Blue/Jacket 9

It gets worse every day with each noise and scroll, because all of a sudden it’s really not ok to be gay and trans. I look at a sleeping Jamie, to just remind myself that I care too much, maybe I am right, maybe men do distance themselves from it and I’m the sole one who cares, because I have no one else, is that it?

I quickly head over to the mirror, the day already shredded to the dark, as I curse, feeling a bit cold even if the heating is on everywhere and I quickly pee, sighing, rubbing my eyes, maybe that’s why I’m not male.

And the thoughts just start luring me in, that because people think it’s wrong, I can’t be one, that I should be embracing my vagina or whatever, because male is wrong. I stand up to look at myself in the mirror, whining at the small acne breakout and at least the razor burns had started healing. It had been awful, it’s as if even my skin doesn’t want me. 

I feel my breath become sharper and I press myself against the tub, wincing lightly until I hear steps and the door opens with a shirtless Jamie. I’m without my binder but it’s not even that I’m without it for myself, it’s that he doesn’t look down and stands next to me, pressed against the bathtub, asking me if I were alright, still yawning and putting his hand on my head. Sometimes you need to be reminded that you’re loved. I take his hand and press it on my cheek. The desire to not leave. I still feel like shit, though. 

Once you get out of education the world is much more delusional than I had ever thought, as if the whole world had much more problems with understanding and feeling reality than I ever had.

I like watching the windows go one by one at night and I wonder if the war swallows if so will the forest or would our living souls be the first to go?

We all want to be called perfect beings but we’re not sure about that regarding ourselves, so it’s better to blame someone else in inaccuracy.

"So do you like it in Sweden?" I shrug at first, thinking of a proper answer.

"I do like it a lot, frankly, but I’ve had a few incidents when you realise why people prefer DIY or there’s a whole cult around staying at home, because those who decide sometimes to either trim your hair or hand you post over will be the scummiest because there’s a whole cult of having less interaction as possible from what I’ve seen. I dunno, when I didn’t get my binder at the post coz they didn’t like my ID for no fucking reason, the guy did a post-it note so that everyone would call him even when he wasn’t at the post, kind of stands out. Or when I’ve decided to get a haircut next time myself so that I don’t get misgendered. It’s stuff like that. It took me two days to get my fucking binder frankly. He told me not to do post again and I just wanted it over, that really hits home because I know I don’t have all Swedish ID yet and when I called the post and everyone, all the replies were we have no idea what’s his problem, go speak to him. That kind of strains it, because when you come here you’re shoved that you’re not good enough for something at a very small scale, it gets to you because of what you’ve faced before and that fucks me up. But then I like the isolation, when I came I got told that it’s cold everyone is distant and hates each other, I like that. But not when they don’t allow me to get my binder. But when you come from people misgendering you all the time, a few ruckuses isn’t too bad. It just pushes you into being in your house more which is something you want, but you don’t want by force. I want to have an option rather than know of incompetence which doesn’t tolerate me. On top of that the binder person was a guy, when you grow up being forced into being a gender you’re not and male being the worst thing possible in your eyes by society you look at such individual if you can even call them that and ask, am I that? So it’s like dysphoria on dysphoria and you’re fighting for a fucking binder."

I pause on it.

“But don’t get me wrong, I like it, I really do, I wouldn’t have stayed or I would’ve gone elsewhere. I really do. I just get scared at times, because you’re still shoved in the face by the world that you should stay where you are or at most move to where your beloved is from, fuck the laws... That’s really fucked up.” I run a hand through my hair, watching his dark eyes keep absorbing me, as we lay in bed, barely touching still keeping some sort of shallow innocence with the lights on. “I just get scared.”

I swallow my own fear.

“Because it’s a nightmare to get the documents and now everyone is moving here, because where else do you? Before London used to be liberal and now it’s all white washed, you don’t really get anyone anymore, just Brits and I’m not comfortable knowing that my country axes anyone, myself included... So what the fuck do you do then?”

“I’m Brazilian. If I was trans, I’d be so fucked. People just call transwomen transvestites and that’s as far as it goes...” He pauses, sighing. “I only know rude words in portuguese for trans men, it’s really fucked up. And because of the fucking parade in Sao Paolo we’re considered great. Because of a fucking parade. Try walking the streets of Rio without being mugged, in this case not even queer or not.”

Jamie rubs his eyes.

“Me and Al... we were in Brazil, with Jack actually, quite a few years ago and we nearly got knifed and we just left.” Jamie pauses for a bit. “And we decided to take time off in Spain, that’s when Alex cheated on me.”

I feel the nausea of his pain come back, as he even sits up slightly before pulling the covers over us, reminding of the ups and downs of Swedish heating. 

“I can’t stand Spain ever since. Not that I even travel a lot these days, we’ve all just been here. Alex has been excited about working more, improving his Swedish, Jack just keeps writing and I try to get my thoughts on paper, I guess.”

“What do you put to paper?” I interrupt him, actually eager to know, as I wonder if he’s the painter then, but my conclusions are shot down as quick as they came by Jamie himself. 

“I’m playwright, like my dad actually.” He smirks. “Have you ever heard of Brazilian novellas?”

“Like novels?” I ask, a bit confused and confirming.

“Tv shows, like... soap operas, I think. My dad wrote those. He’s rather big and frankly they’re really shit, but he’ll be paying my bills for ever. And he died recently, so I inherited a fair amount and just get allowance if you must.” I get confused a bit, how his face doesn’t change when he mentions his father death, which stings me a little even if I hadn’t even tried checking my inbox for e-mails for weeks, even if my parents bitterly tried to say things that should’ve been mended. “So... I’m happy, I guess, he pays for his bigotry and nothing my mother can do. She has her doubts now, thankfully looking back since I’m 27 and no girls near and all of a sudden when people start thinking, they realize who might be gay, after all.” 

I just wait a moment, as he watches me, I wonder if I could’ve done that, but I understand that my relation is far from better. 

“What about Alex? Jack?” I quickly add Jack’s name, as Jamie just shrugs.

“Alex’s parents are dead to him. He rarely speaks of them... Dad was killed, he never even told me the whole story. Doesn’t even allow me to speak of the mom. Regarding Jack, no one really knows. You know how you’ve got that friend which knows you all over but you don’t really know anything, well, not much, that’s Jack. Me and Alex thought he grew up in an orphanage because once I can’t even remember why but he showed his birth certificate which has no parents. Which also makes you frankly want to pat him on the back, for being read. And he’s paperback as well. He ghost writes a lot, though. Like a lot. Signed a lot of NDAs and shit. I found out one and he told me he would yank everything out of me, if I tell. He’s got some good contacts, fuck knows how.” He smiles at me, a bit distracted, before going back on topic. “Alex calls him different names, because he’s so... eerie. But I’ve seen enough to talk of this post-midnight.”

Jamie chuckles and I decide to keep the talk for the light of day, then. 

“He’s just a weird fellow who frankly deserves his luck. He’s lovely, you’ve met him.” He hand motions at me.

“Yeah, he’s quite nice... just a bit odd, I guess.” I shrug, still feeling a bit uncomfortable regarding Jack, but I presume everyone is and I wonder how come he had eased and how I had gotten much more than tense, wondering about Alex and where would fate check-mate me and what the fuck had Jamie met and frankly Jack didn’t seem to be very settling as information either. I try to push it away, but I had seen Jack wear a cross, I think.

“Anyway, he’s lovely. Alex isn’t bad either... just we went wrong, I guess.” He looks down and I get to look at him more openly, before he raises his gaze at me again. I wonder how pleading of revealing is my look, Jamie just sighs. “I dunno, I just didn’t want someone who didn’t want me... that’s how I felt. I didn’t know so much about Alex and that made me realize that nothing I do would change him, frankly, so I guess I allowed him to be someone else’s problem. I’m ok with fighting and struggling in a relationship, but if there’s movement. You just know when to end.

And I knew that Alex had decided to end it.” Jamie stiffens.

“He said he cheated because he couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t take dating me. 

So that was it.” He suggests to sleep, as he motions for me to turn away as he spoons me, putting his head on my shoulder, it feels heavy, but he kisses my neck and I ease, feeling surrounded by his scent and light cigarettes. I could even pinpoint the brand since I’ve always been surrounded by smokers, I ease

I ease.

I hate how being a transman becomes an argument with feminism on both sides of discussions because to ignorant men it becomes some obscure feminism bullshit, because you’ll be a woman with a vagina and then on the other side you’ve got a worse battle field ranging from other women calling you a traitor to accusing you of not being feminist for not defending Nicki Minaj of sorts. 

And how can even be a fair discussion when I had just decided to agree to one last meeting with old friends and the girl circle from old childhoods I no longer held a place in seemed even more damned than deemed. Nick refused to go as we had stopped talking and Agyness had insisted on dragging me along. It felt far too crowded back then, as boys were still discussed until the arguments seemed to be rolling around and their acceptance was my question if they thought that I had never changed because for them I was still female or because I had never really changed and always been myself. Usually I would meet up with them a few times per year, constantly texting Nick and the last times when I came out as male, Nick was automatically presumed as a friend for once than a boyfriend. 

Agyness would kick someone under the table and I was the silent agreement no one should even mention and they barely spoke of me moving and I could only think of Nick and I would still fall asleep, head under the pillow, bags barely packed of his lips I’ve never felt to let me drift away forever because nothing lasts for an eternity, the only feeling we get is the solid desire of being forever. 

When you stop being something the world wants, you’re discarded and all the fighting resolves to nothing but your own shattered red desire. 

I wake with those thoughts just to look around a drolling Jamie and I notice his light stubble and I know I’ve still got a way to go. I look out of the window, realizing that I never closed the curtains and there’s some odd ease, because we never accept a simple stone happiness because we’re always told to just accept our fate as plain misery and the desire to have more is what keeps us alive and consuming. When you’re happy you barely want anything. 

I just watch him. In this case it would be wanting him which drives a force and my own internalized misery in the form of depression isn’t helping. I wait for a good while for him to wake, barely moving and then I start browsing things on my mobile, recalling that I barely have any breakfast and I figure that he shouldn’t be waking in the next half an hour and I brush his cheek, before dressing up, putting on the binder with a sigh of relief, as Jamie rolls onto his back, pulling the covers over himself.

I grab a notebook, scribbling that I would be back soon, poking my finger against the notebook thinking of a doodle and then I just quickly draw a caricature of him, before heading back to the door, as if I had been leaving some solitude again, as I close the door, I hear another door open and Alex is there, waving lightly. 

We greet each other when it’s no longer morning. And it;s as if I had started a new life and I have no idea where everything resides and what even dwells within me, what would fate even be, as we both board the elevator, barely talking. I don’t even recall all the ideas I might’ve had this morning, both men shrouding my imagery, as if the idea that Nick’s words were true seems to be dissolving like powder, because we need to believe that there is some good in this world, somehow, as I smile at the shorter man, crossing my arms and waiting for the elevator doors to open, because I can’t tell him that I’ve got his ex-boyfriend in my bed and neither can I let the credits roll because I don’t know how life ends. 

“You going to the store, then?”

“Yeah, you getting pick and mix?” I smirk, not mocking or anything as we walk down to see snow slowly start melting because life slips through fingers and Stockholm isn’t really snowy anyway. I button up the coat to the last buttons, slipping my hands into my pockets, my head still buzzing from feminism and the discussion with Agyness, where they started stating that my hormones weren’t enough, that I was never a man in their eyes, as they became faceless and that society has bigger problems to deal with than males. 

I don’t know who I hate more rad fems which are straight or those which don’t have men and follow their ideology. Is the evil which bends the rules for themselves or which follows them worse?

I don’t know.

But by the end of the day, we’re all selfish and just like you care about your life, your hormones I get annoyed at the noise which claims that I’m not male and would ban hormones for me if they could and would split my veins open, like the letter I received before moving here from one of Agyness’ friends and I knew that I would never come back with Nick never speaking to me for months. So both love and friends betray just because you happen to have a vagina. As if the realization of who I was, changed me. So maybe I just end up hating everyone who happens to have an issue with anyone trans works. And just like you won’t care about the people who want you dead, neither do they. It becomes an exchange of flattered goods. 

I shake my head, to get the thought off as Alex lights a cigarette and I try to calm down, looking at him, as if he were some old friend and as if I had been walking with Nick. We don’t seem to mention Jamie at all, as he asks me what am I getting which is frankly the plain reply of some fruit and cereal, as I recall Jamie either being vegan or vegeterian, so I would end up musing a bit on the aisles. Love is far too easy to scrap off, I blush, as I look back at Alex, we can never think of fate properly, because it ends up a road we don’t know, so of course we go wherever our feet take us. 

-

This is a dedication to every fucking time I've heard that I have to be dead or hating me makes the world a better place because I'm a trans man and every fucking time people claim to be supportive of me but want men dead. Saluting you all.

But as odd as it is, this isn't tumblr, this is my blog here-o and I'm thankful. 

Anyway, I get tired and I find it hard to write at times, but anger is the perfect fuel and I finished off Blue/Jacket's latest chapter by reading some bullshit men hate as usual on tumblr and I picked it up, really because well, Blue/Jacket is a dysphoric to write, speaking openly about feelings and etc, so frankly it's one of the few stories where I openly talk about being trans and what makes it unique as well. I just get anxious about it, just like any other story because it's just rather personal identity-wise, really. 

I started writing the chapter ages ago and slowly patching it up and thankfully it's now done xD

I actually had my first realization that my razor burns are gone, I can finally fucking shave without my skin breaking out entirely like it would before. Yes. But alas, not as easy in the beginning, same for Miles here. 

Also, I get shy after I go honest and I might stash it for a bit. I had the bad parcel incident, it wasn't in Stockholm though, it was in another region, not the one I live now in, either and it just drove me up the wall because me and Callie were arguing for two days straight. Ugh, while the shop assistant was blatantly refusing to let us speak to anyone else and was lying to his supervisor. It was awful, annoying and revolting. Post-it note happened, I went full on explanation there, so yeah, all I can do is nod and state that well, I described everything there xD

I wrote it rather a while ago, but it was when I was still musing if I was genderfluid or just binary male, so it was more of a moment to think of and etc. 

I think the whole conversation was something I just openly said, so yeah and Callie's Brazilian so that also echoes in and talks of experiences, Blue/Jacket really talks about our experiences and the discrimination we've faced and this chapter speaks of a bunch of different transphobia I've faced and makes it even more desired by me to be published today since my blood is boiling. 

I miss Start Finding Passion greatly but in no way I want to continue it, I value it as it is and all the rest of the backstory will only be told here, so yeah x) but either way, I really enjoyed it and I miss it. 

I really enjoy the backstories as I ended up stretching everyone a lot and I think of their jobs and SFP gave way to make them have much more and backgrounds, which I usually don't do and in this case I really tried to give different cultural insight really. 

I love Jack. And the concept behind him. I have no idea if it's obvious or not xD I'll be silent. 

Frankly I can get annoyed or ticked off at things and I do speak a lot against modern feminism, but I still identify with the actual meaning of the movement and word, so I got really annoyed when I was asked if I was anti-feminist because I spoke out against modern feminism closing eyes on any non-women problems or Kim Gordon sex-shaming Lana. And the fact that such blogs have Nicki Minaj make me more revolted. 

Coming out as male kind of made me think of a bit that most of my friends are female which is cool and are accepting, most, but you still have the odd bunch of 'you're not natural' and 'traitor to women'. 

I am anxious at all times, so I find it hard to relax even if it's for a few hours and I wanted to confront that and carry some self-acceptance and allowance to be happy, believe and all for the end of it. We've still got our problems, but we've got things ahead, good things and we should learn to value the best we have now. 

Alex was supposed to show up in the next chapter, but here he is and I even added more of the next chapter, to end it on a more milex note, really.

I think my paragraph speaking of radfems speaks for itself :) enough hatred there xD

The letter was a reference to some death threat note thing I had gotten a while ago. 

I like the melancholic sweet even ending of this chapter of both men in mind, really. I'm too polyamorous for my own good.

I like the ending, it even calmed me down now, so I'll be heading off to bed now.

I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for those who support and actually care

Thank you

Tell me if you liked it

<3

Jamie