Poison the Rose 5

I still get asked questions regarding my relationship with Lana, I get told that unfortunately I have to answer them all even with pauses, water in the room and Jamie smoking outside the building, his own turn after my own, even if we had been buying wine. I don’t understand why the more she decomposes the more I am suspected, but soon the questions turn around, as I get asked more but now about who could’ve done this to Lana if it wasn’t me

For they say that lovers kill lovers

Or that my love could’ve killed.

I’m dismissed and when all things are done and Jamie walks out, coughing, passing me his phone.

“I couldn’t get a copy, but I think photos were enough. Knew a lad.” Before I even get to properly glance at them he sends them back to me. I narrow my eyes at him.

“Isn’t mail traceable and whatnot?”

“They denied you the right to have the evidence, when you were her fiancé. If the law is on someone’s side or God, if you must, it’s yours.” He lights a cigarette, flicking through his phone. “I’m also interested in why had they cut Lana’s hair. It doesn’t make sense-”

I bite my lip.

“Some metaphor or sign, I presume.” My mania reaches out to make my vision as clear as day, sleep slipping away and I feel my body shake, scrolling through the photos of Lana’s death and how I had lifted her up, there were even close ups of my face.

“Did you do the test?”

“Excuse me?” I raise my eyes, not even realizing that I’ve been staring at Jamie’s usual suede boots which haven’t changed in the past months. Maybe they are too comfy. It’s the second pair. 

“I heard them talking what if you were delusional and killed her.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s two women, of course they’ll start thinking, it’s always like that.” He shrugs and I just look away, watching his cigarette smoke be freer than any of my thoughts would be, as we just stand still near the building, barely managing to even move anywhere, the fountain closed for winter and people seem to be closing as well. 

All seems done.

They still tell us we can bury her slowly after, when we’re all rested from the fact that she’s dead, hours later, myself on the old French couch Jamie even sleeps on at times, when he’s got a depressive episode, before she’s fully decomposed and I try one of Lana’s white dresses and once I put it on and Jamie tells me that I look great, I start hyperventilating. It feel suffocating, as I even call Jamie into the room.

I yank it off, before going to the bathroom and puking

I don’t want her out, as Jamie holds my hair back.

I want her to stay, but not like this,

not like this

I vomit again, feeling my throat tear apart and I just push the dress away with my leg.

“I think you looked great.” He tells me and I shake my head, puking again, now sitting on the cold floor, my chin trembling, scared of the simple dress. 

I have odd thoughts in my head as I glance at it again, motioning for him to take it away, all Jamie does is pick it up and throw it out of the checkered tile bathroom, as I bend over again, now hiccups reaching me, shaking, shattering me, I feel that hyperventilation may greet mania now. 

“I feel paranoid. I don’t want to wear it. I don’t want to claim something.

I don’t want to claim.”

I puke, thinking fast.

I think of the fucking granola quote.

“I feel like I’m half-made. I don’t understand so many things.” I look up at him. “You once told me I was gender defying.”

I puke.

“Maybe I am. Then that distances myself from everything I’ve said. That distances me from the myself I knew or wanted to know, believe, whatever.” He hands me tap water, I down it, feeling my stomach unease even more, but nothing goes up. “It’s not my fight, when I’m seen as a trend. I am and I am not. 

I am and I am not.” I wrap my hands around me, above my stomach.

I am nothing.

I am both.

I don’t puke.

The thoughts are sudden of realization at a time of trauma, because the mind is a time bomb.

I don’t know where I go, I just seem desperate.

Because by the end of the day we are left alone with the people who we are alone with. Lana would be one of them. But she’s gone and I don’t know where, I don’t know how and I don’t even know how to reach and the mystery makes me wonder what had happened and how do you even move on when your heart is taken?

What is the point if the only answer why you’re not suicidal on a hotline is the beloved?

How much is agreed upon us?

For some reason, I feel as if I have to prove what’s worse separation or death and I look back at Jamie, recalling our break up for some reason as he holds from smoking and sits besides me, as I keep drinking the water, feeling all my body shake from the cold shock and knowing that when you do things, your body escapes and you’re left somewhere else. I close my eyes, as if I were dreaming again, knowing of the places with streamers where I would never see her again, because all love is the same and all the confessions are the same, but I’ll never hear them again.

So the question is do I want to live with her memories with me or do I want to end myself as well and I feel his hand on my wrist. 

For some reason I remember how I had broken down when we had broken up, after all a break up seems to be more tragic than a death by psychological standarts, because Lana never refused me, just life did. My head starts spinning and I wave his hand away, my hair in front of my face as I start gasping for air.

We haven’t even looked at the evidence yet.

“Break ups make you think of gender.” My chin trembles, because dating Lana had made me close that chest for once and for all, her death opened all my darkest secrets. I look at him. “Because it makes you ponder or rather when you talk to people about it, it makes you ponder. Is it better for them or for you to come out?”

I pause, pressing myself against the wall, recalling how I get singulated as a woman in music, always. I keep talking, feeling regret be able to rewind later as places circulate in my mind with Lana, places which had gone wrong but not her. 

I straighten up, exposing my neck, before it gets closed again. Love shatters us. Not being able to hear the love.

“And is there being a point at being angry at someone who doesn’t understand?” I press my forehead against the cold tile wall, missing checkered. “What is the point if we lose touch anyway when people get angry at you for being who you are?”

I feel mute, yet speaking in front of a crowd, letting myself and my decoy anger out.

“I don’t want a conflict of the self if I don’t have one.” Everything seems to be leaving my body. I hiccup. “It’s been a while since I thought of it.”

I wonder if I should try to stand up, as I get far too fidgety from solely sitting. 

“We’ve got a cult of femininity. You can’t say you’re not a woman, because then you’re erasing the image people thought of because they looked up to someone who wasn’t female and then that makes them question themselves because they’re sure of their gender, I can’t speak for them and you’re sure about your gender so then it becomes a question for them, why were they looking up to someone who is not one?” I squeek to Jamie as he looks at me, reminiscing all our talks, making sure not to speak yet. 

Lana never knew.

I start crying.

-

I derailed as it's supposed to be far more surreal, but I'll be getting there, since I've been mostly writing more realistic stories these days and that's how my writing style has been going as well >.>

I really feel like discussing Lana's death would be me talking and spoiling things, so I'll unfortunately be silent regarding that and Jamie is pretty much like a side-kick here and helping Alison through this mentally, so yeah. I kind of always had Callie with me, so it's rather natural for me to give someone to help you through rough times in stories and yeah. I'm sorry I'm rather anxious tonight and I hope you'll like this chapter, frankly:)

I think the main emphasis goes on the fact which worried me, did I make Alison's coming out too sudden? And well, since Alison is androgynous I poked Callie as usual on it and we both frankly sat and thought that well it does come like a bang on the head and in my case, I mused on gender a lot before I fully realized who I was, so that frankly used. And it's not really the first time I've had Alison as trans, because there's obviously Stale Smoke In A Running Circle which I really miss, but I like the ambigious ending there and I dunno, I still have a headcanon that VV (I really do differentiate the current and past Alison) was androgynous, well, I think, so yeah, I kind of carry that headcanon to stories. 

There's an interview where Jamie talks how Alison once wanted to go on stage in a dress and he said she looked amazing but at the last moment she changed from it, so I kind of used that for dysphoria frankly, because there are items of clothing which scream at you and you feel uncomfortable and dysphoric in or without for that matter. 

I vomit when my anxiety reaches a very high level, so I use that in stories I guess as the anxiety peak. 

Jamie once called Alison gender-defying back in Keep on Your Mean Side. 

I think I have to say that coming out is awfully hard and I come from an unnaccepting place and I was told that being male doesn't suit me among other things, that I was erasing strong women because I am "one" so yeah, that was very hurtful and awful to hear, so me and Callie were outside and I actually started writing an angry conversation which is now what you see with Alison talking to Jamie, but it was intended for One For The Road actually, but I wasn't sure if I would make Alison androgynous there too, so I read out most of it to Callie and I derailed and I was angry and obviously had the word man in it instead of someone else, because in their eyes they shouldn't be praising and looking up to a man, because I don't match the standarts of one in their eyes. That was very hurtful and that's why I'm pushing out this chapter, because I'm tired of getting told about all this bullshit that you're erasing women by coming out as male, that then you take away the strong women, but how can you put men as women? Exactly. So I've been awfully pissed off about it, frankly.

I have many lines here and the more I go on, with all the bullshit, I usually tell it to Callie vocally even if I speak of her so often here, but she is the reason for me to exist and everything, so yeah, I'm thankful I met her so early in life, so yeah. I really speak a lot to her through prose but when it's like a backstory essay as funny as it is, it feels very public xD And I'm rather quiet about that at times, more of a keep it to the person you love, really because you're telling that to them. 

When I was studying psychology I remember I got told or taught that divorce is worse than a parent's death and I actually said that I don't agree and well, maybe it's because I had different circumstances but I wanted to bring that in, really and think on it.

The streamers and the place play a role, it's funny how specific old parts of cities seem to carry places and yeah, I wanted to keep that here and to use it for Lana and Alison here. 

I had discovered who I was properly after a break up so I used that, really

A broken heart kind of pushes you painfully forward into right directions, really.

I really spoke from the heart on the monologue. I am who I am and I hate that people loved me for someone else. I am me and I'm male, thank you very much. Fluid, though, but male.

I hope you enjoyed it and thank you, tell me if you liked it, I'm sorry I've had a rough couple of days emotionally, so yeah and sorry if I'm not very interractive, but I really appreatiate any messages, thank you

Thank you

<3

Jamie