Blue/Jacket

I don’t know why he’s here.

And he looks back at me, just as confused at me and holding a painting in his hand and in that leather jacket with One For The Road written on it with something else written below it and I can see how shaved the back of his head is, how his hair is styled in a quiff and how he looks at me, a look which every year I change my opinion on.

At first, it’s normal, I’m attracted to a man,

but it changes at least in the eyes of many people when I put on the binder and people comment on how flat I get and they ask me, why do I look like a man

and those who have some sense in their heads, they just say ‘oh’ and their mouth stays like that

and I can still recall him,

maybe this year it’s different

I can’t recall anything but something soft in his eyes, so many years ago, I just know the stories that the man in the leather jacket had inspired me to draw. We didn’t talk, we just stood side by side and I got pissed that my sketch or whatever the fuck that was, wasn’t praised and that I had gotten mad and he just watched me, he sat besides me as I drew as the lady went on to look at other’s children’s art

it was like some art school test which I’d take many years later with my mom trying to do something with my hair and I’d hiss too loud and then apologize.

I’d apologize.

Fuck, I’d apologize even to myself for wondering where would the man be, his eyes focused on my scribbles. 

Then I come out as gay. Simple, right? Gay trans man, I take two letters from LGBT, but no, if I am transitioning why do I not go for women, wouldn’t it be simpler to “stay” a girl and use my vagina and of course, the argument

children.

For the love of fuck. No. Not now and frankly, I’m not even sure anyone would want children with me.

I’ve tried sketching him, I’ve tried and I’ve stopped, scared, trembling that I’d get him wrong and the image would disappear from my head. 

He’d vanish.

I’d even try to recreate his haircut at a barber’s just to get told it’s a man’s haircut and regret having the hair way too damn short, yet not many kronen were spent and nachos were bought on the way back. In the end I was given a shorter haircut and heading to Willy’s still seemed victorious. I felt lost, trying not to think too much of the fact that I had to actually call the doctor even if I’ve had enough T injections on me for the next few weeks. 

Sometimes I wondered how much should I discard of him, but then the paranoia of a new city seemed to dazzles me as sometimes I just sit in T-Centralen wondering why the fuck do I live so much up north with lakes with ducks which never leave and I leave not even remembering that I could’ve picked up some Ben’n’Jerry’s at Hemköp. 

I still count everything in my head and still translating even the minor things as I look right to choose a bigger grädfil and I see him. 

With the jacket, the neatly shaved back of the head.

He’s got a scarf around him, his quiff intact and eyes nearly fully sleepily closed, the leather jacket opened though, the letters a bit rubbed off on the back, not as clear as in my head-

And he glances at me, his dark eyes not catching anything and he’s a bit shorter than I am. I don’t grab the grädfil, still staring at him as he just grabs the Russian kefir and turns around, not even with a cart. 

It’s minus and he’s in the leather jacket and I think I’ve shivered enough and I just stare at him, I walk behind him, my cart nearly empty and he doesn’t bother to look back and I can’t see to wake up from my nightmare gone wrong, as he still walks past the isles, past the press with Princess Victoria and the one brand of Swedish condoms. I watch him pay and I don’t even say hej, praying that I’ll manage to follow him and I just make a dash to the further exit to do self-check out in a second and when I walk out he’s there with a fag between his lips. His dark eyes focus on me and I didn’t button up anything and I get reminded on how I’m sure I don’t look attractive at all with something like a bad stubble never really shaved off properly and the haircut just done because I wanted something masculine, but he doesn’t bat an eyelash. 

My voice didn’t even break properly and I’ve regretted refusing voice therapy and every time I feel quiet and sad instead of asking. I still feel guilty for what I am doing with transmen being nonexistent and the world applauding Jared Leto’s nomination. My fear closes my eyes and triggers me to even to talk to someone who is giving me a taste of deja vu which becomes bitter with fright. 

I’m a different class, I have the risk of getting a straight man who will see me as a woman or someone in the queer zone who will also see me as a woman. Women portray transmen, I’m seen as a drag and no one cares, people are too busy thinking that other discrimination is worse. People are daft.

I want to touch his arm, but I don’t know how to approach. I just follow him, hoping that deja vu will steal lead me somewhere with him. I don’t even recall his name.

How do you ever converse with people? After I realized who I were I just isolated in my room, reading and watching everything I could and after school I’d bind my chest to make sure to take it off once my parents would arrive. I had no knowledge, I thought the best I could get was an erect dildo in my pants.

I keep walking, the face of Jared Leto haunting me with all the unheard trans voices including my own and he turns around, the box of kefir opened already. 

I don’t realize that I’m already home, a name I had already stuck to this place because I am far too clingy to anything which doesn’t call me a woman for the first five seconds. He opens the door and I can’t help but feel as if I am in a fairytale, it’s not even that I don’t know who he is, I don’t, fine, but I know where I’ve seen him. I keep looking at him and I try to guess his age but nothing besides twenties gives out any hints and I wonder if he still draws as he opens the door for me to walk through. I nod and I walk through as he has a small smile as we stand near the elevator with the odd signs which I haven’t gotten used to it yet.

I wonder if the elevators are IKEA as well or at most Jysk. 

I glance back at him.

“Hej.” And my Swedish is at such a horrible level that I laugh at slutstation every fucking time which means final stop. I just smile bleakly before I ask him in a very crooked Swedish if he speaks English, so far only two people I’ve met haven’t spoken English which for someone as dumb as me is a horrid privilege. 

“Oh, yeah. I figured. I mean, your accent also gives it away.” I freeze up. My accent and my girly voice, even if the hormones have started changing my body, my voice is far from anything. I paled up a bit and he just gives a soft smile, taking another sip from the kefir. 

“I mean, you’re from Liverpool or somewhere, aren’t you?” His accent now I realize shows that he has been living in Sweden but not for too long, but still has a soft tint of the local speech. 

“Oh, yeah.” We walk out on the same floor and I understand that I have to finish my groceries later. I can’t talk. I even forget how to deepen my voice, but his face seems soft and slowly the deja vu is slowly wearing off as I feel reality dawn on me. 

He’s real again.

-

I actually had this idea for a very long while and I've kept it in the drawer taking it out and adding a phrase or so to be honest xD

But Jared Leto's winning really triggered me as a person who has a trans partner and I've had transphobic attacks towards me and my partner, so yes, I fucking care and it's disgusting. And unfortunately I can't do much again besides give my own representation in stories.

The fact of making Miles trans in this story came from my thought of why are they always portrayed as cis in fanfiction? We have gender swap and everything, but we still have cis Milex all the time, pretty much. 

And in general trans are highly ignored in society or worse, ridiculed. There is barely any representation and I just really wanted to have a transman character and here I am with Miles. Also a lot of people don't know about how transition for FTM works, so I will be touching that. 

About the plot, it came to me in an odd dream where I felt that I was young and I was once back again in art school and Alex was standing next to me in his jacket. It was like an odd sense of deja vu, I won't recall the dream as it happened months ago and that's how the idea came to be. I also had an intense deja vu feeling once, which had been odd and it made me attracted to a person, who had resembled a person I had met the year before and I was fascinated with. I wasn't used to meeting people who had been both artists and writers and the 2nd person looked a lot like the first. I guess that's how all came to be. Both were douchebags to be said and back when I believed myself to be a straight woman, which is funny.

I don't understand why we are taught that our genitals dictate everything and people's fear of the wrong genitals. These stupid beliefs ruin lives and shits like Jared Leto keep it up to remind us that genitals do matter. 

Ugh.

Anyway, all I can say is flip a finger and just keep reading, supporting LGBT movies, fiction and everything you can, really.

Oh, also this is the first story I've actually properly set in Stockholm which has been published online xD I guess living here made me want to use it as a setting and it is very LGBT friendly which is amazing and which the world seems to lack terribly. So I'm pretty much sticking wee things in like stores and stations to I guess give the feel, just like you say the character drank a mexican coke xD

Shamelessly used both titles in mind xD

I hope you enjoyed it and please tell me if you did so as I am quite nervous about my writing as usual xD

Please feel free to request :3

Update (2016): This had been written back when I didn't know I was trans, so the backstories are odd xD now I know why I loved this story so much and related to it.

<3