#maybe I can make this about being trans instead. things to think about

[envyenvys]

I have this fear that my The Nutcracker parallels for loreliese only hold up with the Barbie version. I’m avoiding doing any research on the ballet bc like. what am I supposed to do if it doesn’t work out

(This is a trick question I will simply do it anyway and be mad about it)

[grimmjowjaegerjaquez]

Remembering the brief period in my life when i was obsessed with ashido, the only filler character with rights bc kubo originally planned to include him in the manga but had to cut him for time

[helianthus-hellion]

modern-day house m.d. episode where the patient is transmasc and on T, and after house reads his file he goes in and is reading off prescriptions like "estradiol cream, finasteride, prescription face wash, prescription deodorant... god, it's like you don't even want to be a man!" and the patient says "just because i wanna be a man doesn't mean i have to suffer all the shitty side effects" and house goes "it's all shitty side effects! being a man sucks!" before tossing the file down on the little tray table thing and leaving.

chase and cameron exchange A Look in the room and then while they're walking down the hall cameron's like "we should talk to him about it - maybe he'd be... happier? if he transitioned?" and chase rolls his eyes and is like "just because he thinks being a man sucks doesn't mean he's trans, every guy hates being a man at least some of the time" and then cameron gives him Another, Slightly Alarmed Look

we cut to house and wilson and wilson's looking at him like he's insane, going "so you... told the patient that being a man sucks?" and house laughs and says "sure did! i wanna know which will take longer - cameron coming to me concerned about my gender, or chase realizing he should be concerned about his gender. her gender? eh, probably easier to just stick with 'his' for now." wilson accuses him of being a sociopath and house looks fake-wounded and says "you know, if i am a sociopath, you're being ableist by attributing my cruel actions to my sociopathy, and if i'm not a sociopath then it's even worse that you're accusing me of being one just because i'm mean."

cuddy approaches house later and tells him that she heard about what he told the patient, and she is required both to make him take sensitivity training and also to provide him resources on transitioning if he wants to pursue that. house asks if him being a woman would make cuddy bisexual, and she raises and eyebrow and says "that ship sailed long ago" and doesn't elaborate on whether she means she isn't into house anymore so it doesn't matter or that she already is bi. house starts cyberstalking her to try to figure out if she slept with any of the women she's friends with on facebook. the team comes in to tell him about a new symptom and he shows them a photo of cuddy from college with a hot girl at a halloween party and is like "do you think they ever fucked? i think they fucked. even if they didn't, i'm gonna imagine they did." foreman tries to get them back on track but chase leans in to get a better look at the photo and it turns out to be wilson in a costume. there's an awkward beat of silence before cameron goes "SO, back to the patient!" and house makes a sort of dismissive "huh? oh, yeah, go test him for [whatever]" while staring intently at the photo.

he confronts wilson about the photo, wilson admits it's him, house starts by going "oh, yeah, but i'm the one having a gender crisis" but accidentally says "sexuality crisis" instead and wilson is like "house do you... do you think i'm hot in that photo?" and then we cut to chase asking cameron if she thinks he could pull off an outfit like that and they discuss it a little while doing a blood draw or LP or whatever. the patient gives them both A Look and is like "you know, you can get wigs and breast forms pretty cheap these days..." and chase is like "hm? oh, yeah i guess one of those costume supply sites would probably have stuff like that huh," and the patient raises his eyebrows at cameron who just shakes her head a tiny bit.

house accuses cuddy of sleeping with his best friend in the clinic lobby and she drags him into her office to ask what the hell he's talking about and he shows her the photo. she's like "yeah, we were at a halloween party together in college, so what?" and house says that wilson makes a really hot chick and asks if that's what awakened cuddy's "bi side," and cuddy just rolls her eyes and tells him to stop projecting his sexuality crisis onto her just because he thinks his best friend is hot. house asks if wilson was at least a good lay and cuddy says "find out for yourself!" before kicking him out of her office again.

house goes back to his office and cameron is pacing outside the door, and she looks nervous when he walks up to her. she follows him into his office and she has clearly prepared A Speech about how if he doesn't like being a man he doesn't have to be, and he doesn't even have to be a woman either, there's options, and it's never too late to transition no matter what people say, and he cuts her off like "yes yes you're very supportive, you clearly aced sensitivity training" and then he has the episode's Epiphany and it turns out that the patient transitioned too early and there was some (largely made-up and not actually backed by irl medical science) complication from starting his transition as a teenager, and the patient is like "oh so you're saying i did this to myself?" and house says "well legally at least, either your parents or the governor of new jersey did it to you - depends on who approved the hormones."

wilson comes up to him at the end and is like "you know, it's okay if you think i'm hot. and it's also okay if you're a woman. if you... ever need any tips on passing as one, i'm happy to help."

the ending is left ambiguous as to house's actual gender identity and, much like the autism episode, it kinda feels like the writers' room was full of heavy debate about whether house should be trans or not. we also never actually circle back to the fact that chase is definitely trans, it never comes up again, and this move pisses off both trans people and allies who wanted it to become A Story Arc and anti-trans people who are mad it even came up in a single episode, absolutely nobody is happy about how they handled that subplot.

[drchucktingle]

As an autistic person, did you struggle to make and keep friends? And have you found friends through the writing world? I ask because my mom always said i needed to find my people. I did finally find them (they are neurodiverse trans nerds, haha), but not until i was like 30. And i wonder if its true of other autistic people too. So i guess my question is: did you find your people, and when?

thank you this is good question. i have always had a LOT of CLOSE BUDS even from a very young age. i would actually say that i am unusually socially adept in my way and that it is partially BECAUSE of my autistic trot. LETS TALK ON THAT FOR A MOMENT

'BUT CHUCK YOU SAID YOU ARE ON THE SPECTRUM AND AUTISTIC BUCKAROOS CANNOT BE SOCIALLY ADEPT' some say. and sure it is UNUSUAL overall, technically speaking, but there is also an important reason we talk about this as a spectrum of buckaroos and not a monolith

when buckaroos ask me what it is like to be autistic i try to explain like this: there are certain cues and markers from the outside that serve as a sort of identification checklist but because of masking they are not always correct. instead i see it as question of WHAT IS IT LIKE INSIDE YOUR BRAIN?

internally my brain is different. its taking in way more information all the time, including the stuff that neurotypical buds block out, and that can become overwhelming. it is hard to navigate because i do not have that automatic neurotypical 'here is what is important here is what is not' function

so yes i can be easily distracted and zone out as i watch the patterns and fractals spin off. and yes i can miss certain things in social situations. in many autistic buckaroos this makes large groups overwhelming and the OUTPUT of behavior matches what we typically know as signs of autism

FOR ME however, same thing is going on inside, but i have managed to HARNESS that information. even from very young age i see that everyone is DOING THE HUMAN ACT but instead of rejecting that and shutting off i think 'well okay i am just going to do THIS because thats what they actually want'

in other words, most neurotypical buds say one thing that has a kind of spiraling social-cue-related OTHER MEETING (they do this ALL the time) and instead of rejecting that i have trained myself to be REALLY REALLY good at knowing the hidden meaning. it is EMPATHY but on a sort of LOGIC BASED level

and because i have always been pretty good at that, people like to trot around me and say 'wow this is a good friend they understand me'. now for ME that can be a little exhausting and there are things i need to do and stims and all that to release the effort, but overall it is worth it to me

OTHER THING is that i was a successful CREATOR AND ARTIST BUCKAROO from an early age which is socially seen as 'cool' especially when you are trotting around in your youth. it is not particularly FAIR but it is true that some level of fame makes buds treat you well even if you are 'weird'.

of course it can be a sort of FAKE 'treating you well' but as an autistic buckaroo it is still more of a chance than you might otherwise get. this timeline has sort of carved out a very special little sliver of social grace for the token odd artistic weirdo to have a seat at each cool kids table

ANYWAY that is the trot of my life. it is a unique trot that i dont get to talk on much but since you asked THERE YOU GO. every chance i get to say 'I LOVE BEING AUTISTIC' and talk on HOW MUCH IT HAS IMPROVED MY LIFE i try to take a moment and do that. when i was young i had few autistic heroes

and OF COURSE it can be difficult and overwhelming and we need to have space for those stories and voices, but i want young buckaroos who get this diagnosis to know there are ALL KINDS of stories and trots on the autism spectrum. MINE IS PRETTY DANG COOL and maybe yours will be too. LOVE IS REAL

[messrsrarchives]

i have nothing to say that hasn't already been said in regards to the Uk Supreme Court hearing, nor do i have the mental capacity right now, so you get rhis long draft from february for now instead:

there is no feminism without trans rights. there is no feminism if you are pointing towards trans women and assessing whether they are "womanly enough". there is no feminism if you are pointing towards trans women and saying they can't get periods. "they can't birth a child, how are they women!?". there is no feminism if you turn around to trans men and ask if they've considered their future fertility. if you reduce their worth and their livelihood to their ability to bear a child. there is no feminism if you come after hrt because you can say it's trans healthcare all you want... until they come for your hrt. for your birth control, for your plan b, for your viagra, for YOUR hrt. there is no feminism if you insist on restricting trans healthcare. "no no, they need more time to think about it!" anyway, i'll wait 6 months for a doctors appointment only to be told i must be due on. have you considered it's anxiety??? there is no feminism if you insist on verifying people's sex. hi, hello, sorry! mandatory genital check! yes, we have security stationed outside the women's restrooms! don't worry about it, i'm sure that viral video of a cis woman being hounded by cis men pretending to be security guards is fake, it mustttt be a trans thing. yeah. no, it isn't bad that this trans person got misgendered and hatecrimed and assaulted. look at them, they aren't even trying. if they wanted to not be attacked, they would've worn the right thing. it's what they were wearing, right?

there is no feminism when the arguments against trans people are just misogyny repacked

what makes a woman a woman? no no, wait. you're 18! have you thought about your reproductive future? what if you change your mind and want kids ohhh you're gonna regret that. yes yes, these puberty blockers that both cis and trans people on? those are harmful because we shouldn't be messing with children's hormones but we're only going to ban them for trans people. yeah, i'm sure they work differently for cis kids! don't worry about it, the blockers know when a person is trans and then it starts attacking their body because that is absolutely how science works!

if jkr was a feminist she would talk about women's rights without a trans person coming into the equation.

she would talk about the fact that violence against women has been declared a national emergency in the uk, and she wouldn't follow it up with trans bathroom debates. that 70k donation to stop trans women being legally recognised as women? maybe that could have been spent elsewhere in the legal system. perhaps in ensuring that rapists and abusers actually get convicted of their crimes and that the 1 in 2 women who are victims of this do not shake their head with an empty sigh when they're asked if they would like to press charges. she wouldn't have come online with 14m followers and debated the validity of imane khelif's success, wouldn't have argued that a woman of colour was trans because she don't fit her western ideals of what a woman should look like, because feminism isn't feminism if it isn't intersectional. she wouldn't have handed johnny fucking depp millions upon millions. she wouldn't have given marilyn manson fucking flowers. if jkr were a feminist she would have spoken up about farage and his proposed restrictions to abortion. reform are leading the uk polls right now, this is becoming more of a threat but no no, silence.

if jkr was a feminist, she wouldn't be Supporting Donald Trump. she wouldn't be publicly praising him for his work against transgender athletes in america when he has over double the amount of sexual assault "allegations" than there even ARE trans athletes at college level in america.

there is no feminism without trans rights, and you need to take the wool off of your eyes if you think that you as a cis woman are safe from this. because you're not.

when we start bringing arguments about reproductive capabilities back? when we start arguing about how much "effort" a woman puts in, how much makeup she wears. when we start reducing womanhood back down to aesthetics and reproductive value?

you aren't safe.

and if you aren't standing with trans people right now, if you aren't standing for intersectionality right now?

then you aren't a feminist either.

[genderqueerdykes]

so something that was more common in the past in queer spaces was ally pride. people were often very proud allies! they were often family members, best friends, partners, neighbors, co-workers, anyone really. maybe they just support queer people regardless. there's a lot of reasons why people support us, there's no reason to judge.

i feel like there's been this exhausting outlook on things where we have to immediately take things in bad faith because there's no way someone else had our best interest in mind. people have become very resistant to the idea of interacting with people who aren't exactly like them and it's disturbing. that is not how to approach community. that fosters arguments and drama.

also i don't like that some people don't like the idea of allies being at pride or calling themselves "proud allies" or whatever like that's not embarrassing, they should be proud, because they're refusing to hold us down. how's that embarrassing? we have to be kinder to one another. it's really over. this hostility is not where it's at. this is not the spirit of things at all. in the past it was not like this at all

there was a lot of diversity in queer spaces because they didn't really have the largest physical locations possible and often had to deal with minimal resources, so specialized groups were not always possible. generally you were mingling with everyone. you would have to just sort of talk to people and socialize. the first people i met at my college's pride group was an agender transfem person, 2 cis gay drag queens, 3 cis gay men two of which were asexual, a cis butch lesbian, a cis femme lesbian, & 2 cis bisexual women.

you just kinda talked to whoever, and that was a good thing. i saw parents, friends, kids, relatives all the time. it was super normal. like nobody was pestering you for your identity. legitimately i never came out the whole way about my gender when i was there i just tried to be gender vague and people understood. i didn't get heckled for my terms or pronouns i mostly told people i was genderqueer and they'd be like oh yeah totally. and then we'd go get sandwiches at a restaurant after the meeting was over.

there's a severe lack of connection we're having as a community right now. there's a breakdown in communication and it makes us suffer for it. i think it's time to shelve the needless hostility and just have conversations. i'm guilty of it it too. i dont want to say im excluded from this. but we need to just talk and then maybe we can get to the part where we go back to living as queer people and eating food together instead of interrogating people for everything down to what their genitals were at birth or are right now. it's time to shelve it.

we seriously do need to make room for pride and joy. the anger and rage isn't helping if it's being directed at each other- it need to be directed at people who are oppressing us, not the people we target right now. men who are allies, trans men, transmascs, male lesbians, transfems, trans women, intersex men, gay men, bisexual men, men of color, and disabled men, aren't the people who are holding us down, your target is elsewhere.

let us express joy and pride for once. it's okay to do so. it's constructive and healthy.

[the-cimmerians]

On Thursday, Governor Tim Walz sat down for an interview with author Glennon Doyle, her partner Abby Wambach, and her sister Amanda Doyle during a taping of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. The conversation touched on key election issues such as abortion and gun violence. However, midway through the podcast, the discussion shifted to queer youth, specifically transgender kids. Rather than shying away from the topic, Walz delivered a passionate, several-minute-long defense of LGBTQ+ rights, including transgender healthcare. He outlined his vision for the administration’s role in protecting these rights.

The question came from Abby Wambach, who turned to the topic after discussing Walz’ founding of a Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school in the mid-90s. Wambach asked, “Well, thank you Governor Walz so much for protecting even in the late ’90s queer kids. And so I have to ask, what will a Harris-Walz administration do to protect our queer kids today?”

Walz discussed positive legislative actions, such as codifying hate crime laws and increasing education, while emphasizing the importance of using his platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. He then addressed the role of judges in safeguarding medical care for queer youth: “I also think what Abby, your point is on this, and I was just mentioning, we need to appoint judges who uphold the right to marriage, uphold the right to be who you are, making sure that’s the case, uphold the right to get the medical care that you need. We should not be naive. Those appointments are really, really important. I think that’s what the vice president is committed to.”

He didn’t stop there. Instead, he directly pivoted to calling out national anti-transgender attack ads which have flooded the airwaves across the United States, often airing besides NFL football games and other major sporting events. The Trump administration has spent upwards of $20 million on such ads, with outside organizations spending $80 million on various races.

“We see it now; the hate has shifted to the trans community. They see that as an opportunity. If you’re watching any sporting events right now, you see that Donald Trump’s closing arguments are to demonize a group of people for being who they are,” Walz said. He continued, “We’re out there trying to make the case that access to healthcare, a clean environment, manufacturing jobs, and keeping your local hospital open are what people are really concerned about. They’re running millions of dollars of ads demonizing folks who are just trying to live their lives.”

He emphasized the importance of representation and the impact of coming out, particularly for parents who may not have been exposed to LGBTQ+ identities and therefore might lack understanding. Walz pointed out, “Look, you’re reaching a lot of folks in hearing this, and for some people it’s not even out of malice and it’s not a pejorative, it’s out of ignorance. They maybe have not been around people. You’ve all seen this, however it takes you to get there, but I know it’s a little frustrating when you see folks have an epiphany when their child comes out to them.”

The strong defense of queer and trans youth came just one day after Kamala Harris participated in a Fox News interview with Brett Baier. Baier, who maintained a hostile tone throughout, pressed Harris on transgender issues with his second question. Rather than adopting the Republican framing, as some Democrats have done recently, Harris emphasized that the law requires medically necessary care for transgender inmates and criticized Trump for spending $20 million on ads focused on an issue far removed from the priorities of most Americans. Her response prompted Baier to quickly shift to another topic.

In back-to-back days, the Harris-Walz ticket has made it clear they will not back down on queer and trans rights, despite the barrage of anti-trans attack ads. This stance is likely reinforced by the repeated failure of similar ads in recent races, including Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, legislative races in Pennsylvania and Virginia, Georgia’s Herschel Walker vs. Raphael Warnock election, Andy Beshear’s reelection in Kentucky, and the 2023 losses of 70% of Moms for Liberty and Project 1776 school board candidates across the United States. For transgender people, these interviews are likely a welcome relief after some wavering responses from other Democratic candidates in swing states.

[jellyfemmedyke]

is it just me or is the "trans guys are just some boring guys and they make lame music and trans women are cool and interesting and make loud music" jokes almost like. an excuse for why theres not that many trans guys who are popular content creators or musicians or actors or authors or what have you. like blaming the invisibility of trans men on being "boring" and therefore not doing anything rather than oppression.

not to mention the example of music being that people have heard of one singular trans guy who works in a genre they dont like [people really love to act like cavetown is like specifically bad or cringe but thats just what most indie pop/rock/folk sounds like] and theyve heard of a handful of trans women who make hyperpop that they already like [and laura jane grace of course] and its really telling on themselves. theres trans guys making hyperpop and trans women making ""lame ukulele music"" and both of them and nonbinary people making music of tons of other genres. like. cmon. it reminds me of xkcd 385.

also i dont think these jokes are intentionally malicious or anything [most of the time] but it also feels sort of weird to be joking about how boring a group of marginalized people are. im not going to act like its the biggest deal in the world but its sort of low level bullying, innit? and i imagine having this weird expectation to be "cool and interesting" isnt fun for trans women either. its nice to get to be lame sometimes.

Yeah it's super weird, especially because it's repeated over and over, that part is the suspicious part. I even saw it on reddit a few days ago in one of the ftm subs. I do think it's like blaming the lack of trans men artists on trans men being "boring" instead of, you know the bigotry, the erasure, the inequality I think it's also a weird expectation that we all HAVE to live up to what other people think of as "cool" like if we're all not making hardcore metal and being as "SICK" as humanly possible, we are failing at transgender music and therefore are the reason trans men aren't represented as artists enough, which is ummm. okay.

why can't we make soft love songs about being bugs, or whatever. What happens to trans women who don't live up to the metal hardcore aesthetic? Look at Dylan Mulvaney. She made a dumb cutsie girlypop song and everyone acted like she is the founder of misogyny herself. So not only are we ridiculed for the music we make, we're trapped in transphobic expectations of what music we can or should make.

If you expect all trans women to make metal, you'll only see trans women who make metal, if you expect all trans men to make soft music, that's all you'll find! because that's all you looked for! Another thing is like, Oh all trans women music is cool and hardcore rock and roll, but trans men music is dumb and cutsie ukulele music? I wonder what gender those genres are normally associate with? Uhoh we're doing a sexism maybe the person making the joke doesn't have malicious intent, but the joke itself sure does.

[genderkoolaid]

maybe my least favorite anti-autistic stereotype is the trope that autistic people are ultra-rational and thus chock full of bigotry. like house m.d does this*, bones does this, i'm pretty sure the good doctor also did this with their trans episode. allistic showrunners looovee writing an autistic character who says blatantly racist, sexist, ableist, etc. things & justifies it by saying that autistics are simply too Rational and Incapable Of Understanding Emotion to pretend that our current social hierarchies aren't natural!

it sucks for one because it promotes the stereotype that all autistics are hypoempathetic, AND that being hypoempathetic means that you uncritically believe bigotry. but it ALSO sucks because it also promotes the idea that bigotry is driven by rationality and being anti-bigotry is driven by irrational emotions. and that the fight for social justice is really about making people set aside their rational bigoted beliefs because its mean. rather than making arguments based on the actual material evidence of oppression, and how the logic of oppression is deeply flawed and often extremely contradictory because it's only goal is maintaining power. and how that is in fact morally wrong.

my examples are mostly TV but i was thinking about this while rewatching munecat's video debunking evopsych (around 2:47:06). in which an evopsych guy is justifying a misogynistic paper arguing that women are less inclined towards STEM because Evolution, by saying that the author is "Aspy" and thus ~too rational to tone himself down for The Woke~. It's such bullshit and it hides behind aspie supremacy and fantastical ideas of autistic people as robots instead of human beings filled with biases and fallacies and yes, EMOTIONS, in order to push the narrative that bigotry is rational and the left is motivated by our squishy soft womanly irrational empathy rather than the fact that systemic racism objectively exists and misogyny is a self-contradictory mess.

also it's just a way of avoiding the reality of their own bigotry. if misogyny isn't scientifically valid, then that means they must choose to hold misogynistic beliefs, rather then those beliefs being natural. which means they have to actually grapple with the question of whether or not it is moral to maintain a misogynistic system rather than deconstructing it and creating a more equal society. if misogyny is just Nature and Facts and Logic then they can pretend that it's all out of their hands! they want to side-step the question of whether or not its right by arguing making an appeal to evolution as some divine ruler which will destroy our society if we ever deviate from 1950s US social hierarchies.

*to give this show credit, it has other reasons why house is Like That, and he also has plenty of moments where he criticizes the status quo and/or the audience is meant to disagree with his behavior/views. but they still do engage in "house is bigoted and his bigotry is justified by the story" such as in the infamous asexuality episode. but the writers also refused to make him canonically autistic even when they wrote him Like That so who gives a fuck

[doberbutts]

is it just me or is like the whole stuff of cishet men dni and (cis perisex) women only spaces conflating vulnerability with safety? like, with a cis man and a cis woman who otherwise have quote unquote equal positions in society otherwise, there's the risk (or put it danger) from him being able to use his male privilege against her. but if it were a trans man or another cis woman instead that doesn't make them safe and unable to weaponize misogyny or commit interpersonal violence against her, they are just vulnerable to her ability to fight back so to speak in ways that the cis man isn't. but it feels like (general) we talk about these things like they're the same.

I firmly believe that every single transgender person is a marginalized gender due to their transgender status- this is something that I have seen discussed within black transfeminism regularly (see also: MaGe) and yet we get onto tumblr and suddenly all of that disappears under "by effect of being a man you inherently have male privilege and your very existence oppresses all women" rather than realize that transgender people as a whole operate within a structure of marginalization themselves.

As I have said repeatedly- it's not that I don't think trans men are capable of having male privilege (we are) or that I don't think trans men can contribute to and even utilize misogyny to our benefit (we can) - it's that the power and effect of this can depend wildly from trans man to trans man, and what one trans man is capable of might be well out of reach for another.

I have a good friend who is, on paper, demographically very similar to me. She is a cis lesbian, black/white/native, occupying the same tax bracket and occupation, disabled and neurodiverse. We've had extensive discussions about black and gender and gay politics, even when we don't agree we can usually see where each other is coming from.

I have absolutely no problem stating that in certain situations, I do absolutely have privilege over her despite my status as trans and hers as cis. I'm fairly cis-passing at this point. We go out to eat together whenever we can- it is demonstratably significantly more likely that she will be hit on and harassed by a cishet man looking to shoot his shot with a pretty girl than I am. It is significantly more likely that any and all pushback she gives this hypothetical man will be, at best, ignored, and at worst, met with physical or sexual violence. It is also significantly more likely that my very presence at the table will prevent him from doing so, as my approximate physical positioning to her acts as a claim to would-be creeps, and any pushback I give in this scenario is more likely to be met with him backing off.

It's also true that should this would-be creep clock me, register either of our gay signaling, or be racist on top of sexist, this situation might also go sideways for the both of us at any given point. It's entirely possible that this guy will spike her drink when I get up to use the bathroom, or that he'll follow us out to the parking lot and stab one of us, or cause a scene to get us both kicked out. We are both black and gay, after all. Intersectionality is key, here.

Three years ago, I had not yet started testosterone. I only passed maybe 50% of the time, and usually assumed to be a teenager despite being just touching 30. Three years ago, this hypothetical situation would have played out much differently.

Twelve years ago, it did. I was in college and had gone to a local McDonalds with one of my friends, another student there, for lunch. A man old enough to be our grandfather began to hit on us, ignoring our pushback and attempts to move away from and ignore him. I was binding at the time, with my hair cut short, going by he/him exclusively with my friends and out within my college sphere. And yet, what made this guy back off was my (white) cishet friend who prickled at him and began to make a scene until he heard that we were college students, at which point he disengaged entirely. Yup- he was looking for high schoolers to creep on, and we both made various noises of disgust once we realized his actual target.

Being a trans man had very little if any effect on this situation- my presence at the table was no help, my refusal to play ball was no help telling him to go away and that we were not interested was no help. The only thing that helped was killing his pedophile boner once he knew we were adults. I shudder to think what would have happened had we actually been kids.

Back to my cis lesbian friend and the present day- the portion of the sport and dog fancy we both occupy is very cis woman dominated. She can and often does flex what power she has in order to help others get their start- we joke often that she's collecting a posse of trans men as she's somehow managed to sell to majority trans men with her most recent litter. She has no problem wading into a situation where a trans man is being ejected from a queer group and arguing for his right to stay. Early on in my transition, she would loudly correct pretty much anyone misgendering me until that person fixed their shit- and would hover making faces behind me if I was present at a show and they were being a shit about it.

She also sometimes goes on woman-only retreats. And, to be clear, it is her opinion that a trans woman by definition of being a woman should be invited to these retreats. She does not want men at these woman-only retreats, and that does include trans men. And, you know what? I don't really blame her- she wants a space where her womanhood is centered and not have to deal with Men And Their Feelings. Fair- men can be exhausting to deal with especially for lesbians. But she also agrees that maybe pushing a freshly-out trans man out of the group is perhaps a bit cruel if he has been there for years. Most likely, he will go on his own once he gets his feet under him. There's no need to shove him out the door prematurely.

And I think that's really the crux of it.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

You're the only person I know on Tumblr who I feel like I can send this ask so I hope this is ok.

I'm absolutely sick to my stomach terrified. People keep talking about not acquiescing early and to keep fighting and that's good but... I'm a trans person married to a trans person and we have a kid. We are so, so scared that we are going to lose our parental rights and have him taken away, even if he's biologically my partners. We are pretty fucking sure that the only way we could even possibly stay in the US and even possibly keep our family together is to detransition. But then we would still be queer, and I remember the 90s and how it was pretty recent that gay couples were considered unfit parents.

And this isn't us blowing things out of proportion, we have an education in politics so we've got a pretty good freaking idea about how bad things can and will get, but also we don't feel like we can afford to NOT take things extremely seriously. The worst case scenario is pretty horrific for us, so we've talked at lengthe about leaving the country. Which is it's own basket of heartbreaks because then there's a real chance we will never be able to come back. And I don't really feel like I can talk about it because a) the Internet doesn't feel safe to be trans on and b) there's been SO much chatter about how we need to stay and fight and people who can leave are privileged etc etc

I just... I'm scared and heartbroken and angry and I feel extremely hopeless. I guess I don't really have a question after all. I just needed to talk about it because it feels like not enough people are seeing this kind of true tragedy that could come from all this.

I wish there was actual help we could get. But there doesn't seem like there's anyone who can.

You're right, Anon - you're not blowing things out of proportion.

I want to say that I'm relieved in a sense that you are talking about where your lines in the sand are are and what you plan to do if they are crossed. There is hope and comfort to be found in a plan, even if it is a plan for the next generation's survival, instead of our own.

Every trans person needs to start thinking about real answers to the following questions:

What will I do if I'm fired tomorrow?

What will I do if I'm denied a loan? Housing?

What will I do if I lose my HRT?

What will I do if information about trans people is considered illegal to circulate?

What will I do if I I'm declared an unfit parent?

What will I do if my marriage is annulled?

What will I do if I'm declared unfit to own my own property or make my own legal decisions?

What will I do if I'm about to be arrested?

There are answers to all of these questions that aren't just "give up and die." But there's no one-size-fits all solution. People will have varying priorities based on how they see their role in fighting fascism and what resources they have access to.

Community is going to become incredibly important. Trans people have always existed. Sympathetic cis people have always existed. Trans people have always found ways to survive and even flourish, even though it often meant not being able to pursue their original dreams.

If you don't know where to begin with strengthening our community, the Trans Literature Preservation Project is a good place to get ideas. The virtual book burnings have already begun on .gov websites, so maybe doing a little preservation work will give you more hope that you're working to make a difference.

Because the work is important, even if the progress won't happen until after our time.

[imtrying-ok]

I'm from a family where women are in charge of most things, finances, the house, bills getting paid on time, important administrative and historical documents and papers, family heirlooms (men are so dumb, they can't be trusted with that stuff!), the children. In my subconscious mind, women work harder. Women go to work everyday and men are just lazy slobs. All men are good for is a (smaller, obviously) supplementary income, having kids with, maybe cooking, and only sometimes emotional companionship. (I am serious - this has been said to me in different ways by multiple family members, from my mom to my great grandmother)

I was told I was so lucky to be born a girl, because I get to join this long line of women. That they were so lucky I was born a girl so they had someone to continue a legacy with. That they could dream of never loving a boy the same way. That they could never let a man continue this legacy, he's too dumb! He'd lose everything. He wouldn't care about the legacy, obviously. He'd just ruin it like all men do. They're so glad I'm around, I'll inherit everything and take great care of it.

I wanted to wear a suit to my father's wedding and they were scared. They heard me going by my gender neutral last name instead of my feminine first name (inherited from my greatx5 grandmother no less) and they hated it. "Don't you want to be a girl?" But I know what they really meant was "don't you want to be what I think you should be?" Then my grandmother talks about how she's scared she won't have anyone to inherit her house, her things, the pieces of history she takes care of (a piece of the Berlin wall, an old German family Bible, my family's passports from the 1800s, a handwoven tapestry, etc... "old country" stuff that every European immigrant family has laying around for some reason. But that's for another post.)

I know why it apparently can't go to me anymore. I've been 'tainted'. My beautiful feminine qualities have been pushed out by my desire to be a handsome untrustworthy kind violent man (they can't even call me that) other . They could handle if I was a lesbian, it was only logical to like other women, and my mother dated women as often as she dated men throughout my life. They could handle if I didn't want kids, in fact, I was told explicitly to not have them in the past (thanks grandma), they can betray you and leave you heartbroken (thanks mom). They couldn't handle me being a man.

There is some kind of inherent quality of being a man that makes you bad. And I was choosing to betray them and myself.

Needless to say, I don't feel very comfortable in trans or feminist spaces.

[gatorbites-imagines]

What if instead of og Mark being the only trans one and the petvincibles all being cis og Mark was the only cis one

Evil is stored in the gender dysphoria

Honestly anon, I would probably become evil too because of gender dysphoria if I had their powers and situation. Could also give the mark variants more reason to be salty towards him cuz his life is just "perfect" in their eyes, since he gets to be what they wish they were, have his mom, have support (in their eyes), so on and do forth.

I like to think OG mark is a pretty accepting guy though, so yeah he'd be shocked about it when he figured it out, but I also don't see it ruining his life cuz alternate dimensions and all that.

Maybe the mark variants would also kinda live through him some days, like, cuz they all look alike mostly, so when the variants feel dysphoric, maybe it could help if OG Mark wore their clothes or like, posed and stuff the ways they want him too.

Or, if we wanna get a lil heated. They can do that thing where OG Mark stands behind the variant and puts his dick between their thighs so it looks like the variant is the one with it, if that makes sense.

[genderqueerdykes]

is it bad that i hate when people take my posts about trans issues and make trans women the center of them. my posts always say “trans people” when i talk generally about the violence and transphobia because i mean that. all trans people, not only one kind. but every time the comments turn it into a discussion revolving around trans women.

i’m not against talking about specific demographics! but it’s very frustrating when people take trans men and non-binary people out of the picture when i intentionally included them by NOT specifying a specific gender of trans people.

it’s honestly very disappointing and disheartening that trans men aren’t included in any type of discussion when it comes to trans issues. at least not that i see, i don’t know.

additionally, when (mainly perisex cis)people claim their supposed allyship to trans people, they only talk about how they include trans women in their feminism and women’s spaces. no mention of trans men. and when we ARE talked about, it’s “i hate trans men because they’re just like cis men :)” or “no i don’t want trans men in WOMENS spaces because they’re men”.

i don’t know… maybe i’m too sensitive, but it’s something i don’t like. we should definitely bring awareness to trans women’s issues but not completely forget about the existence of trans men.

i think it's okay to feel that way. i don't care for when people do that to me, either. this discussion is long overdue and so few people want to have it, but this is an issue. yes, trans women are allowed to talk about our issues, we are. i'm not saying we should never speak. what i'm saying is we can't take posts that are made for everyone and make them about us and us alone.

we need to stop making conversations about transmasculine people about us. not all nonbinary people are transfeminine, other intersex, multigender, nonbinary, genderqueer, gendervast, gnc, etc people need a chance to speak. like i'm serious, it's okay to talk about one's own experience. but if it is explicitly to point out why people should not listen to other people when they are talking about their own issues, and that they should listen to you instead, you are controlling the narratives, and shifting the goalposts.

it's one thing to say "here's what i experience" but if someone takes your post and goes. hey actually. trans women have it the worst. they're the one leaving other people out of the picture in that situation. whenever you try to point this out on this website, people foam at the mouth to try to kill you and it's ridiculous. when, well, with so many people bringing it up:

it's an issue.

there's been a specific group of people who identify as transradfems and people who identify with their politics even if they don't know the name for it. they are pushing people to be quiet and not speak about their own experiences because somehow that silences trans women, as if we can only be about one type of queer person at once. it's gotten old. like can we seriously just have this conversation already and be done with?

i feel like i have to say the thing that most people are afraid of, because this conversation is way overdue.

can disenfranchised dysphoric trans women stop attacking men & mascs because you don't like being seen as one? can disenfranchised trans women who have been hurt by men stop attacking men who haven't hurt you?

enough. men & mascs are not your personal punching bag. manhood isn't what hurt you. being forced to be a man or masc is what hurt you. the general concept of manhood and men did not hurt you. let go. i understand it's painful to get misgendered and treated as a man for life. it sucks. you don't deserve that. no trans woman does. nobody deserves to be misgendered. you don't deserve to be dehumanized because people refuse to see you for who you are. it's okay to acknowledge that you're in pain. but you gotta let the fuck go of your irrational hatred, because it will never help you accept or love yourself

you will never experience true trans joy if you spend all of your time hating on other people. hate solves nothing. if that's the only thing you see, that's the only thing you feel. if hate has nowhere else to go, it rapidly turns inward. you will not be seen as a woman by more people if you attack men. you will not be accepted by cis radfems if you attack men and parrot their politics. this isn't helping you, or anyone else.

we need to break down these walls and talk to each other. trans women and trans men can have conversations about our experiences at the exact same time. conversations involve multiple points of input. if we're only allowing one type of person to speak and one type of person to speak only: that is a lecture. that is not a discussion. if you never listen or give other people a chance to speak, you are lecturing them.

[alllgator-blood]

I s2g if you add the layers of these comic pages together, it's over 350 layers. THIS is why I don't do full color for my comics lmaooo- ANYWAY EVERYONE HERE HAS AN AU APPARENTLY, SO THIS IS A BRIEF GLIMPSE INTO MINE. I don't know what to call it yet but I'm thinking of calling it "famous prophets" because 1. I like that car seat headrest song, 2. it's about shamura who is prophetic, 3. it's about trying to outrun fate with the Power of Love (and failing. Like the song!!!). It takes place when all the bishops were teens/kids during the age of hundreds of gods at war, and were trying to survive as a family.

I'm really excited to work on stuff for it but it's all gonna be drawn out of order. Maybe I'll write a full explanation of what it's gonna be about when I have a better idea...I want to channel my eldest sibling angst in a productive way, and maybe establish a QPP between shamura and a completely random npc everyone forgets about <3 also kallamar is trans too cause I said so. I'll do a comic about it eventually. Instead of an absence of gender he has TOO much gender. It simply cannot be contained.

I like that nonbinary genders are normalized in cult of the lamb to the point where nobody singles anyone out for being a they/them, it's not like "THIS IS MY SIBLING SHAMURA. THEY ARE NONBINARY AND USE THEY/THEM. ALRIGHT BACK TO KILLING YOU", it's just like "don't you fucking dare make my poor sibling wake up from their nap to kick your ass. Cause they deserve better than this."

But at the same time I like having the freedom to be more specific, and say "shamura is voidpunk and their gender is best described as the feeling that overtakes you during the first snow of the year, when everything outside is deathly quiet". This comic is actually derived from the time I was walking through a forest that's been torn down for a few years, and came out to my little sister as trans. I must've been like 13 or 14 and she didn't really get it as a 10 year old, but it was better than my mom FREAKING OUT about me coming out. So it was a nice little bonding moment between just the two of us. I don't have a good memory so I don't recall how it went unfortunately...

Now, the climate is a little different. My sis tried out transmasculinity for maybe 5-6 years before feeling happier as a woman, my mom is trying to be Based and flaunt her Woke trans children, and my dad remembered "oh yeah trans natives have existed before colonization. Maybe me being transphobic is a product of my culture being erased" and has gotten better about calling me the right thing. I have a mustache (thanks pcos!!) and wear skirts and am not a repressed "tomboy" teenager anymore. But I can't help but wonder what would've happened if I could've been like shamura and just...been nonbinary without people being fucking weird about it. Or been born as a badass war god who will tear you to shreds before you can perceive my birth sex. I know they're fictional but they are my ultimate gender envy GRRRRR BARK BARK BARK

Here is the secret image for this post- I listen to mostly EDM when I draw cause it keeps the energy up, but as I was finishing up shamura's poetry part, I was like THESE ARE JUST KMFDM LYRICS so I made this

[luluahxo]

bonachita

14k - unedited - ni-ki x reader

warnings: 18+ smut, drug use, parental abuse, suicidal ideation

(this is unedited, its been in my drafts for over a month so I decided I'd just post it, maybe edit it in the future and move onto writing my other drafts. also met the most diabolical florida man while I was at the end of writing this. thinking of u babe!)

summary: my heart is a mess of thick, congealed blood from the pressure of the speed. I associated him with the paresthesia in my chest. I associated him with the sickness I enjoyed. cursed I believed myself to be, I didn’t mind being reworked. reworked into his image. this is not love but this is a bond. One that I cherish. drive me around the track in your Trans-Am one more time. take me to Bonachita. die with me there.

its florida in the spring when you meet Riki, the boy who encapsulates everything you silently dreamed for and everything you runaway from

[00MPH]

My heart is a mess of thick, congealed blood from the pressure of the speed. I associated him with the paresthesia in my chest. I associated him with the sickness I enjoyed. Cursed I believed myself to be, I didn’t mind being reworked. Reworked into his image. This is not love but this is a bond. One that I cherish. 

Drive me around the track in your Trans-Am one more time. 

Take me to Bonachita. 

Die with me there. 

[01MPH]

We first met with no words exchanged between us. I often spent time in the campus lounge situated on the first floor of the library.

Not wanting to go home or study, I was killing time by watching the 1970 Trans Am season. With my cell phone in hand and the sound of a race playing, I headed towards the vending machine for a snack, where he was crouched.

Only the tips of his blond hair could be seen peeking out from the gaps in his black hoodie.

I stared back at him awkwardly before realizing I should lower the volume on my phone. It was just me and him in the lounge on a Friday night but he seemed bothered by the noise. His face was striking, each feature harmonious like an old oil painting. His brows knit together and creased into the folds in between making an expression that gave me a sense of embarrassment. I gave up on getting a snack all together and went back to my seat.

I wouldn’t see him again for a while 

[02MPH]

I stayed on campus until late because I was a’ problem child’. To go home would be to bring problems. Me and my mother never agree, I’d always somehow manage to do the wrong thing. 

In her words ‘sorry meant nothing’. Her fits of anger often ended in something thrown or broken. Sometimes I felt like I deserved it. Other times I found her suffocating and over reactive. 

When I got to university I became a worse problem but all the same to her. 

I was frustrated I couldn’t leave my home or the shitty rundown town we lived in - no chance I’d ever have enough money. 

In my restless dissatisfaction I picked up some habits from the people around me. The first was cigarettes. Something about the smoky and burnt taste it left in my mouth soothed me alongside the buzz of nicotine. The time I started smoking was the time I also began accepting my college friends inviting me out.

I began going to campus parties but I never got wasted. Instead I began taking pills like valium or xanax. 

I sat slumped in the corners of houses and frat party bathrooms, happy in the intense drowsy calm I felt. 

I felt so damned.

In my blurred memories I can still remember when the boy from the vending machine appeared in front of me.

It was towards the end of Spring semester and I sat, muscles loose, by the edge of the pool. 

He was swimming in illuminated waters, the only light that shone in the pitch black night. Slowly he swam towards me, pushing his elbows up outside the pool and splashing water onto my face. I had been cut by the broken glass in one of my mother’s fits again that night and the chlorine in the water burned the fresh wound under my eye. 

Wincing from the pain I opened my eyes back to see a familiar face. That was when I knew it was him. His recognizable hair was now dark at the tips but his roots remained blond. Among everyone else he stood out. He said something I couldn’t understand in my drugged up mind and I leaned forward  to hear him better but my weak body fell into the water. 

My cut burned just as much as my lungs that inhaled the pool water. I could only see the surface become farther and in a numbing limbo I sank. My body wouldn’t move how I wanted. I couldn’t get my arms to push me upwards. My mind felt as if it was falling asleep and the urgency my body should feel was shut off. My half open eyes saw a silhouette come down towards me and I thought maybe it was an angel ready to take my soul away and relay my sins. 

The angel was a blur of blond that came to lift me out. Yet it was no angel, it was a boy.

His hands left a prickling sensation on my cold skin. My clothes stuck to my skin as closely as his gaze that never relented. I was pressed against him chest to chest, holding me afloat. 

All I could say was “Who are you?”

He told me his name was Riki and he held me in the pool throughout the night as I drifted out of consciousness, wondering if this was a fraction of what death felt like.

[03MPH]

I woke up feeling soggy sheets beneath me. The ceiling didn’t look familiar and my muscles were twitching from the crash of all the valium I took. My eyes regained focus but my mind remained foggy as I sat up and saw in front of me a passed out Riki in a chair. I called out his name but my voice came out hoarse. I could feel my muscles tighten uncomfortably as I crawled towards him and reached out from the edge of the bed. 

To be honest I was becoming terrified at the unfamiliar setting. I had no idea where I was and my own body could barely function. I collapsed forward causing my fingertips to graze Riki’s knee. My face was nestled in the sheets and I felt my muscles wreak havoc on my state of being. My jaw fell slack from the sheer pain of the spasms. 

I could hear movement from where Riki sat and no longer felt his knee against my hand.

He groaned from what I could tell was him waking up. The chair squeaked as he stood to his feet and a small shadow fell over me. A cold hand wrapped around my chin and I faced his sleepy eyes looking down at me. 

“You’re a mess aren’t you.”

I could see his hair was still damp as if he came here with me straight from the pool. His cold hands pushed me up to sit on my legs which he pulled out from under me to hang over the bed. His other hand rested on the back of my head. In his freezing embrace I shook. The only warmth I felt was from the small tears that began to form in my eyes. 

Riki began to caress my hair, his hand that moved my legs wrapping around my side.

I wanted to ask why he was treating a stranger like this but my voice was still gone from my dry throat and mouth.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. His words confused me more than they soothed me. 

Sometimes my body reacted badly to the pills I took but it’d always pass. This reaction was heightened compared to all those in the past though. 

I hated to appear this way in front of a stranger.

I pressed my hands down into the mattress and tried to lift myself up on my own. Horsley I managed to ask where we were. 

He told me it was his campus apartment. 

My voice came out disgustingly as I responded in shock, “Why? I don't know you.”

He sighed and leaned back on his palms.

“What else could I do when you passed out in my arms. You didn’t come with any friends.”

At my silence he got up and pulled the sheets off the bed from beneath me, noting they were wet due to coming straight from the pool. He left the room and I sat looking down at myself. My shorts had ridden up my thighs, my shirt strap was falling off my shoulder, the fabric had bunched up, and my hair felt damp against skin. All the while my body still trembled.

I was an absolute mess.

Riki came back into the room with clean sheets, setting them down on the bedside table before helping me off the bed and into the chair he once sat in. 

“What time is it?”

He pointed at his small bedside clock, “Four in the morning.”

He threw the sheets over the bed and tucked them in as I watched

“Do you wanna stay the night?”

If I went home like this my mother would do more than throw a bottle. 

“If you don’t mind.”

He smiled and said he didn’t.

I decided I’d hold my questions for when I wasn’t in such a pathetic state.

[04MPH]

I got ready to leave Riki’s apartment at around ten in the morning. I passed by him asleep on the couch while thinking of excuses to give my mother. His face was peaceful like an angel’s. I couldn’t help but admire the soft slope of his nose that led to his pouty lips illuminated by the morning light. I crouched down in front of him and at my presence his eyelashes fluttered open. He seemed to be a light sleeper. Sitting up he rubbed the sleep away from his eyes and asked if I was leaving. 

“Yeah, but thank you for last night”

As I stood up he reached out for my wrist.

“Let me give you a ride.”

“It’s ok you helped me out enough.”

He sat up straight and persisted.

“No no it's really ok.”

I relented,

“Ok.”

I didn’t wanna pay for a ride anyway I guess.

He ran into his room, grabbing a hoodie and cap to cover the mess of his morning hair. I kicked my legs on the couch as he fumbled around the apartment, looking for his keys, brushing his teeth, and mumbling. He seemed more boyish in these moments than when I’d seen him before when his expression was cold and distant. Behind all the mysteriousness perhaps Riki was an average boy. I put my own shoes on and stood by the door.

Once Riki was ready, we headed out to his car. I stopped in amazement when I saw that it was a 2012 Boss.

It looked just like the car I'd seen in the 1970 Trans Am season. Even the retro stripes were perfectly recreated, and I couldn’t help laughing out loud in awe.

"You have a 302 Mustang?"

Riki smiled mischievously as he ran his hand down the side of the car.

"Do you like cars?"

"No, not really. But I like watching vintage races.”

"I've been obsessed with it since I saw it in the 70s season."

"It’s beautiful. You can drive a manual?"

Riki rolled his eyes a little and responded in amusement.

"Of course."

He unlocked the car and I got in the passenger seat. Riki immediately started the car and the Mustang rumbled to life. As he pulled out of the lot, the side pipes let out a sharp bark, echoing through the residence. 

“You’re definitely not from around here, no one can afford something like this here,” I mused.

“I’m not, I’m from Bonachita.”

“Bonachita?”

“It’s a West Coast city,” He turned and smirked at me, “But where are we going.”

“Just keep going straight, I'll tell you when to turn.”

“Do you party often?”

Riki’s question broke the silence in between my directions.

“I just started going this past semester, my friends invite me out sometimes.” “I didn’t see you with them though?”

It was true, me and my friends sort of went separate ways at parties. They’d probably find a guy, dance, drink and I’d find a good corner to get high off pills. Still, there were times we’d spend the night together.

“I saw you all alone too?”

Riki hummed, tapping the steering wheel in thought before answering.

“That was my first time going to one. I didn’t recognize much of anyone until I saw you so I came up to you but then everything happened.”

‘Didn’t someone invite you? How come you were all one.”

“Not really, I just heard around about it.”

“Not a party person, huh?”

His smile was shy, “No.”

“You’d think a boy that looks like you is.” 

“A boy like me?.”

“You know, dyed hair, ear piercings, the denim and leather jackets.”

“Just not my thing.”

“Rather focus on school?”

His nod was slow, like he had more reasoning than my explanation but ran with it.

I directed Riki all the way until a couple blocks before my house and had him drop me off.  

Before I could get out of the car he folded his hands on top of the steering wheel and rested on his chin to face me. 

“Don’t be a stranger.” 

It seemed our friendly conversation made me forget about all that happened just the night before. I didn’t know if he even realized I was gone on pills. What did he think? Was it even normal to bring a stranger home like that even if they had passed out? I didn’t know. I guess guys bring girls to their place all the time and have their way with them but Riki seemed to have had a different motivation. 

“Why’d you help me out so much?”

Riki hesitated for a brief second.

“You seemed lonely.”

“That on its own?”

His smile grew weak, “I guess I was too.”

At a party full of people ‘lonely’. Funny. 

I walked down the block home with my heart a little warmer than before.

[05MPH]

The warmth I felt was fresh blood. 

Don’t get my mother wrong, she’s not a violent woman. She’s just not okay. I shouldn’t have pushed her limits. If I was a little more considerate, if I thought of someone other than myself I wouldn’t experience this. 

Yet there I go thinking of myself all over again.

Silly of me to come home with a joy that neglected all my actions, forgetting that there's consequences for any decision. 

The moment I came through the door I saw her sitting at the dining room table a hall down. Her blank stare went nowhere but became sharp as I approached. Her sudden screams scratched at my ear drums, asking ‘where I was, who did I think I was, just because dad left do I think I can do whatever I want’. 

My apologies reached deaf ears. It was impossible regardless for me to look genuinely apologetic coming home like this. 

She held her head in her hands and kept mumbling over and over again before looking back up at me with an indescribable face.

With a final yell, she snapped, “Don’t look at me like that.” She threw her morning cup of coffee straight at me. 

Lucky for me it was empty. Still the porcelain shattered at contact and dug into the skin of my collarbone, eyebrow, and arms. The searing pain resounded simultaneously in every spot I had been pierced. At my feet the pieces of the cup lay like a halo. I couldn’t look up. I didn’t have it in me to face her eyes and could only count the pieces of shattered porcelain to hold back my burning tears that bubbled through my throat and to my eyes. 

She wouldn’t look at me or speak to me after. 

It’d last days.

She did that with my dad once.

She went upstairs.

I cleaned the mess.

[06MPH]

I trembled with anxiety as I bandaged my new cuts in the mirror. Every creak or slamming door made me flinch. Even though the bathroom door was locked I was afraid she’d walk in. From my school bag I pulled out a tiny plastic baggie I had for a while now. I was reluctant to use it, but I thought maybe it would ease the pain for now. I emptied the contents onto the counter top and attempted to line it up with the edge of a cleanser bottle. I brought my nose down to the edge and pressed my index finger against the side of my nose.

White powder glaciers, broken up and inhaled by me.

I rubbed my nose clean and quietly slipped through the front door. It was Monday, I had to show up to class. 

I never did make it though. 

Once I got to campus I found myself circling around hallways I’d never been down before. My brain found I had to read all the boards in the Humanities Department before going anywhere but then I also had to stare at the senselessly big television in the Business building that showed the stock market. I was in the Engineering hallway when I ran into Riki. When I saw him flocking out of class alongside the rest of his classmates I reacted with no inhibitions and grabbed onto his shoulder. His pretty face turned to me with shock. It’s been over a  week since we actually saw one another. Such an entrancing expression with the furrow in his brows. Immediately I begged him to take me for a ride.

”Let’s take a drive, let's go.”

He looked at me as if I told him to come with me and kill the president.

Maybe I came off suddenly but I bubbled with the desire to use my free will and so I did. This euphoria was blending my heart into my mind and I made decisions with no further contemplation than the mere thought.

”Please, please.”

”Do you not have class?”

”Do you have class?”

”No..”

My other hand rose to his shoulder as if I was a coach pep-talking my star athlete.

“Then let's go.”

He laughed me off, “I guess I can’t say no to you.”

[07MPH]

The bumps and slopes of the winding roads felt as if the wheels were shoes I wore while walking on the street. The speed with the windows down during a warm April evening could only be described as fresh. I felt this was the youth that I hadn't yet lived. The coke enhanced every passing gust of wind into a euphoria I wanted to drown in. I rested my shoulder blades on the open window and looked up at the sky, my hair blowing violently around me. Is that the sky where the angels sit looking down on us? Is it just a metaphor? Were the angels on my shoulders falling off from the accelerating speed of Riki’s car?  

I bent further out the window, now turning around to rest on my elbows before I felt a tug on my hair pulling me back inside the car.

Riki’s eyes stayed on the road just as his hands in my hair did. 

“Are you trying to kill yourself?”

I laughed deliriously and leaned onto his shoulder.

“No.”

Heaven is a beautiful place for the dead but I wouldn’t see it, so why die now?

Riki’s eyes flickered from me to the road again.

“Why is your face all cut up?”

I ignored him and bored holes into his side profile with my eyes. I wanted to take a piece of him, put it in my pocket, ingest it, make it a part of me, cherish it, admire it, possess it. Just never lose it.

I bit onto the sharp point of his jaw. It looked like it’d fit perfectly between my teeth, soft and supple skin, pulled taught around his bone. It felt like a layer of marshmallow candy. Sweet like his face, the taste.

Riki yelped out in pain.

“Actually what is wrong with you?!”

“You look so soft.”

“Are you on something?”

I shrugged my shoulders gleefully and sat back in my seat properly.

I felt my filter had really turned into dust.

“It just happens sometimes when my mom gets mad, she throws something, I get cut, the end. She’s just lonely without my dad, it’s only me and her so she’s sensitive.”

My head rolled over to face Riki and I spoke on.

“Are you lonely? Do you still feel lonely when you’re with me?”

Silence.

Until Riki finally countered.

“I'm not from here. I'm not even from the West Coast originally. I’ve met plenty of people, but still-

even if the city is full of people and the room is crowded, if you can't connect with anyone, it's just loneliness.

I thought that one day I would meet people I could truly connect with. But in the end, that "someone" never showed up.”

“Then who am I to you?”

His laugh was gentle, “A lucky stranger.”

“There's nothing lucky about me.”

“Then why am I happy?”

“Then smile at me.”

Riki never turned to look at me, but I saw the sweetest image of joy form in the shape of his lips, upwards, all the way to his genuine eyes.

[08MPH]

With no direction he drove onward, and the sun drifted down giving space for the moon.

After driving aimlessly Riki parked by the road next to the beach. There's no beach in Florida you could say isn’t a sight. 

I asked him if the West Coast beaches are anything like the ones in Florida. He said the water is a duller shade over there. I asked what the beach was like at his original home, before Bonachita. He said there's a coastline, it only exists in his memories blurred with time, but beautiful nonetheless and better than any Florida beach. 

I jested and said he must be homesick. My high is gone, I’m thinking of my own home when I ask. 

Riki said if he had to call a place home it would be there, and so yes he’s homesick.

I asked him why he's far from home.

The reason is he wants to be a mechanical engineer, there's no better place than the US to get an education for it. He has the money to back it too. 

He turns the conversation back onto me.

“What are you studying for?”

I don’t know. I went into college as a Physics major. Would I go to professional school or grad school? I’d like to but I can’t necessarily afford it. Then considering how many times I’ve missed class in the past week and all the hours of studying I skipped out on I probably won’t make it in. 

Riki questioned why a physics major. 

“I could do research with it I suppose, I just always found the subject interesting.” 

It was the fundamentals that pulled me in. The state of entropy of the entire universe will always increase over time. If you ignore that it’s about energy, It's fascinating on its own.  

I say I’m fine just living a simple life if it means I’m stable, a nice apartment  with a good view, pocket money, and a 401K. I'm not worried about a specific career.

“What happened to your dreams?”

His question caught me off guard for a second.

“I don’t think I really had any.”

“That's just not possible”, he pushed.

“If I could be at peace that's all I could dream for.”

“When you’re this young, even if it may never come true, you should still dream.”

“You’re a really hopeful person.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I have hope. It might be ridiculous, but it gets me through, because there has to be a limit to everything, and there must be some good that comes with every bad thing. But really, I don't know anything, and that's why its hope.”

His stare shifted into something new, an expression he hadn’t shown yet, one of intrigue.

“Sit with me on the beach.”

I followed Riki’s words that ignored my previous ones.

Down the incline of the hill our shoes pressed into dry sand and we sat.

The waves pulled by the moon crashed fervently, alive and wild.

By my side Riki leaned over, his chin on my shoulder and he said so softly “Don’t beautiful things make you want to dream.”

I faced him, only centimeters separating us, “You want me to dream?”

“Just think of something, something you really want.”

I put my finger to my chin and dramaticized my thinking. Riki bumped by shoulder with his own.

“Be serious.”

“Maybe, go to Bonachita?”

“Why Bonachita?”

“I just wanna go.”

Riki laid back fully in the sand, granules the color of his roots blending in. 

“Bonachita, maybe when you're in your sixties.”

“Howcome?”

“It’s a good place to retire, super suburban, lots of old people. A nice place to die.”

“Well that's morbid.”

“Dream another dream.”

I laid down, imitating Riki.

“Then I dream of dying there.”

I had come down for a while now, exhaustion laid heavy on my eyes and I wanted to be lulled to sleep here, never going home. 

I nudged myself over until my head rested on top of Riki’s shoulder and chest. 

His familiar hand brushed through my hair and I fell asleep. 

[09MPH]

By dawn we were a tangle of sleepy limbs and sand. It seemed Riki fell asleep too. I rolled over onto my stomach and watched Riki whistle through his nose asleep while I lit a cigarette. The click of my lighter rose wake to his eyes and groggily he stared back at me. The sharp smokey smell wafted around us and the smoke I exhaled danced in the air like a luring hypnosis that Riki couldn’t take his eyes away from. After taking some drags from my cigarette Riki reached for it and took it away from me.

“Do you smoke?” I asked 

Riki sat himself up on one arm and shook his head ‘no’ while bringing the cigarette to his mouth. His lips wrapped prettily around it, tight in a closed-lip drag, still puffy from sleep. A deep inhale led to an immediate exhale—and a sudden coughing fit. I found his inexperience cute,  but his eyes wet from the pressure of choking on the smoke and sleep swollen lips made my thoughts run lewd. 

I took the cigarette from his hand giggling and ran my thumb across his bottom lip to his cheek, wiping off stray specks of sand. 

“Someone like you shouldn’t smoke.”

Riki took the cigarette right back and threw it into the sand.

“Neither should you.”

I kept on laughing and fell backwards onto my elbows.

“Too bad I already do then.”

He rolled his eyes at me and got up, dusting himself off. I did the same as him, quick to nag in my elated mood.

“Riki I’m hungry.”

“Are we on a bender? When am I gonna go to class?”

“I didn’t even eat yesterday.”

His eyes easily showed defeat.

Riki slung his arm around my shoulder and walked me forward to his car.

“Ok ok, just stop whining.”

I leaned into his hold and asked to eat back at his place. 

[10MPH]

After Riki took us back to his apartment for breakfast he went to class and I stayed back at his place. 

I had no classes on Tuesdays and so I rolled around mindlessly on his bed with nothing to do except study for midterms, which wasn’t going to happen. Laying on my stomach I reached down for my bag and rummaged through it. In the corner was a pill bottle, five tablets of ten milligrams of valium. I swallowed one dry, scratching my throat as it slid down. After fifteen minutes of feeling nothing I took two more, and then another. In the end I was face to face with one pill. She looked so lonely. Back in her bottle she went and I stared at the ceiling, starting to feel heavy. Swallowing the tablets like that left a knot in my throat, uncomfortable and irritating. The sun as well was pouring in from the window and shining with an intensity that made me feel as though I’d dissolve in its light. It was a sign of Spring but I wanted to hide from the sun. So I turned and hid my face in the sheets of Riki’s bed, reminiscent of the last time I was at his place, my first time at his apartment. The musk of cologne and his scent suffocated my nose but it was better than the sun. Addicting in comparison to the sun. Riki was like my valium, every semblance of his presence soothed me, I was hooked, and maybe it wasn’t a healthy attachment but I didn’t want to be without it. Just a short time of knowing one another and I felt so attracted to him like an elementary crush, but it was different. I sought out the feeling of reliability he provided for me. A fictitious sense of guidance, even though we were in the same place in life, equally confused, at the same starting line, but he seemed to run faster and I was out of breath.

I wanted to catch up.

I aimed to dissolve entirely in the sunlight if it was his.

I’d hold on to any good thing.

I’m a thankful person, and simultaneously selfish.

The forty milligrams I took laid a sheet of drowsiness over me and in a disoriented state I mulled over thoughts of Riki until unconscious. 

It seems it became a habit to wake up to him. I opened my eyes to Riki sitting on the floor by the head of the bed, textbook open and scribbling down the solutions to whatever problems he was solving. 

Watching him every breath felt too light, like my lungs weren't working properly. There was a strange pressure in my chest- not a pain, just a heaviness. I was breathing out too slowly, but I couldn't breathe any faster. I reached out to him, causing a shift in attention

Riki held my hand in return but I only knew from the sight. My hands were numb. Tingling like radio static ran up my limbs

I heard him ask why I was shaking but I didn’t even know I was shaking. I watched my hand tighten around his as I made a conscious effort to. 

I closed my eyes and pretended to fall asleep so he wouldn’t know that my body was falling out of tune, but I was still trembling. It was pointless.

A shadow rested over my dark sight, and when I opened my eyes I saw Riki’s jacket covering me. 

I was lifted up into his arms where he held me like a child.  

Riki’s voice came out broken, as if he was holding back his worry to try and seem calm.

“What did you do?”

I could only press my head against his chest, hoping to gain some kind of sensation. 

Riki's arms wrapped around me. They were firm, but with the gentleness of someone handling something fragile. I knew he was holding me, but I couldn't really feel it. All I felt was a faint pressure on my skin. I wasn't sure if it was really warmth. My body was too heavy to move, yet too light to feel real. I wanted to get closer, I wanted to feel him. Even his voice whispering in my ear sounded far away, like it was through another room. He was holding me. but it felt like I was a ghost. It scared me. 

His hands around my shoulders gripped tighter, the tips of his fingers now in my field of vision as he spoke softly against my ear.

“You were like this last time and I thought it was because of you falling into the pool but that's not it. Just tell me what this is.”

This whole time he had no idea?

I don’t wanna tell him.

I fought against my jaw to get the words out,“It’s ok, I’m ok”. 

My cadence was sluggish and only proved to counter my point.

Riki’s voice was barely audible, “No it's not.”

We sat like that for so long I couldn’t count the time, somewhere in those hours I didn’t even notice when I began to cry. I was consoled by his mere presence, soothed by his words, and nurtured by his relentless compassion. 

My senses didn’t come back for an entire day after. I never called my mom, I never went to class, Riki stayed by my side cradling my body, and never taking me to the hospital due to my pleas. The fatigue lingered and my muscles would twitch but at some point I could feel the heat of his skin flush against mine again.

“Riki,” I whispered.

He responded with a hum. 

“Why are you so good to me?”

His fingertips ran through my hair and brushed against my shoulder.

“Because I care about you.”

I sat up to look him in the eye. I didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense.

“But we’ve only known each other for a week?

His eyes held no trace of disillusionment. He was eagerly willing to attach to someone, just like me. He had an open and forgiving heart. One day it’d be the death of him. I could tell.

His lips parted hesitantly, before succumbing to his truth.

“Still I know you, so I care about you, and you’re not okay.”

My head fell against his chest in defeat. He was only saying everything I wanted to hear but I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I began to laugh. I began to lose myself. He was blind, I was even worse. What didn’t he get? The reality of me was pathetic.

“Yeah I’m not ok. I pop pills, I don’t care for my mom, I don’t go to my classes even though whining about getting an education, I’m stuck in this bum fuck town, hell I even snorted a fucking line of cocaine, I’m a mess I can barely keep my shit together, I don’t, I cling onto you, you shouldn’t give a shit about me. Why care about someone like me, Riki?”

I don’t know why I was getting aggressive with him for caring about me. I guess if it would end later once he realizes how pathetic I am it’d be better to wake him up now. 

Riki’s hands played with my hair as my head remained against his chest, his words patient,

“Why would you do that to yourself?”

Oh. 

I looked up at him, the tears in my eyes raw, coming down without restrain. His solemn gaze bore back into me. 

What did I do any of it for?

I knew why I started but how I got here I don’t know.

“I don’t know.”

“Underneath your brain fog, you do.”

His hands lifted from my hair and back to cradle my face.

“Call your mom, tell her you’re ok, shower, eat, and explain all this to me.”

I nodded pushing myself up from his lap. On my way to the door I turned back around to Riki who was still on the bed.

“Riki, I don't wanna go home.”

He simply nodded at me and I accepted it.

[11MPH]

I’m alone in the kitchen, the phone rings for what feels like years  before being picked up.

“Mama.”

I’m choked by the hand that isn’t there.

“Mama?”

She picked up but there's no words said, just shallow breaths on the other side of the line.

“Mama, I’m ok. I’m sorry mama.”

I know she doesn’t believe in “sorry.” Faith never told her to.

Perhaps it did. I didn’t read well. Instead let's accuse her heart, and ignore my obvious faults. 

“I swear to God, if you ever come to my door it’ll be locked for you. I swear.”

“Mama, mama, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry means nothing, you wanna act like an adult? Go be one.”

“Mama.”

Her voice was rigid, cutting through my pleas sharp enough to pull blood through the phone.

“I have no daughter, no family, nothing.”

“But mama.”

The line buzzed. She had hung up. Hung up like I wasn’t gone for three days without a word now.

Are mothers usually forgiving? Is a mother the one you run to when you’re not okay? Did she even care? 

Is the love for a child conditional? 

I wanna know. 

Truth is I already know. I know I’m an outlier. I know I mean less than nothing to my blood. And so my blood runs easily with no importance. If I was a better daughter would she hold onto me more - the same way I hold onto her? 

How disgusting am I in her eyes?

Mama, why do you make me hold onto the care of strangers? Why can’t I have you like all the other kids?

If I died that night and Riki never nursed me back to health, would you even feel a thing?

My mind clung to desperation, I was driven to prayer from the emptiness my mother rooted in my heart, born from indifference, disappointment, and impatience. There has to be a saving grace. There has to be a hope. There has to be a dream like Riki says, and one that comes true.  

I put my knees to the floor, hands to my chest, praying to God let these floorboards be my witness, the ceiling fan attest to the sight. Have the angels on my shoulders testify. Know that God sees all and God knows well, I’d be in a different place if every moment in life depended solely on my intentions. Let God know I fear him just as well as I know he is merciful. My soul is separate from my body and still both belong to God solely. Forgive me for my final sins. Forgive me God, for who I am, who I will be, and who I was. Help me God, to be forgiven by you, and see my sincerity that I know you see just as you do my weak mind. 

I kneeled, forehead to the ground, until no pleas went without repetition, and no prayer went unsaid. Riki never walked in. Clinging to my skin to ground myself I realized there was no place for me to go and so I’d go to nowhere. 

How many hours is Bonachita from Florida?

[12MPH]

Riki is an enigma. To every side of him you know there's one you don’t. The reason he's that way is hard to pinpoint. He never talked about himself much. He has money, drives an eccentric car, came from the West Coast, has dreams, but none of these explain his weak heart. 

Fact is, no one clings quick like Riki does, it's just not normal. His family? I know he’s from Japan originally, but do you always have to blame family for the deficits in your character?

Riki isn’t normal but I understand him. He chases the fulfillment he never got a taste of. If he works hard he thinks something has to come from it, if he holds onto someone something has to come from it. 

Riki, your problems are simple on the surface yet they strike a cord in you so complex you never quite understood how to sort through the feeling. As straightforward as a situation may be, what is within our minds never is. You’re not a book though, I can’t read inbetween the lines. I can’t fill in the gaps for unanswered questions. 

Riki never had much to say about my mother’s fits, he never told me to confront if I had an addiction, he didn’t say the things you usually expect from someone.

Riki isn’t from the West Coast.

Riki cares but he isn’t honest.

Riki is lonely, because Riki doesn’t interact with people as expected.

Riki isn’t from Bonachita.

Riki lies to himself more than he’d ever lie to anyone else.

There's a blockage in his mind. There's a time in his life he can’t remember. There's things his brain can’t process. 

That's why he responds with silence.

Or he just makes something up to have something to say..

Riki has a sweet soul. He’s just a little unstable. 

But he holds it together really well, you wouldn’t even be able to tell. He doesn’t need to break down to show he’s reaching his limits. They’ve been passed but somehow his back is straight. He runs the race on unsteady feet. Still he's ahead of the rest. 

Riki.

Riki, you lied.

Bonachita never existed.

[13MPH]

I had nothing to pack that day other than the schoolbag I carried around. I couldn’t go home to get any of my things and so I made due with what I had.

I decided I would just go. Even if I stuck around it wouldn’t make sense to burden Riki with my situation, even if he said he cared, he had no clue I got essentially disowned. 

We never even actually talked about what he wanted to. I just took my things and left without a word, without him knowing. 

It wasn’t rational, Riki was there with me through it all but in my clouded mind it was the only step I knew to take. 

I decided I was going to visit Bonachita.

If I have money for valium I have money for a train ticket. 

At the station I asked for a ticket to the closest city around Bonachita. 

The man looked at me crazy so I thought maybe Bonachita wasn’t a known place but some kind of niche town. 

It was my first time looking it up but nothing came up. Just links to ancestry.com and randoms with the very rare last name. No, directions, no map, no chance of misspelling, it simply didn’t exist. Bonachita wasn’t a city, a town, village, nothing. 

But that would mean Riki lied?

I sat down on the station bench, holding onto cold cash.

Riki who seemed to be so upstanding, so stable, lied about where he came from?

What else did he lie about? Why even lie about something like that?

I stared off at the stone floors with endless questions running through my mind. It seemed so fast everything could just crumble. Even the things I held on to with a firm grip. 

With my last pill of valium, random notebooks, a hairbrush, deodorant, only the clothes I had on, and loose bills in my hand, I booked a night at the nearby motel. 

In the rough motel blankets there's no comfort, only the chilling cold that rises goosebumps to my skin from the blasting air conditioner. I closed my eyes and imagined the cold to be the sensation of Riki’s hands around me the day I was pulled out of the pool by him while flipping my pill bottle in my hands, the one lone pill making a dull sound as it rolled around. His memory was fond to me, I didn’t harbor any negative feelings towards him even when I found out he lied. It was almost comforting to know I wasn’t the only one losing it. Still the feeling of overwhelming isolation overtook any solace I could find. My tears that used to run easily were stifled, burning me from inside. 

The weirdest thing of all.

I missed my mom.

When I was a kid, she’d put dove chocolates at the bottom of my cereal bowls. Whenever I’d unwrap them they’d have some message on the inside and then I’d pour the milk over and have breakfast. On Valentine's day she’d get me a gift. We used to go on walks around the middle school track on weekends and then get ice cream. I played the flute, and she’d come to concerts in elementary, even middle school. I miss that mom.

Towards the end of middle school her and my father fought over money a lot. The house would be tense for days when they wouldn’t talk or even be in the same room as one another. I found out my dad had a woman in North Carolina he took care of and took out large sums of money for. He was slowly planning to leave and never told my mom. My mom didn’t have anything except my dad. And me. She sacrificed a lot to start a family with him, thought there’d be an award for settling down along the line. Her own childhood was pretty bad, she brought a lot of her insecurities into her marriage. She didn’t know security. After dad left the fits she had toward him turned to me. It seemed all the leftover anger she had could only be let out at his daughter. The waste of flesh and blood that reflected no love. I was only a symbol of the tarnished sanctity of marriage. All the promises that went down the drain.

Initially her fits were small but they got worse over time. Verbal turned into physical. I don't know what I could've done but I always felt I should’ve done something.

She never realized I lost something too the day dad left. 

I wonder what Riki lost to act how he does. 

Does he think holding tight onto something means you won’t lose it? 

Look at us, we're both foolish. Making me dream about the things I’ll never have, because he made it look so fulfilling, because he seemed so full of life.  

I never felt as alive as I did when beside him. The speed of his car, the fragility of me fading away in his arms, his patience, his hope, his company, his touch. 

Opening my eyes, I pressed open the bottle lid and swallowed the last valium pill. 

It was too little dosage to do anything for me. 

Now it was all over. 

In the uncomfortable sheets I fell into a heavy sleep while running my hands down my arms in an attempt to mimic the way Riki once held me before.

That night I dreamt I got everything I wanted.

[14MPH]

The view from the motel window is desolate, roads and yellow grass. Only when I crack it open does the blur from the old window pane show the true colors. Every couple minutes cars drive up and down the street showing signs of life. My fingertip traced the thin film of dust on the edge of the windowsill, blowing it forward. I didn’t even know how many days of class I had missed at this point. I didn’t have the energy for school regardless. I settled into the motel as days passed and my money slowly ran low. I bought a new shirt and denim shorts. It was a white fitted tee, fresh in appearance compared to the room. I had thirty dollars left. It wasn’t enough for another night, not after the five I already spent. It’s weird I don’t have Riki’s phone number. Would I call him? Would he be in class right now? But it’d be weird to come to him just because I ran out of money. 

He never judged me and when he found out my truth he stayed firm by my side. So I feel indebted to be there by him. It’s also that I never stopped wanting to be. 

Is this an opportunity or an excuse?

Is his door open for me?

I can’t go back for the reason I left. 

But I want to see him. 

I lit a new cigarette and leaned my bare thighs against the wall. My head rested on the window and each drag was like a petting comfort to my lungs despite the reality. I recalled the beach, and how Riki’s lips wrapped around my cigarette once. I wondered how his lips would feel against me. Would it feel as good as his touch? 

His sleepy lashes, rasped voice, wandering fingers, his cologne. I leaned deeper against the wall, sucking in deeply and hollowing my chest as if the cigarette was me inhaling him. 

I have thirty dollars and a burning heat. 

[15MPH]

On my sixth night I was back in the nearby train station, awake all night and confined to a bench. At one in the morning the station closed and I was left out to wander the sidewalks. Spring winds pushed me along and the cicadas chirped, filling the silence.  It was scary to be out so late alone. I started thinking I could go to campus and spend the night pretending to study in the twenty-four hour section of the library and so I ordered a ride with half of the thirty dollars I had. 

Street lights turned into blurs as the car sped up after I got in. The palm trees swayed, people walked in and out of diners or convenience stores, groups of teenagers walked the streets pushing along bicycles, neon open signs, everything was alive around me. 

It was beautiful, this Florida Spring night.

So beautiful it seemed my feet walked me away from the library. I circled the lab building and went through the parking lots. In hills of grass I passed Old Main and ended up at the campus apartment complexes. 

It was a garden style complex with exterior entrances. I could walk straight up to his door. I was at his door, with a hesitant hand and a pounding heart. It was two in the morning at this point. With a spur of impulsivity I knocked, twice. 

[16MPH]

Truly, before now I never acknowledged how much taller Riki was. His pale face looked down at me, taut and hiding all expression once opening the door. 

No words were exchanged between us.

His arms wrapped around me in a tight hug like it was the position we had always belonged in. I held onto him, his stature enveloping me entirely in the embrace. The faint sounds of his breath tickled my ear, all my senses opened up to him. We stumbled backwards into his apartment, my mind only able to perceive him. I didn’t even realize when he closed the door where we fell to the floor while his hand cradled the back of my head. Pulling back to look at one another I felt the need to consume him entirely. There was no chance I’d separate myself from my greatest desire in this moment where I held him so close. I’m under his trance.

I lifted my lips to his, causing warmth to shoot through my body. Riki kissed me back, only pulling me closer with desperation. His hands were a mess in my hair while my own gripped at his shirt and skin.I was surprised he kissed me back. We were never shy to touch one another but it was a line we didn’t cross until now. I pulled away to admire him in the thick silence only broken by our shallow breaths. His gaze on me was as if I was the most beautifully fragile thing he ever held. Riki softly brought his kiss back to my lips. We remained there on the floor for a moment, as if, in his mind, I would slip through his fingers and disappear into nothingness. Once I tugged on the waistband of his pants he lifted me up and, without ever parting his lips from mine for more than a second, pushed me towards the bedroom.

We fell backwards onto the bed, sheets strewn, his puffy, andalusite eyes meeting mine and reading through me. They were beautiful, like gems reflecting their own light onto me in the darkness of the night.  

Riki’s hands brushed under the hem of my shirt, taking it off and letting it lay on the pillow above my head before kissing down my collarbone while unbuttoning my shorts to pull down the zipper. My own eager hands fumbled to remove his clothes, leaving only undergarments and skin against skin in an intoxicating heat. It was all in an overwhelming need we both felt to be closer.

He really looked like a man, the veins showing in his neck and arms, the hollow definition of his abs. I trailed my fingers up his abdomen until my hand fell flat under the pressure of his body coming down against mine, his nose nuzzled in my neck where he spoke the first words of the night.

“Why’d you leave?”

I pulled his face back by his hair that was now dyed back to a natural shade of black, something he must’ve done in the days I was gone. He was stubborn but eventually he faced me again.

I could only murmur apologies, no reasons.

His tears fell onto my own cheeks. The shimmer of his somber eyes laid soft kisses on my soul, my body nurtured by his touch. Every part of me was filled with the intense pleasure of being reunited. The feeling sent shivers down my spine despite the overwhelming heat within and burning through my skin. 

The soft whine from his throat led me to cling tighter to his skin. 

He bit mine, kissed and bit, nibbled and sucked. I was raw and numb with bliss. 

His hand ran down my throat, past my sensitive chest, and to the bottom of my stomach where his fingertips toyed with the line of my underwear, dipping into the slick. 

Working me up before going down on me, he placed his lips around my swollen clit and let out a deep moan. I was breathless at the new sensation.

He explored my body with a gentleness, oscillating between devotion and need that drove me to the edge. For a time my body lay there experiencing all the possibilities of his hands, lips, and tongue. There seemed to be not a single corner of my skin missed by the fervent affection.

I tugged on his hair until I called out his name and he dragged his body up, his arousal bumping against me.

My meek voice, torn with desire, begged for him.

I belong here in his arms 

I exist between his legs

My heartbeat is fast but my mind is calm. Give me the sweet release.

I spread my arms open to completely be consumed by him inside me.

Adore me.

Cherish me.

Fill me.

In the late morning we woke up, his sleepy head resting on my chest. The sunlight slipped through the gaps in the curtain and highlighted the moles under his eyes to the one on his chin. I shook him awake and asked if he had class. He groggily responded no, but I knew he did. Shoving him to wake Riki finally got up and pulled on a random pair of pants to email his professors. I was still naked and pulled the covers over me, watching as he moved around the room. He threw a towel at me and told me to take a shower. 

After we both had showered, Riki made a simple breakfast of fried eggs and toast. At the table I sat with my knees up against my chest, clad in only a borrowed oversized tee and shorts. I nibbled at the toast while Riki stood behind me and combed through my damp hair. Bending my neck back I interrupted his movements and looked up at him.

“You know why I left.”

He only moved his eyebrows to answer. Incapable of finishing my sentence while maintaining eye contact I looked down at the runny yolk of my egg.

“I was gonna go to Bonachita.”

Riki stopped brushing my hair.

“And”, he questioned.

“It doesn’t exist.”

He didn’t move an inch.

“Why’d you lie?”

“To give you an answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“There's some things, some months, that when I think back to, there's a blockage in my mind.”

His voice fell silent before he went back to combing through my hair and spoke up again.

“When I think about life before college my memories lead nowhere. I remember some of my childhood in Japan, I remember moving around alot after. I don’t remember any city. When I think about it a little too long I get uneasy, my head hurts, and I just don’t visit the memories again. 

I couldn’t just say all that back then.”

I hummed to myself before answering.

“So you don’t even remember a thing.”

“Barely.”

“Have you ever gone to a doctor?” 

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t wanna,” he mumbled. 

I didn’t push him any farther with questions and asked him to eat with me. Riki obliged and broke into the yolk of his own egg with the no longer warm slice of toast. 

“Do you still take pills?” 

Shocked at the sudden questions, my eyes widened.

Coughing slightly I spoke,

“Not really, I ran out.” 

Riki’s jaw flexed.

“You wouldn’t take them again though, right?”

I clicked my tongue in thought. There wasn’t a time since I started where I was sober for long. I had no idea what the withdrawal would be like, it’d be unwise to go cold turkey just as it’d be to continue. 

I sat up on my knees and leaned in.

“I can’t go cold turkey, I’m gonna start getting withdrawal symptoms soon.”

Riki sighed deeply, “Why’d you ever start.”

“It doesn’t matter, I'll just wean off.”

“Ok ok, have you been home?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, it wasn’t that I found the question funny but I found the reality to come out like a sick joke.

“I got kicked out.”

“Last night?”

“No, like basically a week ago now.”

He ran his hands over his face, the truth of everything at once must’ve been too much to come up with a proper response. 

He picked up the plates of our breakfast and took them to the kitchen sink, silently washing the dishes. I pushed my chair in to come up behind him and leaned my head on his shoulder. 

“You know-” 

Riki’s voice came out faint.

“You said you dreamt of dying in Bonachita.” The sponge made slow circles over the pan. I watched the water spiral down the drain.

“Mhm.”

“Did you want to die?”

I hate these kinds of questions.

“I wasn't thinking about death, I just had nowhere to go.”

“I was here.”

I kept my mouth shut.

Riki turned to face me, a slight aching in his eye.

“You’ll stay here for now with me though right?”

I kissed the tip of his nose and the mole on his chin lightly, promising that I’d stay, and not because I had nowhere else to go, but because this is where I longed to be. It would only be as long as he was here. 

[17MPH]

May is approaching, the days only get hotter, longer, and in two weeks it’ll be time for finals. Kids whine and fuss in the halls of the science and technology building about their professors, the increasingly hard exams, or lack of sleep they’ve gotten. I spend weekends turning in coursework I already know won’t save me. I’ve long since let this semester go. Riki doesn’t like me going to parties, so I can’t get valium that way. I never cared for them much anyway. More time to study.. Instead I take smaller doses of valium each week that I buy off my friend. What I still do is smoke, but I do it outside the apartment. 

One night, I came back into the apartment after a smoke. Riki crawled onto the bed and asked if on the first day of summer we could go to the beach. 

I told him we can go wherever he’d like, but what made him want to go?

He claimed to have always liked the beach, he’s never been without it for long.

After two weeks I sat down for my matrices and modern physics exams, packed a bag, and drove up to Canaveral National Seashore about an hour and a half away with Riki. It's a beach with miles of untouched coastline, just white sands and barely a soul. 

Our shoes left imprints on the long walk before Riki decided to stop by the shore. I held my sandals in my hands and let the water bump against my bare ankles. Riki stood rather than sitting. Looking at the expanse of water it seemed endless. If you get a boat and keep going eastward in the direction the ocean takes you, you’ll cross the Atlantic and possibly end up in the Moroccan Sahara. A stark contrast from where we sit now. The world is so pretty when you leave the confines of a town. 

I looked up at Riki above me, but the sun shone down so hard his face became a blur of striking white. 

I asked him to get in the water with me.

Both of us weren’t wearing appropriate clothes, still I ran into the water without waiting for his response, splashing around like a child and soaking the fabric of my short dress. It now stuck to me like a glove and revealed the outline of everything beneath. Riki laughed at me until I pulled him in. His own denim jeans, too hot for a summer like this, and cotton tee became heavy with saltwater. 

We played in water for hours, jumping waves and pushing one another down. Only when the sun began to set did we swim back towards the shore. 

With wet hair, drenched clothing, and arms intertwined we walked back to his car. 

Our room was small—four walls, a bed, a closet, bathroom and a microwave. It was the best we could find at the last minute while being a close enough drive to the beach. That night on our way back I told Riki I wanted to get drunk, I’d never had alcohol before. I still had the fake ID from when I’d party with my campus friends. We’d go to Wawa before heading back to one of their dorms, but I never drank it. It was off putting since the bottles my mother would throw were often the beer she drank. 

Tonight I’d pretend it never was.

We poured shots of liquor for one another throughout the night in dixie cups. At first a slight anxiety gnawed at me as I took sips. It felt like a rebellion against the firm boundary I had once set. If I wanted to live without carrying the baggage of all that had happened perhaps this was a step I could take. Each shot diluted my unease into a weightless glee. Every touch felt heightened, like a delirium of mind and body. I’m the only one new to this but Riki is just as gone leaving no space to be awkward. Laughing about nothing I straddled Riki on top of the bed, the cheap frame creaking with each movement. Still in our beach clothes, damp like our skin and hair, I lit a cigarette, the flame illuminating the dimness for the briefest second. Beneath me, Riki hooked his fingers under the straps of my dress, tugging them down with slow, deliberate movement. I leaned down, resting my chest on his collarbones, to pour the full cup in my right hand into his open mouth, while taking a drag of my cigarette with my left. His throat moved with each weak attempt to swallow. Most of the liquor dribbled down his chin and neck like a honeyed waterfall. I licked the stickiness from the contour of his adams apple to his full lips. 

He kissed forward, the sweetly intoxicating flavor of him blending onto my tongue. 

Throughout the night my phone rang, yet the sound became white noise while we continued drinking and kissing.

I feel the truth of my youth in his arms. If only my eyes could capture this moment in a polaroid and frame it as the scene that defines my young adult years and ignore everything else. All my poor decisions pour into one mass of pleasure and pain. The pleasure found in Riki can tune everything else out. I like the pink blush of his drunken cheeks. I like the way he traces my skin. Killing me with beauty, slowly, softly, sweetly. God, he is beautiful, sharp and angelic all at once. He slurs his words, saying I look pretty from this view. So I put a show on of slipping my underwear down my thighs before sitting back down onto the cold metal of his belt. Each divot in the detailing rubbed against my bottom uncomfortably. At my slight noise from pain Riki slid his hands beneath me to unbuckle his belt. The swift sounds of unclasping metal and falling leather echoed crisply. I tugged at the waistband of his heavy denim jeans, asking him if he felt hot. His hips lifted beneath me slightly, rubbing against my bare skin. 

“Won’t you take it off for me?” His tone was boyish and seductive at once. 

I obliged, pulling the zipper, making Riki smile devilishly, the messy bangs on his forehead shadowing his blackened eyes. His bulge was prominent against the seams of his boxers. The cigarette I held between my teeth had to be placed elsewhere so I flipped it around to fit lazily between Riki’s plush lips, the perfect adornment. I could only smile at the sight of him a mess beneath me before pulling down his boxers to reveal the reddened tip of his frustrated cock. Holding the base in my hand I licked a stripe upwards with a lack of experience nor the coordination I’d have sober. The taste was unfamiliar, almost nothing, but slightly salty. Once I took him in it was suffocating. Breathing through my nose, the deeper he hit my throat the more difficult it became. The smell of my own saliva mixed with the musk. I began to gag but Riki only pushed my head down further as he moaned mellifluously. The sound itself left an ache in my core, I couldn’t help but be turned on further. When his breaths stuttered I pulled off, leaving him leaking and close to coming. His whines filled my ears like music. Taking the cigarette back from him, almost at its end I inhaled and positioned myself to sit back on him, flush against the heat of his groin slick with my saliva and his own precum. I could only tease him a moment longer before my own patience ran thin.

With everything off but my dress, I lifted to let him in. Once Riki bottomed out, pleasure shot through me like waves in the drunk haze. I shoved his shirt as high as possible to flick the ash of my dwindling cigarette onto his nipples, causing him to let out his own moans louder than before, mixing with mine. 

The smell of sex filled the air of the tiny space, Riki’s eyes rolled back as he climaxed. Pulling out after coming down his slender fingers rubbed against my entrance before slipping in and working in and out against my inner walls, repeatedly hitting the most pleasurable spot as he easily became accustomed to my body. His movements became messier as he ran out of energy, yet I found myself chasing his fingers. I started to feel sick with desire. I was left panting, the pathetic butt of the cigarette extinguishing on Riki’s skin as I fell over onto him. In that same position I fell asleep, cushioned by his firm body. While my mind faded into slumber I could vaguely make out Riki’s mumbling. 

“Is this enough for you to stay?”

Little does he know we’re bound by an unbreakable string of fate.

[18MPH]

The hangover is like a freight train running back and forth on tracks made of my neurons. God, it hurts. With an aching body I reached over to the floor to pick up my phone. I had ten missed calls, two messages, all from my dad. Immediately my heart sank, I hadn't talked to my dad in over two months. He says hi, I say hello, he makes me say hi to his wife, he hangs up, I cry. That's how it usually goes. 

His first message was “Why don’t you pick up?”

the second read, “Your mom texted me.”

I knew he was going to say something I didn’t want to hear. 

Right when I was going to turn off my phone the screen lit up with a call from him.

I stared at the vibrating screen causing Riki to turn in his sleep and stare at me quietly with an expression devoid of readable emotion.

My head throbbed, I just wanted to curl up in my sheets and ignore everything. Still, I accepted the call to be greeted by a familiarly distant voice.

“Why didn’t you pick up before?”

What excuse would ever satisfy a man like this.

“I was asleep, it’s summer break.”

“Well, your mom talked to me, she said you haven’t come home.”

“Well she kicked me out.”

“She told me about how you’ve been acting out, but just because she says things when she's angry doesn’t mean its true.”

“....” “She wants you to come live with me.”

“In Carolina?”

“Where have you been staying anyway?”

I lied straight through my teeth.

“Hotels, motels.”

“With what money?”

“I worked in the summers, you know?”

“Whatever, I’m busy so I’ll pick you up next week.”

He hung up like that, not asking me any more questions. Whether I was ok didn’t seem to matter, the nuisance just needed to be handled.

I fell back onto the bed, the call only worsening my headache. 

“You’re gonna leave?” Riki murmured.

I could only shrug. If my dads wife didn’t want me at the house, no way in hell he’d take me in. I was an adult he wasn’t obliged to. But I guess a daughter on the streets looks bad.

It wasn’t like I could live with Riki forever anyway. Everything comes to an end eventually.

“Let's stay another night.” His eyes held an emotion I hadn’t yet seen him express before.

I felt his fingers snake around my wrist in a firm embrace.

“Let’s stay another night.”

Who am I to say no to a face like that, especially when I never wanted to leave in the first place.

Riki started to shake my wrist back and forth like a child, his voice bordering whiny.

“I’ll take you for a drive again, I promise.”

Does he not see he can pull the strings on my back as he likes. Isn’t that a pathetic reality. I don’t care. His will is mine.

“Ok, let's stay another night.”

His grip finally relaxed, his face still half pressed against the pillow. He was speaking with the mind of someone only halfway awake. Still as we sat there his eyes remained trained on me. 

“Riki, what are you thinking?”

“About what you’re thinking.”

Internally I sighed, 

“I think we should take a bath.”

In response Riki stood up and trudged to the bathroom, leaving the door open, letting me watch him fill the bathtub.

While the water loudly pattered against the enamel Riki lifted me up out of bed, letting the soiled dress fully slip down my body. 

The warmth even in the summer was soothing to my hungover body. I sat on my legs facing Riki who was still outside the tub, lathering shampoo between his hands to wash my hair with. The massage on my scalp worked away the tension slowly. Watching his focused expression I was even more at ease.

“Tell me something.”

His eyes shifted onto mine.

“Like what?”

“Everything I don’t know.”

“I got a new piercing.” I leaned in, bumping against the edge of the bath to look at his ears.

“Which? I can’t tell which is new.”

“I got a double helix, it used to only be one.”

He pushed his hair back with the knuckles of his hand to show the reddened cartilage of his right ear. 

“When’d you get it, it must be a pain to heal”

“About like three to four weeks ago.”

That was when I was at the motel.

“You changed a lot in a short time.”

Riki tilted his chin up, shaking the suds in my hair

“What do you mean?”

“Well you used to be blond.”

“Did you like the blond?”

“I liked it all. But why’d you go back to black?”

“I wanted to do something to my appearance.”

I faintly touched the stray strands of his hair with my wet hands.

“In a month you’ll be a whole nother person.”

Riki let out a childish laugh, his genuine smile breaking through. Yet a part of me wasn’t joking.

“What if I can’t recognize you/”

“I’ll always be the same though.”

I looked down at the curve of his shoulders while he spoke.

“I’ll walk the same, speak the same, fidget the same, at the core all the same.”

His hands left my scalp and ran over the scar tissue of the old cut I got on my collarbone so long ago. 

I fell against his shoulder, damping him with shampoo and water.

My blond angel is a black haired boy.

[19MPH]

The sun is strong in the evening but rain is forecasted. 

In the daytime there are more people coming to the beach than in the past day. A lot of fishers, a good amount of families. The heat in the sand burns the soles of my feet without shoes, so Riki offers to take a drive instead. The loud and familiar engine of Riki’s mustang was like a healing purr as it came to life. As we coast through the first few streets, marshes blur into sleepy houses, and eventually, we’re on real roads. I ask Riki how fast his car can go. He says 157 miles per hour. I ask him where he can go at that speed.

“Basically nowhere.”

When we end up on a rural road I ask him to try it, go a little faster.

As soon as he presses his foot on the accelerator the car jumps from forty to eighty. I feel the speed push me against the car seat, and he only goes faster, shifting gears and teetering around 100 to 120. The exhaust begins to get louder, wind thrashes making my vision turn into a blur of melting landscapes and stray hair. 

Riki’s hands stay firm on the wheel. My instinct is to scream, not from fear — from joy. It’s like a roller coaster with no track. At 140, we’re flirting with death.

I found myself thinking this would be a beautiful way to die. 

Every twitch of the wheel is a whisper between life and disaster. Down the slightest hills, the car surges faster. But Riki holds it steady. When he finally brakes, it’s smooth — a gradual pull, a careful downshift.. By the time we stop, my heart could fly straight out of my chest. The adrenaline is unbearable, delicious,  and then it all spills over. All the adrenaline went to my head and laughter burst through both our lungs at the crudely selfish stunt we pulled. 

Riki circles back to the seashore and we walk down onto the coastline, clouded by the soon coming rains. 

Times like this we don’t exchange many words. We simply bathe in the moment. Soft winds, grey skies, and ocean scape. His hair is much more tousled than any other day, I stare at it as I watch the back of his head with each step. 

Rain begins to slowly pour onto our shoulders, a pitter patter every other minute. At the same moment my phone buzzes from my pocket, the vibration distant. Riki looks back at me but I ignore whatever the call is and continue to look ahead at him. Soon he stops in his tracks and drops to sit on the sand. I look down at him in confusion. He tells me he has no pictures of me. I say I don’t like pictures. He says he wants something to remember me by. I say I’m right here. 

Looking like teenage dreams in the grains of white sand his eyes reflected all of my own fears. And all my compassion.

“Are you not leaving?”

Why doesn’t he look at me as if I’m disgusting? It'll make this easier.

I still stand looking down at him.

“So what if I go to Carolina?”

“You won’t go to college here anymore will you.”

“I was going to take a gap year regardless.”

“But when would I see you again?”

I remained quiet.

“So you don’t care if we don’t see eachother again?”

“Of course I do.” I was turning pathetic, my voice cracked.

Riki’s yearning eyes looked up at me, a million desires, a thousand questions, and not a single resolve given.

“You could just stay with me.”

“You know that's not possible.”

“Why not?”

I raked my hands through my hair in frustration.

“I can’t leech off of you like that.”

His own voice became strained,

“But you're not. I want you to stay with me. How is that leeching?”

A scoff came from his throat.

“What's the point of living with someone who doesn’t care about you when you could live with someone who does?”

“Why do you care about me anyway?”

Distress shot over his expression for a mere second. I continued to say all the wrong words.

“Because you didn’t need to know everything about me to understand me. Because I’m not all that I went through, I’m my character and you came back even after you found out the truth because of that. Didn’t you?”

I fell to my knees, only inches away from Riki and wrapped my arms tight around the broadness of his shoulders, my face directed towards all that was behind him.

“I’m gonna pack my bag, get in his car, go to North Carolina, and I’ll miss you.”

“No.” His voice was annealed glass. 

My teardrops watered the slope of his back, blending in with the light rainfall. 

His hands clung onto me as if he’d have no will to live otherwise. 

“Just tell me what you want, you can have it. If you want me you can have me. If you have a dream I’ll fulfill it. What do you really want?”His tone shifted between tenderness and possessiveness. 

I thought the wise thing to do was rely on a parent instead of someone my age, equally as unstable. I thought I’d go with my dad and live fine with the memories of him. What if he didn’t always want me next to him? Then where would I go if I had turned down my dad’s offer. How do I know his eyes will always look at me with such a devoted expression? How do I know he’s entirely mine?

“I want you to take me to Bonachita.”

[157MPH]

He watches me get ready in the mirror. 

My hair is neat, my dress is short, and my lashes curled. Even with less makeup than I used to wear, I feel pretty. 

Every curtain is open, all windows let in the cool morning breeze. Dew is clinging on to each blade of grass and slipping from low hanging leaves due to last night's rain. Everything catches light but there's a film of hazy fog. Nature is lush and alive.

When I get up, so does Riki. There's coffee on the table, this is his apartment. He lives here even in the summer because it doesn’t belong to the university. Yet these apartments are majority owned by students and only a couple minutes from campus so it feels like the semester never ended. We came back last night. On the drive back we could catch glimpses of the launchpads. On one side was the Atlantic and the other the Indian River. The salty smell of ocean water permeated through the air, a nostalgic scent. We went south down the A1A. Light filtered through the spanish mosses and oaks of Titusville, Melbourne, and Sebastian. Each town was distinct despite being so close. When we reached home we immediately fell asleep. 

Now I’m sipping on bitter coffee. I can’t tell if I like the taste or not but I continue to drink. Riki tells me to listen to the birds chirping outside. It’s the perfect song to play in the background of this morning. I say it reminds me of when I was kid, the last days of school having breakfast at the round wooden table in front of the window that let in the sounds of nature, open for the first time in months because of the incoming summer. He says when he was young he dreamt of being a race car driver. He watched Trans-Am, Formula 1, NASCAR, all of it. And he dreamt, that’s not a lie. 

I asked him if he ever tried. He said it takes a lot of training that he never got close to doing. So he took that dream and polished it into mechanical engineering. I admire him. I tell him so.

Riki’s not good at taking compliments, he smiles like a fool, like an angel. His boxy smile showing his teeth. 

In another life maybe he drives around a track, fast and fulfilled. If only he could have everything he wanted and I could be the one who gives it to him. I keep that to myself. Instead I attempt to light a cigarette but I can’t find my lighter. Riki gets one from the kitchen before standing in front of me, flicking the flame to life and setting both my lungs and heart afire. I’d rather kiss him than smoke. I wrap an arm around the nape of his neck and bring him down to me. My cigarette is looming over the floor in my other hand, accumulating ash. I kiss against his pouty lips into bliss. The taste of coffee lingers on both of our tongues. The bitterness imitates the sweet taste of love. I want to believe that this is a form of love crafted especially for people like us. Even if I can’t have something pure and sweet, I’m allowed at least the bitterness that faintly mimics its taste. I ask Riki what he wants most at this moment. He leaves the faintest kiss on my lips before saying 

“Nothing.”

I see all my suppressed dreams from the past years reflect in his eyes, and I let them pass on. 

The coffee pot half full remains and we get into his car, the leather of the seats is hot from drowning in sunlight. I feel it against my skin, cauterizing already healed wounds. The windows are down, we drive slowly throughout town as the wind cools us down. At one point we nearly pass my mom’s house but narrowly get on a different avenue. There's kids on the street playing ball, running around, and falling. There was a time when we were that age. Riki hums while taking a turn and for a second I wonder what he was like as a child. His smile must’ve been the same back then. There are some things that just don’t change even when everything else does. His eyes are on the road and my eyes are on his face. The streets are now lined with trees rather than houses. There’s a bridge arching above the road a couple miles away. It’s made of limestone,  the kind of bridge people cross over, but today its empty. 

Riki is no longer looking at the road, his gaze is solely on me. He asks if I still want to go to Bonachita. 

The fact is I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to go to my dad’s house. But I know I can’t keep running. In all honesty, I absolutely adore Riki. But things catch up. The feet are fast but reality is quicker. To never move forward is to die and to go on is to endure the greatest pain yet. I feel absolutely terrible. 

So I bundle all my joys and give it an address. 

Bonachita. 

Riki has glossy eyes at my nod of confirmation. I see in my peripheral his foot go against the accelerator harshly, and he shifts gears.

Forty, fifty, ninety, a hundred, 

one-fifty-seven. 

I can’t process a thing as the bridge becomes imminently closer. 

Yet I know, in a world that forsakes forgiveness, where the mistakes you make are the most defining moments, he cherished me as if I wasn’t made less than by all I’ve done. 

I really like to be human in the eyes of another.

Maybe in another life, this is his race car, and Riki just got first place. 

Everything jerked sideways. Only the stone of the bridge filled my sight sporadically alongside the profile of Riki’s face. A loud crunch of metal echoed with the shattering of glass. I feel the seatbelt holding me back as my chest tightens. We both lurched forward, adrenaline resounding throughout my entire body. This sound is the cadence of death. My body is weightless, I flow with the pressure. There's no way to prepare for how reality warps.

This final blow lands us in the infinite peace of Bonachita. My pretty, curated, illusion.