tropicalrpg

[tropicalrpg]

para uma avenca partindo

olha, antes do ônibus partir eu tenho uma porção de coisas pra te dizer, dessas coisas assim que não se dizem costumeiramente, sabe, dessas coisas tão difíceis de serem ditas que geralmente ficam caladas, porque nunca se sabe nem como serão ditas nem como serão ouvidas, compreende? olha, falta muito pouco tempo, e se eu não te disser agora talvez não diga nunca mais, porque tanto eu como você sentiremos uma falta enorme dessas coisas, e se elas não chegarem a ser ditas nem eu nem você nos sentiremos satisfeitos com tudo que existimos, porque elas não foram existidas completamente, entende, porque as vivemos apenas naquela dimensão em que é permitido viver, não, não é isso que eu quero dizer, não existe uma dimensão permitida e uma outra proibida, indevassável, não me entenda mal, mas é que a gente tem tanto medo de penetrar naquilo que não sabe se terá coragem de viver, no mais fundo, eu quero dizer, é isso mesmo, você está acompanhando meu raciocínio? falava do mais fundo, desse que existe em você, em mim, em todos esses outros com suas malas, suas bolsas, suas maçãs, não, não sei porque todo mundo compra maçãs antes de viajar, nunca tinha pensado nisso, por favor, não me interrompa, realmente não sei, existem coisas que a gente ainda não pensou, que a gente talvez nunca pense, eu, por exemplo, nunca pensei que houvesse alguma coisa a dizer além de tudo o que já foi dito, ou melhor pensei sim, não, pensar propriamente dito não, mas eu sabia, é verdade que eu sabia, que havia uma outra coisa atrás e além das nossas mãos dadas, dos nossos corpos nus, eu dentro de você, e mesmo atrás dos silêncios, aqueles silêncios saciados, quando a gente descobria alguma coisa pequena para observar, um fio de luz coado pela janela, um latido de cão no meio da noite, você sabe que eu não falaria dessas coisas se não tivesse a certeza de que você sentia o mesmo que eu a respeito dos fios de luz, dos latidos de cães, é, eu não falaria, uma vez eu disse que a nossa diferença fundamental é que você era capaz apenas de viver as superfícies, enquanto eu era capaz de ir ao mais fundo, você riu porque eu dizia que não era cantando desvairadamente até ficar rouca que você ia conseguir saber alguma coisa a respeito de si própria, mas sabe, você tinha razão em rir daquele jeito porque eu também não tinha me dado conta de que enquanto ia dizendo aquelas coisas eu também cantava desvairadamente até ficar rouco, o que eu quero dizer é que nós dois cantamos desvairadamente até agora sem nos darmos contas, é por isso que estou tão rouco assim, não, não é dessa coisa de garganta que falo, é de uma outra de dentro, entende? por favor, não ria dessa maneira nem fique consultando o relógio o tempo todo, não é preciso, deixa eu te dizer antes que o ônibus parta que você cresceu em mim de um jeito completamente insuspeitado, assim como se você fosse apenas uma semente e eu plantasse você esperando ver uma plantinha qualquer, pequena, rala, uma avenca, talvez samambaia, no máximo uma roseira, é, não estou sendo agressivo não, esperava de você apenas coisas assim, avenca, samambaia, roseira, mas nunca, em nenhum momento essa coisa enorme que me obrigou a abrir todas as janelas, e depois as portas, e pouco a pouco derrubar todas as paredes e arrancar o telhado para que você crescesse livremente, você não cresceria se eu a mantivesse presa num pequeno vaso, eu compreendi a tempo que você precisava de muito espaço, claro, claro que eu compro uma revista pra você, eu sei, é bom ler durante a viagem, embora eu prefira ficar olhando pela janela e pensando coisas, estas mesmas coisas que estou tentando dizer a você sem conseguir, por favor, me ajuda, senão vai ser muito tarde, daqui a pouco não vai mais ser possível, e se eu não disser tudo não poderei nem dizer e nem fazer mais nada, é preciso que a gente tente de todas as maneiras, é o que estou fazendo, sim, esta é minha última tentativa, olha, é bom você pegar sua passagem, porque você sempre perde tudo nessa sua bolsa, não sei como é que você consegue, é bom você ficar com ela na mão para evitar qualquer atraso, sim, é bom evitar os atrasos, mas agora escuta: eu queria te dizer uma porção de coisas, de uma porção de noites, ou tardes, ou manhãs, não importa a cor, é, a cor, o tempo é só uma questão de cor não é? por isso não importa, eu queria era te dizer dessas vezes em que eu te deixava e depois saía sozinho, pensando também nas coisas que eu não ia te dizer, porque existem coisas terríveis, eu me perguntava se você era capaz de ouvir, sim, era preciso estar disponível para ouvi-las, disponível em relação a quê? não sei, não me interrompa agora que estou quase conseguindo, disponível só, não é uma palavra bonita? sabe, eu me perguntava até que ponto você era aquilo que eu via em você ou apenas aquilo que eu queria ver em você, eu queria saber até que ponto você não era apenas uma projeção daquilo que eu sentia, e se era assim, até quando eu conseguiria ver em você todas essas coisas que me fascinavam e que no fundo, sempre no fundo, talvez nem fossem suas, mas minhas, e pensava que amar era só conseguir ver, e desamar era não mais conseguir ver, entende? dolorido-colorido, estou repetindo devagar para que você possa compreender, melhor, claro que eu dou um cigarro pra você, não, ainda não, faltam uns cinco minutos, eu sei que não devia fumar tanto, é eu sei que os meus dentes estão ficando escuros, e essa tosse intolerável, você acha mesmo a minha tosse intolerável? eu estava dizendo, o que é mesmo que eu estava dizendo? ah, sabe, entre duas pessoas essas coisas sempre devem ser ditas, o fato de você achar minha tosse intolerável, por exemplo, eu poderia me aprofundar nisso e concluir que você não gosta de mim o suficiente, porque se você gostasse, gostaria também da minha tosse, dos meus dentes escuros, mas não aprofundando não concluo nada, fico só querendo te dizer de como eu te esperava quando a gente marcava qualquer coisa, de como eu olhava o relógio e andava de lá pra cá sem pensar definidamente e nada, mas não, não é isso, eu ainda queria chegar mais perto daquilo que está lá no centro e que um dia destes eu descobri existindo, porque eu nem supunha que existisse, acho que foi o fato de você partir que me fez descobrir tantas coisas, espera um pouco, eu vou te dizer de todas as coisas, é por isso que estou falando, fecha a revista, por favor, olha, se você não prestar muita atenção você não vai conseguir entender nada, sei, sei, eu também gosto muito do peter fonda, mas isso agora não tem nenhuma importância, é fundamental que você escute todas as palavras, todas, e não fique tentando descobrir sentidos ocultos por trás do que estou dizendo, sim, eu reconheço que muitas vezes falei por metáforas, e que é chatíssimo falar por metáforas, pelo menos para quem ouve, e depois, você sabe, eu sempre tive essa preocupação idiota de dizer apenas coisas que não ferissem, está bem, eu espero aqui do lado da janela, é melhor mesmo você subir, continuamos conversando enquanto o ônibus não sai, espera, as maçãs ficam comigo, é muito importante, vou dizer tudo numa só frase, você vai ……… ………… …………. ………… ………. ……….. …………. ………… ………… ………… ……… ……….. ………… ………… sim, eu sei, eu vou escrever, não eu não vou escrever, mas é bom você botar um casaco, está esfriando tanto, depois, na estrada, olha, antes do ônibus partir eu quero te dizer uma porção de coisas, será que vai dar tempo? escuta, não fecha a janela, está tudo definido aqui dentro, é só uma coisa, espera um pouco mais, depois você arruma as malas e as botas, fica tranqüila, esse velho não vai incomodar você, olha, eu ainda não disse tudo, e a culpa é única e exclusivamente sua, por que você fica sempre me interrompendo e me fazendo suspeitar que você não passa mesmo duma simples avenca? eu preciso de muito silêncio e de muita concentração para dizer todas as coisas que eu tinha pra te dizer, olha, antes de você ir embora eu quero te dizer quê.

(caio fernando abreu)

[tropicalrpg]

28 i'm not exactly questioning post 27 but i'm having a hard time feeling peace and love right now. i was happy earlier today, truly genuinely happy

i know this post won't be long, but it could be. i have a lot of thoughts on the topic that's troubling me. there's a soccer game soon on the telly—a football game. i should deamericanize myself. i feel like shit. a pain, a loneliness in my chest, and if my team loses i have no fucking clue how i'm going to get out of the house tomorrow. though i guess the thing i'm going out to do will cheer me up.

i have this faith in my heart that my love life would be tremendously easier were i cis, straight, or both. were i into women at all. the fact that i'm ftm and gay is a big stressor in my life, is my point. my love life. being trans doesn't really affect my everyday life anymore, not really, not past passing anxieties. (not passing as in passing, although yes that too, but passing as in ephemeral.)

if i were a cis girl, a lot of my attributes would have ended up attractive, not incongruous. i would have more control over them. even if not ideal, they'd be less frowned upon. not in the sense that women are put up to less of a standard, because i'm not stupid, but in the sense that they're seen as attractive, still. women are prettier than men. women are easier to find pretty than men. i don't know. there's so much fucked up about what i say, what i want to say, what i feel and might be incorrect, but i need to say it. if anyone even reads this, my vent with its scary title, feel free to, i don't know. dm me. i have no friends on this blog. i kind of wish i did. i wish i had a friend i could be completely honest to. instead i have this fucking thing and a therapist who i don't have the time to say all these things to.

and if i liked women, i wouldn't be as deeply scrutinized, because gay men fucking suck. they aren't going to be attracted to me for years. no fats, no fems. there i go. women have been into me. several. not that i'm bragging, i'm not, i really hate myself for being unable to reciprocate and find joy in my life. no boy has been interested in me in years, i don't think. and i've been fooling myself.

yesterday i was flirting, or trying to flirt, with a guy who my friend fucked in a party bathroom last year. a guy he kissed the first night they met. i didn't kiss him yesterday, i think we barely flirted. our legs touched underneath the table, our arms touched on top of it, and my touch starved self (i haven't kissed anyone in three and a half years; in 2018 alone, i kissed twenty people) was so pleased with that, i despised myself when i made him scoot over. i want to ask him out tomorrow, but the last boy i asked out ghosted me. again and again. he makes me feel good then like shit.

there's this boy i used to kiss. we kissed every time we met. and i thought maybe he'd still want to kiss me now. but i have no way of meeting him, and i fell into the trap of situationship-adjacent instagram flirting, delusionships, whatever, and god. i just wish i could see him in real life and get this shit sorted. i wish i had ever talked to him, and had the power, the strength, to dm him like i did joão and like i'm going to do to marcos tomorrow.

and the worst part of me considers someone else. someone i don't want to kiss, but someone who, in my heart of hearts, would always want to kiss me. which is mean to him. X; i've been so mean to him, i never even wrote out the promise of his story. i wonder if he would want to kiss me still. his life has changed so much. he and that same friend of mine fucked at another party. this friend of mine whom i love deeply but who shatters all prospects of my joy. because who can compete with a tall twink with blond hair and blue eyes? not a 5'3 overweight trans guy with hair everywhere; too young to be a bear, too small to be a cub, too unattractive to even kiss someone. the utmost failure of a gay guy.

i hope i find love eventually. i hope, and like to believe it is to come; if i say it's not, my sister will bring out the stats to prove me wrong, and she'll argue that i find myself unlovable on the grounds of my body or identity. i don't find myself unlovable. i just know i'm hard to love, because i'm the opposite of everything anyone has been taught to love. boys are taught to like girls; boys who don't are taught to like twinks or jocks; boys who don't, or who aren't, are taught to like big, burly, manly. not a tiny guy with a pussy. (though i know this is probably appealing to someone, somewhere, that someone is hard to come by in my current circumstances.)

i'm just frustrated. alone. horny. alone. sad. i wrote a letter to a friend today and came up with some hypotheses as to why loneliness is a universal human experience. i don't think i listed my own, the one i think would explain why i feel so gutturally, fundamentally alone. i'm not sure i've come up with it yet.

23 07 17

#anonymous #writing exercise #nonfiction #confession

[tropicalrpg]

27 THERE IS AN INSCRUTABLE BEAUTY TO LIVING!

and love fills the gaps like grout! life is made of shards of time, of space, of love and happiness! the sharp edges can seem like they're all there is when they hurt but don't forget the paint on the tile! don't forget the white and the blue and the orange! don't forget the beauty of mosaics! don't forget the way the light shines through stained glass! joy will come to us! smiling makes smiles a lot easier!

2023 07 16!

#writing exercise #prose poetry

[tropicalrpg]

26 !!!!!

i keep thinking of writing things and not writing them!!! i've been away with friends since thursday!!! long weekend!!! i love my irls, fully and totally, for once!!! i hate poetry that's written in one block with slashes instead of line breaks!!! i've been thinking of asking joão out because i'm tired of just talking to him, maybe flirting, and not kissing him!!! i've been thinking of kissing him, of how i'm gonna ask him to kiss him when i see him, and of introducing him to my friends who don't know him, and how i'm gonna explain this to my friend who wanted to kiss him too. i'm thinking of going out with him again. i'm thinking of what i'm going to ask him, what we're gonna talk about, even though i know words escape me when we talk and i don't even know if he'll want to go out with me, much less kiss me.

23 06 10

#anonymous #confession #diary

[tropicalrpg]

25 a quickie

i think a lot about a post i saw here on tumblr about how "we can't all be poets, we need electricians". about how poetry about love as cannibalism is tired and lazy, is a used metaphor these days. and like, yeah. to some extent i agree.

but i know i'm one of the failed poets, the ones that shouldn't be in the trade. (one of my high school english teachers told me that every lit major is a failed poet.) i mostly write of love, i often write of cannibalism, and i love taste and meat and blood in my words. i just wrote a poem on teeth, and another of my common topics discreetly came up in it (jizz). i know i'm not a great poet, but i'd love to believe i'm at least above average. i'd love for that professor of mine to read my poems and tell me what he thinks, i trust his opinion. did i ever mention what the essay i'm writing for his class is about? well. let's put it this way. the theme touches upon eroticism so often, i don't think it'd be that hard or that weird to show him my gay sex poems afterwards. maybe if we become better friends, which i doubt. i wish he would advise some research of mine, but i believe i've already gotten myself an advisor. we'll see. most of my academic career, even as an undergraduate, is still ahead of me.

i've been thinking of experimental things to try here. we'll see how they go.

23 06 05

#writing exercise #nonfiction

[tropicalrpg]

24 read below

the reason why i stopped writing things down in my notebook is because i kept forgetting. i kept thinking, this would be good to write down, then i didn't, because it meant going out of my way to do something. it meant stopping whatever useless thing i was doing and putting effort into something productive and active.

so i stopped writing. i stopped writing in general: every day, or most days, i think of fic ideas that i'd love to write or keep writing. but i never, or almost never, do. i don't write anymore. even here, i forget, i spend too long without posting (this was supposed to be daily, six months ago! we're twenty-four posts in! it's june!), and i only ever post things i write straight into the blogging feature, with no edits, with no marination. i'm bored or i feel like writing, like ranting, and here i come. i don't post because there's something i want to post about: i post because i want to post. when there's something i want to post about, i just. don't.

here are two things i've thought of posting about.

on thursday, i went to my brother's flat briefly. i didn't know if i wanted to write about this here because it's very personal, very private, and because i'd like to have access to it many years down the line, when the person this is about can hear me talk about it. my brother just had a kid, that's why. jade, is her name. and i'd never seen a baby so young before, and it's fascinating. i wanted to write down the experience so i can remember it when she's big. she's so small. she's so small, her head is smaller than her father's hand, and so he can hold her right on his chest with no effort. he shushes her into stillness not with humming or a song, but actual, soft, melodic shushing. her crying was funny to me, because she'd cry, then start settling down, then start crying again like she was doing it because she felt she was supposed to. and she was so cute. she tugged on my dad's mask when he held her. her eyes were dark, dark, dark, and neither of her parents' are that dark, so i guess that must be a baby thing. it's the first time i've seen her since the day after she was born. she's so small. when my dad held her, i could see the back of her head, and i almost wanted to touch it and feel its softness, its smooth warmth. i only touched her briefly, the tips of her fingers, because i'm scared to touch a baby so small, so fragile. here's something i deliberately thought of writing about, something i want to tell her years down the line: she's so small now, her toes are the size of rice grains. rice! she's so small. i hope she grows big and healthy. i hope i end up being a cool uncle to her. i hope i'm not distant, and i hope she likes me. i know it's still a long time before she even knows what i'm saying, and i also know these years will at least kind of fly by, and she'll be huge before i notice it. so i wanted to write it down. i should've written it down two days ago when the memories were fresher, but better late than never, huh, jade?

yesterday, friday, and i also hesitated on writing about this because i thought of doing it in the same post i'd mention my two week old niece and it just feels wrong, but life is made of many aspects, and now fuck it, this post isn't about either of these things and instead about the act of writing (i forgot to mention in the introduction, despite meaning to: the only thing i kept writing for the past few years, although in the past month or two i've not written any of it, is poetry. because the poems i write are short and efficient and somewhat inspiration based. love based. i yearn and the words come together, somehow. and i write poems by opening my notes app, trying to look for metaphors that fit what i want to say, deciding on a verse scheme on the fly, then finishing the poem whenever it feels like i've written enough. i rarely do touch ups, although sometimes i do. and that's it. a poem. i got one of those published once. fifty dollars for a few minutes of my time. it never happened again, but, still.). yesterday, friday, i took the bus home and got a seat (almost didn't, but did). and all was fine. until, like, ten minutes away from home, when this guy got on the bus and, well, how can i put this? i worry i can't explain this properly even to brazilians, imagine to gringos. but anyway. i was on the aisle? seat? i guess. i was next to the hallway, passage, corridor, thing. and people stand there when there's nowhere to sit! normal! i don't know what buses are like abroad, okay, i'm trying to be as thorough as i can be. the gist of it is a guy (around my age, reasonably attractive, certainly straight) kind of caged me into my seat. not on purpose or like in a threatening way. he just decided to use my seat and the seat ahead of me as the supports he held on to. and he probably chose me because i'm a guy; if i were a girl, this would be threatening even in the best of intentions. you just don't do that. but he did it to me, and it was, well, um. i feel stupid and like a fucking virgin for saying this. but it was an experience! because i made it be one in my brain! it wasn't a huge deal, and thank god no one is reading this, and it wasn't even ten minutes away from my stop, but it was something. i'd love to actually, intentionally, consensually, be caged in by a man. and he knew as well as i did that he didn't have to do that; at some point, he held onto the bars affixed to the roof. he was a little short, so of course the seats were more comfortable, but i think if he hadn't been hot i would've been a little bothered, too. but, too? i don't know. i'm tired, idgaf about grammar. i think i'm getting good at hiding my gayness. i'm certain i scared a straight guy away at some point last year. a hot guy that took the bus to school with me in the morning. there's another hot straight guy that on occasion takes the same bus as me, but i don't even allow myself to look at him now. i always think my attraction will scare guys away. because i'm ugly, and because they're always straight. because ew. because of a million reasons. i've talked about this in therapy. it hasn't really gotten better. i also didn't really want to write about this because i feel like thinking of sex on public transport is a pervy thing, even though i didn't do anything, didn't ogle him (didn't even look at him!), didn't move, didn't even think much. i don't know. i'm sorry, if someone ended up reading this. i'm so tired, good night.

23 06 03

#anonymous #writing exercise #nonfiction #confession #creative writing #diary

[tropicalrpg]

23 it'll do

i try not to look at myself when i sit on the passenger seat of a car. i can't see myself on the mirror of my sister's car, but i can in every other; yesterday i sat on the passenger seat of the driver's ed car, and i could see my forehead and eyes on the centre rearview. it was weird. i hate seeing my mirror image. i hate seeing my image, period.

i've given up on long posts or elaborate essays. i've given up on making these into anything but excuses. these are writing exercises; i'm trying to get a habit going; i'm trying to keep myself from losing the skill i've always been proudest of. i'm a writer. words come to me. they used to. i look around in my essay-writing class and everyone writes better than i do, because i write one of three things (fanfic, erotic poetry, and school assignments) and they can write whatever they want. so my words are rusty and formal when they aren't forced. every word of mine is forced. my throat strains. my hands are cold.

i would like to talk of the beauty. i'd like to do it justice. i love being at uni, i love my friends, i love the days i can romanticise if i step outside my body for just a little bit. it's cold now. i wore my best football shirt today, but my hoodie covers it. i wish i had someone to hold me. i wish i remembered what it feels like to touch their skin. i've been gaining weight, and i don't think i mind it for myself at all. i mind it because it means i might need to buy new pants and it means i'm straying further away from finding easy love. i look at my skinny friend and see how easy it is for him to be desired. i know i'm not unlovable but it still stings to be the victim of unfairness. i think of how it's probably my fault. i clutch my fist to my chest. i should complain less, and take more action.

i listen to joji in public transport. i listen to the mountain goats when i should be studying. i read about migration policies. i notice closed doors and fleeting moments of warm sunlight. people nap around me. i have to figure out when to charge my phone, because i don't want to stop listening to music but there's only a usb-c entrance and i hate bluetooth earbuds. i have things to do. i have a life ahead of me.

i like short sentences and transitive verbs. i like the word like and i use similes waaaay more than metaphors or analogies. i say he does this like this, instead of saying he is a dove, he flies upwards into the light, he nestles soft against my chest and i'm very careful when i sigh because i don't want to startle him.

23 05 24

#anonymous #writing exercise #confession #creative writing #diary

[tropicalrpg]

22 i'm just gonna make my phone die. i always write these on my phone, did you know?

there's a boy and he kisses you. his lips are petals. there's a boy and he kisses you. he turns his head to the other side between these kisses, and his hair sways like light. there's a boy. there's nothing else. there's a boy, and gone are the girls and other boys and all other people, gone is the floor and gone is the ceiling. you hold your drink against his neck, and he doesn't complain about the chill. there's a boy and his sweat mixes with the condensation on your moscow mule and he kisses you. he licks the ginger foam off your cheek. there's a boy and his hand is ice cold on your waist. you didn't even notice him sliding his hand under there, and it makes you wonder if businessmen tuck their shirts for decorum, as in, they'll notice when the man next to them starts touching their skin. there's a boy and he's been there, he's still there, his mouth is still on fire, his eyes are still closed, and you kiss him now.

there's a boy inside your phone. he's not inside your phone, of course, but he seems like a mirage. there's a boy because the day is too warm and you're too lonely and you're prone to falling to cheap tricks. if you believe in fate does that mean you believe in magic? there's a boy, or at least you think. there's a growing pressure just beneath your brain, and it presses upwards, it presses the flat of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and you're lonely so you wonder what it would be like if someone's tongue were in the way. there's a boy whose tongue you wish was there, but there are other boys. there have always been so many boys.

there's a boy whose memory makes you shake a little. several. there are several boys whose memory makes you shake a little. several, to the point of you knowing the problem is you, your body, your feelings, your essential tremor. there's a boy who is more of an image than a boy. several. there are boys whose identities you've stripped from them because you're mean, you're wicked, and you wonder if you're unlovable or if your heart flees from being vulnerable. being loved is the worst thing that can happen to a person. there's a boy, and another one, and another one. love is a prison to all involved.

2023 05 22

#anonymous #writing exercise #creative writing #diary #prose poetry

[tropicalrpg]

21 an apology

i figured out it's easy to find what to write if you have something to say. there's no need to scramble for words if you imagine you're talking to someone you have things to say to.

in my head i am a better friend than you are. than you have ever been. but i also know i have held a grudge against you, hated you, even, for maybe 3 years now. how good of a friend could i have been then? even if i was there for you when you needed me, was your distance not better if my presence is hateful?

i'm just sick of forgiving you for things you didn't apologize for. i'm sick of waiting around for you to love me again. i'm sick of talking about you for hours on end for therapy session after therapy session. i'm sick of writing you letters you'll never read. i'm sick of your ghost around every corner of my life. i'm sick of having to think of you first.

i don't even want to write about you here, actually. my mouth tastes bitter and metallic when your name rings inside it. i do like him better than i like you: even if i've known you for six years and i don't yet talk to him that much, still he treats me nicer. he wants me there. you haven't for a while, unless you were feeling some kind of obligation to. some kind of guilty duty. i'm no more than a storm cloud for you, no more than driftwood. a bad thought which you stray away from. something fleeting and dark.

my sentences are aimless. pointless. my poetry rings untrue. i've always been insistent and when i gave up, you missed it. let me go, alice. let us go.

i didn't say sorry at all, did i. i don't want to. i don't think i have to apologise for i never spoke of my evils, not to you. not directly. i mistreat people instead of being direct; i don't know if that's better. i inherited my mom's passive-aggressiveness. i've been kind to you every time you needed kindness, i'd like to think. so fuck saying sorry until i feel i have to. fuck that. seriously. i should say sorry more, but i don't have to say it here and now, where you won't read it and you don't deserve it.

i'm sorry. for this energy. for being mean to you here. i needed to get it off my chest. feel better soon, whatever. you're going through a rough one and i can't let you go. but you need to recognise you're loosening your grip on me and i won't let you try to grab me back at the last minute again.

230515

#anonymous #confession #diary

[tropicalrpg]

20 a response

i don't know if i ever loved you. i must not have. i don't think i did, actually; it's not not knowing, it's knowing not.

i wanted you; was that not enough?

for every your loving me, i tried to love you back twice as much. i wanted to love you desperately, crazily, because for once i could see not only that someone yearned for all i hated about myself, but someone good saw good in me. and knew me. you knew me and we were so alike, and you looked at me despite my hating being seen. you saw me. you saw good in me. you were good. you could be likened to everything i wanted most, everything i liked best. i tried so hard to be good to you. i like to believe i was; i teetered constantly on the edge of truth, because i wanted you but i didn't want you to be hurt in case i wasn't capable of getting myself to love you. i still have yet to love you, i think. but i come to you like coming home. i trust you to be there at my beck and call, and i think in this way, too, i mistreated you.

it's just been a rough couple years. it's been a lonely few years. i've scarcely known what it is, being wanted. if you weren't the last, you were one of the latest. you were—and damnit, i don't want to put on your shoulders a weight that is unfair for you to carry—the truest. you were sweet and reliable. in my head, we were truly compatible, even if in practice sometimes it was hard to coexist with you. you were what i would like to believe i deserved.

and i could never have you. because you deserved more than me, because our timing was always off, because we hung around the same spaces and so yeah, perhaps you were in love with me, but i think you fucked my friend and almost fucked another one. (and the word i use is harsh because when it comes down to it i'm envious of them for having gotten more of you than i did, even though i came first). all the power to you, and i don't blame you or them for it; if i were you, i think i'd have taken the opportunities you got. you deserved every last one of them. in this, too, i was undeserving; i never acted, no matter the fact that i wanted you. i could've done something. i could've kissed you, lit the spark, taken the leap.

i've been thinking of your lips since a week after i met you. i've been thinking of your hands and wrists since you touched me for the first time. i've been thinking of you since you first thought of me, i think.

i write about you so vaguely because every day i know you less. i'm stuck in the teenage years that everyone around me has gotten over. i know you at fifteen, your eyes bright, your dreams different. i know you, i'd like to believe. still. but i know i don't.

go for a run with me. invite me to see you play; serenade me. slow dance with me like i've been dreaming of for years. let me meet your mom (i know that's a lot). hear my most intimate sounds like i shouldn't have suggested that time. be open and honest with me. hold me, because i'm small and i yearn, and i've been looking around every corner for you for the past two months, and my eyes thirst with your absences.

go on a date with me, joão. just one and i'll get out of your hair. i'll let you live your life without wanting to drag you right back to me. go with me to the museum and tell me about space. let's go back to the bamboo forest. let me kiss you just once, amid the trees, and i'll crawl back into the burrow i never was supposed to leave.

20230512

#nonfiction #writing exercise #anonymous #confession #creative writing #diary #prose poetry #poems and poetry #love poem #love letters

[tropicalrpg]

19 v5: i tried posting a lot of different things. i'm tired of posting. of trying. i went on and on about old love in a way that i'll have to recreate if i want to talk about love at all, but today i'm so tired. i'm drowning in eros. for someone's whose body is cold and blank, i sure know plenty of passion.

23 05 10

[tropicalrpg]

18 tomorrow i will walk out of my room in the morning and i might forget that i'm already thinking of the sun on my bed

i wish i could look the way a have a nice life song sounds. i'm sure there are people out there who look like every genre of music, because there are people out there that look like everything, but god id love to hang around ambient-looking mfs. i haven't listened to it much recently, but i kind of love ambient music.

like cucumber and orange slices in tea. like cropped button-ups and chinos, maybe, but i could wear that, so i dont think so. (i could make an effort to look ambient music if i wanted to, of course.) like leaving your heart open for the wind to blow through. like the irish countryside in a sunny autumn day. like grass next to a pond the sky's reflected on. like a properly loved poetry book.

beautiful, i guess. in a relaxing way. i think maybe if i listened to ambient music more, i'd be a happier person. i know have a nice life isn't an ambient band in the general sense and i definitely know their music is not relaxing or delightful (it is delightful, but not in a 'this is a delight!' way) like the things i'm talking about. i want to look like their music right now because i'm listening to it right now and i, as usual, feel kind of like shit. and i wish i could do the things that very likely will keep me from feeling like shit, but i can't. i can't get myself to.

i don't put tasty things in my tea because all i drink is gross stale water and sugar water (drink mix). i don't wear my button-ups cropped because i'm insecure and my hips and thighs are really wide, so i wear wide shirts that cover my ass in wide pants and i hope it's all hidden. my heart is closed because everyone that seeps through the cracks doesn't know the place they're in. i would love to go to ireland, and i would love it if fall wasn't dry and horrible (16 degrees in the morning, 29 after lunch). i live in a big, pondless city. i don't read poetry books.

i should switch from have a nice life to masakatsu takagi, my absolute beloved. (amamizu is the most beautiful song i have ever listened to. i think it might be my favourite song, but i've had a favourite song for so long that i forget about amamizu whenever someone asks. i'll try to remember, but i've been so forgetful lately.) i kind of was enjoying the bitter mood the music was putting me in. just absolutely misery. kind of wet, kind of cold. like a proper miserable day. but i don't want to feel like that, so i shouldn't. there we go. i'm listening to amamizu now. this song makes me want to dance without wanting to dance: it makes me picture flowery fields and being in love and big, billowy white skirts and families and love and picnics and fizzy water. it makes me think of that beautiful prairie in the howl's moving castle movie. it makes my heart swell up like a heat balloon.

listen to amamizu! if my brand new one follower (cheers!) comes across this, listen to amamizu!

2023-05-06

#nonfiction #writing exercise #creative writing #diary #ambient music #synesthesia #word association #amamizu #masakatsu takagi

[tropicalrpg]

17 hungry wanting

it's my birthday today. and i need all the world. i need everything. i lie in bed and i hunger. i want to see every building and hear every sound, eat up every feeling and drink up every star. i am insignificant and i want earth to rotate from within my stomach.

my friend's friend has the nicest shaped body i have ever seen. i can't keep myself from looking at him, despite his heterosexuality, despite the fact that no matter what, he'd be so fucking far out of my league. but he smiles and his waist just looks like that, and i let the rubble fall over me, rush over me like rapids.

my stomach is big and it feels empty. my skin hangs over itself and i want to cover the sky like clouds, i want to fly like a zeppelin, i want to step from building to building like i'm gulliver. i want to chew on bricks like i'm godzilla. give me the gift of satiation.

he has a permanent question of was i (me, not him) in love. he decided that no, even though briefly he admitted he was. and how do i tell him his mouth kept me calm, four years ago? when in a stressful situation, all i had to remind myself of was the shape of those stranger's lips, and i felt better. i was as in love with him as i could be. and i still think of him in exactly the same way, in exactly the same frequency, even though life has gone on and his life has gone places and he surely doesn't think of me anymore. i am not who i was when he loved me. he has only gotten better, and he only makes me think maybe i could love him, if given the chance. but there's only love in two way streets. he's so beautiful. i've wasted so many opportunities, i don't know if i deserve more.

the past wants me like a desperate person knocking on a glass door. i want it like i'm about to throw myself off a balcony. i run from it but it doesn't care, and takes the train. the immortal snail is not a meme or thought experiment: it's the thing that is always with you but never catches up, not until it kills you. it's the past. when the past meets you, it means you're no longer present.

today i once again remembered the boy whose image haunts me like the whisper of remorse. x. i haven't seen him in a while, but i see him everywhere. i see him in the teenager across the street and the boy that seems to be everywhere. i see him in green eyes and pale skin and tall, skinny bones. he's there, too, whenever i'm me. i never knew him but he knew me. i wanted to be in love with him so bad. i really thought i could maybe love him for who he never was. he did deserve better than i could ever offer him, and he still does. he has more serious things going on now—i'm the only one still dwelling on fifteen-year-olds and petty fights—

i sweat in my eagerness to digest atoms into pieces smaller than themselves, but they are indestructible. (atom, meaning indivisible.) i cough up and retch, and waveforms come crawling out of my mouth like a physicist's vomit. i got too greedy. the world got me good.

23 05 05

#nonfiction #anonymous #writing exercise #confession #creative writing #prose poetry

[tropicalrpg]

16 untitled

i lie outside in february. i lie outside and sweat pools beneath my lower back, down my sides, like i'm a freezing cold water bottle, like i'm your icy beer can, and the ashes from your cigarette stick to my skin. i don't have sunglasses and i left my shirt inside, so i have nothing to cover my eyes with but my arm; it's eleven in the morning; i roll my face to the side and groan at the heat.

when i open my eyes, i can't really see a thing. i rolled my head back straight. i stare at the cloudless sky and i swear to you it is grey, it is infinitely grey and not blue, never blue. and i love how blinding light and obscurifying shadow are the same: too much light, color can't get through, but not enough light and it loses its footing. i have to look away and find some grass so the cones in my retinas have something to focus on. and when i find the green, i look back and the world is blue again. blue sky, green leaves, sandy yellow stone. i haven't been to the beach in five years; i haven't loved my body in seven.

you smell of barbecue smoke and i reek of sweat. the heat makes me dizzy and i stumble back inside, unable to see anything in this lack of light, but i can hear your folk music playing somewhere. i want to kiss you, your spit-cold lips and your thin skin. i want to topple over like pisa's threat, like an airbombed building, like a boneless corpse. i want you to lift me up, to carry me bridal style, to wipe me clean of my skin.

i call for your name. you're like a painting in the kitchen, behind glass so the humidity and the warmth won't mold you, like an untitled canvas with not much but a gouache sketch. you're like an artist's earnest sight. you look at me like i'm a gentle spring breeze, like i'm a wildflower, and i come to you like a sparrow.

2023 05 01

#poems and poetry #creative writing #writing exercise #prose poetry

[tropicalrpg]

15 today is just a day

i guess more than a space to confide and confess. more than a place where i can go on and on about the things that plague me. this blog is a diary in the sense that it allows me to record my day to day.

(i had a little journal, technically still have it, that was in a way or two meant to serve the same purpose as this blog. actually no, not at all. that journal was meant to be a diary; this blog was meant for me to write. they just ended up being used in the same way because i am me and i can't write daily or write purposeful, pretty prose. they both ended up being used whenever i needed to get something off my chest, instead of, well, to write down my day-to-day and daily literary musings, respectively.)

today was a very plain and boring day. my family isn't home, my parents having gone to an extended family party and my sister having gone camping with her friends. i'm home. tomorrow i'm gonna have to study a lot because i haven't today or yesterday. i have my driving test on wednesday and although i hope i do well, i think i'm gonna fucking bomb it. we'll see.

today i woke up late (10:45, roughly; mostly the fault of yesterday's/today's post, i'd say) and ate late. my dog spent a lot of the morning/early afternoon with me on the couch. then i played some minecraft by myself, then with my friend, then by myself. i spent two hours waiting for turtle eggs to hatch. i read a teeny bit—i wish i'd read more—and watched quite a lot of dimension 20. i'm bad at replying to whatsapp messages. i'm bad at having real life friends. i feel alone whenever i'm by myself in a way that retroactively permeates the moments when i was with friends. that doesn't happen with everyone. i wonder if my real friends are the ones whose company i'll never regret or feel bad about; the ones who i'll never look back on and realize i wasn't really with a friend at all.

i dug a little hole in a candy bag my dad bought. like a little mouse. i didn't want to fully open the bag because that would be so blatant, and i don't know if i can open it. (i don't know what it's for.) i think what i did was worse, to be quite frank. maybe someone really will think a mouse or a store thief opened that hole. i doubt it. i just stole one candy. just one.

2023/04/30

#diary

[tropicalrpg]

14 00:20 on a sunday time for some self diagnosis

there should be a word, maybe, for someone like me. there might be. i don't know.

here's the thing. my sister's a doctor who's against medicine. well, she's not a doctor yet, but very soon, and soon to the point of she barely has theoretical classes anymore. and she's against medicine in the sense that she is against the way doctors operate; she is against overdiagnosis, overmedicalization, overexamination. she believes most doctors aren't good doctors or exercising their profession properly. most people who have been to a few different doctoes know that to be true, i think.

living with her every day of my life makes it so i have to agree. most people, my parents included, put some blind faith in doctors. and of course they do! to some extent, they should! (maybe not blind, but faith.) doctors do know more about your ailment than you do—they did go to school and were supposed to learn about it, while you have every other thing in your life going on, usually (particularly for nonchronic issues. i don't know the word for that, especially not in english). there is all the likeliness in the world that your doctor will be better at treating you or helping you than you would be by yourself. that doesn't mean they're doing things the best way possible, though. that could be for two reasons, of course—because they can't, for reasons of time or resources, or because they can't, for reasons of sheer inability or sloth.

one way or another, living with a doctor or soon-to-be doctor who wants to be the best doctor she can be, who is going to one of the best schools and practising at some of the best hospitals, etc etc, living with her just makes me see medicine differently. and i'm not 100% on her side; she tends to diminish things, maybe because of the way she is, maybe because she sees cases so extreme, our day-to-day issues seem irrisory. when i caught covid, she was sure it was going to be just the flu, and that i shouldn't have worried or distanced myself (before the results came back); she doesn't worry too much about my friends' smoking or the fact that i'm a passive smoker, because it doesn't add up to the amount of smoking that does irreparable damage to you; my dad was worryingly ill a few weeks ago and because of her lack of worry he didn't go to the hospital, despite my mom and i begging him to. i am not on her side, nor do i think the way she sees medicine is the best way for our family or a family practitioner in general. i don't think she'll be the great doctor she thinks she'll be, but of course i can't fight her on this. i have to put my blind faith in her morals.

my point being, because she's a strict doctor, she often checks medically reliable diagnostic criteria (only one of those words is in the bible, probably) and dispells any worries of ours. i had some coughing that lasted me a while a little after my dad got sick, and there have been "watch out for tuberculosis" ads on the bus (have you been coughing for over two weeks? could be TB! type things), so i thought maybe that's what i had and he had and it would be a big problem, but with a few touched and a few swipes, there we go. she checks her phone and nope—have i have any fever? i have not. then i don't have tuberculosis.

and one thing that i thought a lot about maybe "having" was autism. not just now; this has been true for a while. i never really brought it up to people, and didn't even think about it a lot, until she came up to me with an example of someone that was, and i quote, just like me; an example of an autistic patient of hers that, in the same way i've done since childhood, had her bedroom tidied up and reorganized by family members and broke down crying. i didn't use to just cry, but also hissy fits, the urge to break things, etc. that was the first time, i think the only semi-serious time, my sister pointed out a possible autism of mine. lmao.

one more piece of context: my sister learns a lot of symptoms and diagnostic criteria and stuff like that, so she sends me some, jokingly, relatively often. i don't know how much she meant that one. it just finished planting the seeds in my mind, and since then, which i don't even know when it was, i haven't stopped thinking about autism. my autism. autistic recognition and community empowerment has only grown since, too, and that, well, means i see more things about autism. which i think is both bad and good for me, and bad and good for the world.

i am not wholly against self diagnosis. i think it can be really helpful in many ways. i think and know not everyone has access to professional healthcare, and even then that less people have access to quality care, and even less have a support system or an understanding reality that will welcome whatever diagnosis they receive. self diagnosis is also important, especially with something like neurodivergency, since it can be an important first step in seeking a professional view if you can get one.

but i do think there has been a surge of self diagnoses that maybe aren't wholly supported. and i say this especially because i think that, if it were not for my sister, i think i would be one of those. I wouldn't know actual diagnostic criteria, and would just use the fact that i recognise so many autistic behaviours and patterns in myself. i do think my sister's presence is actually not that great in this aspect of my life (like i said, she downplays symptoms and medical worries and if i had listened to her i could have passed covid to my elderly parents), but this here essay (lmao) is not a therapy session, even if it may seem like it, even if i might really need to bring this up in therapy and i haven't, i haven't, because i also worry i have a tendency to overselfdiagnose so i can be special. anyway. um.

(a brief parentheses on that: i am a really, really, really privileged person. my life is stripped of pretty much any hardships. but as a kid I didn't want to feel left out, i didn't want to be the normal suburban kid in a group of emos, so i think i induced myself or scrambled for the possibility of saying hey, i, too, have that. i don't know. i often feel guilty for how i act, joking like i have it hard, when i really, really don't. i don't know.)

i think some people have been basing self diagnoses on identifying "symptoms" or relating to behaviours without, i don't know, putting more emphasis on being medically accurate. i don't think this is the case for all self diagnoses, or even most, but i think it happens. tiktoks about "adhd things" often have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views and likes. and that's fine! some behaviours everyone has, or, better put, most people have at least some behaviours that would be in a list of "adhd" or "autism" or whatever "things". because neurodivergency and neurotypicality aren't two binary extremes, and we know binaries to be necessarily false. life's on a spectrum, etc.

the problem arises, for me, on the summation of several, and i mean several, behaviours. and all the time. not every behaviour, of course, but really often i find myself relating to something, or remembering something, that could enter my "list" (i have a friend who, to rationalize his self diagnosis, made a list of autistic behaviours of his; another friend of his couldn't get over how that should be enough proof of his status). and now is one of those times:

i watched this tiktok, and just like i mentioned above, it has hundreds of thousands of likes; at the moment of writing this, it has almost 800k. and like, yes, yes, it's normal for everyone to have some autistic behaviours, but i had no fucking clue this was an autistic thing. it might be my most defining fucking characteristic, for fuck's sake, and it's an autistic behaviour?

i went out with my friends yesterday and it came up, like it always fucking does, that i "know everything". because every time they ask something, i immediately have an answer; sometimes because i know things, but often because i always have a guess; the world makes sense! things work according to rules, to tendencies, to (apparently) patterns! i have a lot of surface or general knowledge and a good memory and that allows you to answer anything. does it not? if you're twenty years old, how can you not be able to reply to anything (to a reasonable extent)? you've lived and read and seen enough to know enough so that the world around you makes sense. no? no? is what i'm doing an exception? i'm not even lying with conviction, i'm making likely assumptions that take into consideration the world around me. is that not simple and rational? how can this be the exception behaviour?

(and this comment: @The_trash_man:This is actually how I went 8 years without realising I need glasses, I just look at the context and guess what the words are based on what I can see. is that not what people do?? when their vision is blurry or the text is too small? if you're looking at, i don't know, a tv remote, and you see two pairs of buttons with an up arrow and a down arrow, you can guess from the shapes of the words and from the context that one will say volume and one will say channel. do people really read everything to know what it says? no way. no way.)

now, to get back to my sister. she's the reason I haven't brought autism up to my therapist, despite considering it multiple times. because she's absolutely certain i'm not autistic. because it has never hindered, and still doesn't hinder, my life in any way; because a diagnosis would change nothing; and because, most importantly, of course, I don't fit the main three diagnostic criteria. which i cant recall right now, and i tried downloading her diagnosis app but i don't have a valid user, but if i remember right is something about impediments of the social, sensorial and speech. not impediments, just deviances. oh that sounds worse. you know what i mean. non-normative. anyway.

what i wonder is if there's a word for someone like me. i fulfill a lot of the side criteria—my raads-r was a hundred and a few, maybe 120—but not the main three, which all have to be fulfilled, i think, for a medical standard diagnosis. is there a word for someone who's collaterally neurodivergent? because i'm neurotypical, i guess, in the sense that I have no diagnosed (or maybe diagnosable) neurodivergencies, but i'm also not like my neurotypical friends, and i have a lot of neurodivergent behaviours and stuff. is there a word for that? is it just neurodivergency? is it just neurotypicality?

i don't know. my throat hurts, i should sleep. it's already 1:13.

2023.04.30/29

#nonfiction #anonymous #confession #personal essay

[tropicalrpg]

13 just came back from the only creative writing class i'll probably ever take

i have an american friend to whom i've described redação class as essay-writing. that's not quite it; i didn't write an essay until, well, i wouldn't say i have. i was supposed to write an essay last year and one a couple weeks ago, but none of them are proper essays, like i'm writing now and would like to write more. (i tried to write an essay last year that i have yet to finish. i think it would be really interesting, even if i turned into an article.)

redações, especially in the enem model (and maybe i'm being a little bitch for writing about something like this in english, but consider this an introduction to the brazilian school system) (consider; you: consider this; you: my nonexistent reader, my guinea pig, my english-speaking pet), are anything but creative writing. here's the basic idea: you get a prompt upon which you have to build an argument. you get 30 handwritten lines. you have to reference another field of study, and in the last paragraph you have to propose a solution to the prompt's problem that fulfills a series of criteria (deed, agent, means, finality, details). you have to write this in up to a couple hours but ideally less than one, with no access to any type of resources to do research or base your argument on.

i hope it comes across, in the instructions given to write a redação enem, that it's just ridiculous. it does not build better students, better writers, or better citizens. you have to excell at writing redações enem in order to get into university, and that's basically all you need to know how to write them for; how do they make you better scholars? in what way do they prepare you for higher education? i study "letters", or what would be the equivalent to an english degree except it's not a portuguese degree but instead a languages, literature or linguistics degree; the second i got into uni, the only thing i would ever use a redação enem for would be to get a job. and that job is correcting redações enem; i have never, and know that i will never, have to write any sort of text anything like those ever again.

that class was not essay-writing. i described it as such because going over the details like i went here would have been wasted time, and it's a lot easier to work with approximations, like how american high schoolers have to write essays, we have to write redações. it's a similar exercise in practising textual skills, how to write, how to argue. it doesn't work the same, however, and perhaps the one thing i'd say the american education system has over ours (theoretically, not in practice) is the presence of essays from a young age.

essays are great. this creative writing class, which is not a creative writing class because that's not a thing teachers can offer as a class, but it is largely a class about producing each a singular essay (nonacademic, thank the lord; i've written academic essays already, but it's the still scholarly but truly creative pieces that i'm fascinated by) that has all the freedom in the world to be creative — this creative writing class is quite simply and quite literally a class on essays. reading and writing them. i have never read so many essays and learned so much, and i've never appreciated a literary genre more. this feels like true literature. the peak of nonfiction and fiction alike. i don't know; it's hard to find the words for it.

this is all to say that on monday, i think, my professor talked about writing with limitations. he asked if any of us had tried that (i could not allow myself to mentions things such as, i've written for fanzines that required certain lengths; required me to rewrite certain scenes; i've participates in ship week events that had me writing different stories of thousands of words day after day; i won nanowrimo in 2018, at fourteen fucking years old) and then mentioned how we are always writing with limitations, and, as an example, he cited writing tweets. i use twitter a lot, i always have and it might forever be my primary social medium, but i don't feel limited there. i feel more limited here, not only on this blog because i put a pressure on myself to write posts as long as i can make them but also because originally i wanted to write every day. i failed both ways.

i also failed if we look at my unnamed inspiration. they're so fucking poetic. to be frank, these days i hate their poetry, but their prose, good god. i hate their poetry and i hate their plot and i hate the characterisation they give to characters i love, but i adore their prose. and when they wrote every day for a couple months, they didn't push out blog posts that read like linear essays, not like i do. i start on a subject and get right to it, or even if not right to it i follow a line of thought. is that because i've grown up writing these disgusting, succint argumentative texts? i cannot say. but i can't suddenly write maybe two thousand words about swans in love. if i can get myself to be honest about my past and my present, i'm already doing more than i ever have. my writing has never been about me. maybe that's why i find essays so liberating.

2023.04.26

#essay #essaywriting #nonfiction #anonymous #personal essay #essay writing #creative writing