I don't think I need to go into a lot of detail how much I've changed. My gender identity's changed a number of times. Who I've presented as. The sheer number of names I've gone by (it's up to around a dozen now, and I'll answer to most of them, though I'll be surprised at different times - it's weird when someone I haven't talked to in years calls me Ashley, since that was my middle name).
I've put on a ton of weight, and lost about a hundred pounds overall.
Some days I look in the mirror and see a boy, some days I see a girl.
I've flirted with a hundred different philosophies and each time I never commit, but they change me ever so slightly.
(I'm surrounded by nihilists who think that life is pointless and the world should burn; I'm more along the lines of "life is pointless, let's go get ice cream!")
I've moved 35 times in the last 10 years. I tell people all my secrets, and then I lie about my past.
I used to be angry all the time for no reason. I've learned to quiet that rage before it destroyed me, and now I'm being taught how to use that rage to fuel me, instead.
I used to never know who I wanted to be. Growing up, I alternated between wanting to be a geologist and wanting to be a tap-dancer. Then I picked up a guitar and never wanted to stop playing music.
(I still wanna be a tap-dancer from time to time, and when I go bowling I rhythmically snap my shoes against the polished floors, loving that loud, crisp sound)
I developed a taste for whiskey
and never one for beer
I used the internet as a social life
then I used it to have one in the real world
then I stopped caring and spend days offline at a time, and I'm much happier that way
I'm still depressed but these days and each thought of suicide is just a passing vehicle rather than elaborate plans and fantasies
but I'm coping
some days I think poetry is a way to inflict your pain on others
sometimes your pretension
sometimes just another way of saying the same old bullshit
other times I just don't care and like the way two words fit together so well
(or three words, or four, or all of them woven together)
I stopped listening to classic rock and picked up folk music
I stopped listening to folk music and picked up shitty mainstream industrial and have no shame about it
my name when I draw is different than my name when I sing is different than my name when I write is different than my name when you love me is different than my name when you see me walking down the street
so I don't think there's two of me
I don't think there's a proper number for how many of me there are, just in this world alone, much less who I could have been had all my choices been different because let's face it
if I did everything like they told me to, I could have been someone by now
but fuck that
because success is miserable for me
(at least their standards of success and i will define my own life thank you very much)
and sometimes I wonder who I could have been
and sometimes when I can't sleep at night I close my eyes and imagine all the places I've ever slept and picture myself sleeping there again
(here is the dresser
and here is the bed
and here is the window and where the heat comes in
and here is the door to run away from all of this old bullshit that never goes away)
sometimes i hate where i ended up and sometimes i wonder if i could ever be happier and sometimes i feel like the luckiest goddamn queer in the world and sometimes i wonder why life has to be this goddamn hard all the goddamn time
i used to want to be crazy because it seemed fun
and then when i went crazy i just wanted to be normal because it wouldn't hurt so much
and now i'm compromising between the two and i've stopped trying to call myself either and i'm just me for better or worse
(people seem to like me better now)
(I know I do)
