. I’m a slave to my emotions, and I’m using a gender transition to stuff my trauma.
I feel.
I sit.
I process.
and everything I make is steeped in emotion, every drip of paint or drop of ink or flash of flame or cut or weld or arc is sacred feeling encapsulated in a single moment on canvas or metal but then
I feel.
I sit.
I process.
and I abandon those loving harsh moment of truth in closets because they are past truths and they are therapy and they exist for me.
This ain’t a
digital scrapbook
and it isn’t
a Polaroid,
this is pure
photographic
evidence,
absolute
silver
processed
proof
that my grandpa
would’ve had an
Instagram,
here’s
“Some of my favorite cows.”
My Very Wise Friend said
“If your family
demands you perform
what they perceive
as your You-ness
in order to be
part of the family,
that’s not family
and that’s not love.”
My family has struggles.
Every one does.
I think we battle
more about
my You-ness.
See I can’t restrain my me-ness
and all they seem to think about
is imaginary penis
while my brain attempts to run from all
of these problems with expert fleetness
but really could I be less
Worried
Ashamed
Real
if I wasn’t truly here
or am I pretending that my absence
is a problem solving algorithm
when the question posed
by the riddle was always
“How do you have your best life?”
and the answer to the system
was never supposed to be
“Tap out, give up, it’ll only get harder,”
but instead the lesson was
“FIGHT. Fight and YOU’LL GET STRONGER.”
My mother told me
that God is the potter
and I am a cup
but I’m trying to
become a plate
but what she
doesn’t understand
is that I was
never meant
to be so simple
and utilitarian
in the first place
and it’s much
more likely that
I’m an abstract sculpture
out of precious metal clay
and this is my trial by fire
in the kiln of cruel expectations
burning away impurities
and anything less
than what I need
to be pure sterling.
What dangers
am I
in if
I keep
going down
this path?
Because I
think it’s
damn impressive
that 24
random weasels
banded together
with enough
determination to
convincingly play
a human,
so a
slight adjustment
mid script
seems reasonable.
I know that I’m not supposed to talk about being crazy.
I know that I’m not supposed to talk about my family.
Or politics.
Or religion.
Or suicide.
I know for damn sure I’m not supposed to talk about my gender and sexuality.
A bunch of anonymous people know I’m not supposed to talk about my alcoholism.
Or my autism.
Or my PTSD.
These are things people get judged for.
These are the things that cause family members to turn into black sheep.
Some black sheep come by it honestly, just melanin, all natural.
But most are stained that way by the vile oily sludge of judgement.
I know these things make people uncomfortable.
You think I don’t know that?
I’ve always known.
I think a little discomfort is a small price to pay, to relieve some sheep of their Sludgement Day.
Rexicorn 