hello there my dear friends & subscribers… i hope all is well and that you are surviving the increasingly frigid & bitter cold…

some very cool writing updates from me:

first, i have put together a little open-format reading with my dear friend isabel who is an immensely talented fiction writer. it will be held next sunday december 14 at the very gorgeous & vibey Seventh Heaven in bushwick, featuring some beautiful writerly voices and just generally some very special people. since it’s a karaoke bar, the gimmick for this hopefully continuing series is that every person who reads has to sing at least one (1) song at karaoke after… but if you come out, you should sing a song too :)

this is my first time doing a reading, let alone hosting a reading, and i’m really excited (albeit a little nervous) to perform some of my little gay ass poems in public. there was a period of time last year where i really thought i would never get to do things like this ever again, and while i do still have my fair share of insecurities & anxieties about doing things publicly and sharing my work, it’s honestly a great feeling to just say Fuck It, life is short, you better put yourself out there while you can. if you’re in new york it would mean so very much to me to see you there… for me it is as much a celebration of life (both mine and yours) as it is a literary event, and i hope i get to celebrate life with you :) please share widely and invite your homies!!!

second, i’m making a ZINE!!!! it’s entitled “MANIC PIXIE REDNECK BITCH” and it features 15 poems about Being Trans & Having A Body. you may have read earlier versions of some of these poems on this substack or my instagram stories, but there are some new ones as well. and besides, having a ZINE is way cooler than reading things on a screen. ngl, when i printed the first copy and stapled it together, i got a little emotional… after a lifetime of writing things mostly on the internet, mostly on other people’s terms, and mostly padding the pockets of corporate vultures, it is so very satisfying to make a thing that people can hold in their hands and read on the train and snuggle up with in bed. even if only a handful of people read it and own it, that’s at least a few people who care about what i have to say and can keep my words in perpetuity, for as long as the paper lasts, and not whenever the servers inevitably get shut down. in my dream world, this is something that people would pass around and share with their friends.

this zine is some real underground mixtape shit that i’m printing at the brooklyn public library and assembling myself… fairly bare bones, but hopefully future zines will have more going on visually. the best way to secure a copy if you’re in new york is to come to my reading december 14th where i will have a number of copies :) if you are elsewhere, i’m happy to figure out shipping costs for a very small and reasonable fee. and i know i have a few international readers as well, and i am happy to hook you up with a PDF if shipping is prohibitively expensive. i’m really so proud of this, there is some real life pain and blood and trauma that went into these poems, even if many of them are Funny or Romantic. as i have written before, when you go through some extended (mis)adventures in mental illness, you often have to find a new way to speak and make sense of it all. i’d like to think that this is my way of doing that and i hope the realness of it all comes across.

so the TLDR version:

1. if you’re in new york, come to seventh heaven on december 14th for a very special night of reading & karaoke

2. hit my line for a copy of my zine MANIC PIXIE REDNECK BITCH!!!

as always: be well, be safe, and be blessed. and especially lately: stay warm!!!!

hopefully more from me soon <3

no promises but maybe i’ll do a little EOY music list if i feel up to it…

I still think that Substack should be abolished but I’ve been having some Thoughts lately so I am going to deposit them on my Substack because what else am I gonna do, just tweet them out?

Much stink has been made about the so-called loneliness epidemic, specifically the “male” loneliness epidemic. A million grifting motherfuckers with a newsletter have buttered their bread opining about this alleged phenomenon. And, sure, yeah, the loneliness epidemic is pretty real: sometimes I talk with my co-workers about their lives outside of work and I feel very sad that some of them do not have much of a life outside of work. In New York City in particular, we are constantly surrounded by other human beings: there are human beings commuting on the same trains as you, there are human beings walking down the same blocks as you, there are human beings at the same Dunkin Donuts because all the nice coffeeshops don’t actually open early enough to provide fuel for working people. We are constantly bumping up against the lives of others, but we are made to think that these lives could not possibly intersect, that you are not allowed to break the fourth wall and talk to the person whose shoulder briefly brushes against your own.

I think that really gets to the heart of the issue: The loneliness epidemic is just capitalist alienation rebranded with a shiny new individualist patina, designed to make you feel like your experience of isolation is your own fault, and not the fault of a society that wants us to be isolated, that wants us to point the finger at everyone else, and even to lay the blame at our own doorstep, instead of pointing a gun at the robbing motherfuckers who run the whole game.

But even if the loneliness epidemic is systemic, it’s also the easiest epidemic to cure. Like literally just leave your house. Take your headphones off. Go for a morning constitutional and say good morning to your neighbors—especially the old ladies—or at least just give them a little smile. Compliment a stranger on their T-shirt. Adopt a dog so you have to take the dog on walks and then you will belong to the ecosystem of dog-walkers who all know each other simply because they walk their dogs in the same place at the same time. Let a guy in the park who is clearly experiencing a psychotic episode dump his delusions on you for a few minutes. Tell your bodega guys “I’m just taking it one day at a time” while purchasing your blue Gatorade and zebra cake, and then they will say “That’s all we can do,” and then you will lend them a fist bump. Ask the barista how their day is going, ask the bartender how their shift is going, repeat.

Start smoking cigarettes so every time you smoke a cigarette, somebody asks you for a cigarette, and always give them a cigarette, and then say “If somebody asks me to give them a cigarette, I’m gonna give them a cigarette.” And then when they have lit the cigarette, tell them that they deserve that cigarette and you hope they enjoy it. And whenever you find out somebody else in your periphery smokes cigarettes, ask them about their preferred brand of cigarettes.

Go to a very sparsely-intended DIY show where there are only like 10 people in attendance so it’s literally painfully awkward if you don’t talk to anybody. Go to a packed show at some dystopian venue in the part of Bushwick where concertgoers’ bloated bodies keep figuratively washing up on the shore, and chat up the other folks in line, and ask them how they got into the musician whose performance you are about to witness. Stop going to the movies because you can’t talk to people at the movies. Start being gay and dating gays and making friends with gays because gays are always making friends with other gays. Collide all your worlds together at every possible opportunity.

Develop an artistic practice so you automatically feel in community with other people who share that same artistic practice, and maybe you will even collaborate with those people, and then you will know even more people who share the same artistic practice as you. Leave all your groupchats so those who really care about you are required to reach out one-on-one if they want to continue cultivating your relationship. Generously give gifts—like, preferably a material object—so that person will possess a physical reminder of your existence that prevents you from vanishing from their memory when you are not in their immediate field of vision, as you so often neurotically worry they do. Get a blue collar customer-facing job where you have no choice but to socially interact with broad swathes of the population who may not even speak the same language as you, whether linguistically or ideologically. You will make it work.

Write a novel in verse or publish a zine and put together a release party featuring an open-format reading with literally anyone you’ve ever met who devotes themselves to composing sentences semi-professionally. But also don’t hang out too much with writers. Maybe get a drink with them and cram into a tinned fish-size bathroom to do a bump off a Jay-Z branded Brooklyn Public Library card every once in a blue moon, but do not expect many of them to have your back or to catch you when you fall or to pick you up at the eye doctor when you’re temporarily blinded by dilated pupils. Know a little about a lot of things, so you can always find something to talk about with almost anyone. Sincerely convince yourself that you are a hot piece of ass, because then others will believe that you are a hot piece of ass, and then it’s game over. And if you are invited to a party, always go to the party—somebody recently told me that this would be my tagline if I were ever lucky enough to be anointed as the first tranny Real Housewife, but it can be your tagline too.

And if that doesn’t work? I don’t know, bro. Join an Elks Lodge. Bring back freemasonry. Purchase a fez and become a Shriner. Track down the nearest Lion’s Club. The most important thing is to log the fuck off, and then a world of opportunities to meet other people will reveal themselves to you, because you will be forced to find them, and then you will realize that seeking community through Online is ultimately a dead-end that can only get you so far. You cannot substitute shadowy phantoms in your phone for the real thing, the genuine article, the raw uncut sociality we all claim to crave but we are taught to shy away from: knowing others, and being known yourself. There is truly nothing else like it. Like damn, I really do exist, bitch.

i am working a lot on my poetry lately! it feels very good. i think i am developing some kind of “Voice.” crazy how doing something regularly makes you better at it. i am putting together a little zine, it will probably be very short and very limited printing, but i will let you guys know when/how it will be available. i have a lot of poems and no real outlet for them so i am going to try to make zines regularly if i can. i don’t really know how to actually go about “Publishing” poetry more formally and anytime that i look into literary journals to potentially submit to, it’s always like, “pay us 20 dollars and you may or may not hear from us in 6 months but you aren’t allowed to send follow-up emails and also we won’t publish anything you have even posted a draft of on your instagram story.” which sucks IMO! i have played that kind of game before and i just turned 31 years old and i do not want to play that kind of game anymore. i just want people to read my shit. and i would like them to be able to hold my shit in their hands and hang onto it and maybe pass it on to somebody else if they so choose. i am still figuring out how all this zine shit works so if anyone has any suggestions or tips, let me know. but also if you have any other ideas as to how to publish my poems or otherwise get them out there, i am always all ears. sometimes i am a little bit of a dumb baby and need the guidance of others. substack is also a pretty shitty venue for poetry because there are a lot of limits on formatting and layout.

in addition to the zine i am also working on organizing a reading in new york before year’s end. more details to come soon hopefully and maybe also hopefully i will see some of you there

i’ve been having a few ideas for writing in the more “Critical” “Analytical” mode i used to be known for that i would like to write. but i am not going to tell you what they are just in case i don’t write them. there is nothing more embarrassing than saying you are going to do something and then not doing it. but i will try. that’s all we can do!!

knife skills

Sometimes I piss standing up
just to remind myself
where I came from.

The following is an attempted experiment in
understanding the botched ontology
of my own body.

My tits were made from Brazos River mud 
and fire ant bites.

My clit is worn outside my pants 
for all the honest world to feel,
word to Pancho and Lefty.

My ass contains multitudes,
like Mary Poppins trapping out the Hefty bag,
with ounces of work and untold zips
stuffed in the hidden abyss of 
my butt crack.

My heart is sliced in two 
by the I-40 overpass,
and there is a hole burnt in the 
ozone layer of my brain,
and I clear my sinuses
with moonshine.

I have knee pain and 
back pain and 
neck pain and 
weak ankles and
hemorrhoids and 
plantar warts.

I work on my feet and
I speak with my hands and
I pray with my mouth and
I’ve gotten pretty nice with my knife skills.

I like breaking laws and
I like hopping turnstiles and
I like shoplifting and
I like killing cops.
I like getting day drunk and
I like getting fucked and
I like getting white girl wasted and
I like getting my nipples played with.

I buy ripe peaches from the farmer’s market and
I keep meticulous journals.
I leave generous tips and 
I give away all my drink tickets.
I commute only at off-peak hours and
I pine only when it is requited and
I maintain a rich interior life.

I carry two lighters in case I lose one and
I use the women’s restroom and
I let myself be bruised and
I usually ask questions before I shoot.

I do every drug that is offered to me
and none of the ones that aren’t.

But I do not reminisce anymore.

I do not revisit.
I do not reassess.
I do not replay.
I do not recreate.
I do not repeat.
I do not relive.
I do not resist.

I exist, and that’s it.

manic pixie redneck bitch

I am at a party
where everyone else is
gayer than me.

It is the time of year
where you start layering jackets
but I already gave most of 
my flannels away.

There is an untuned guitar
in the corner of my closet
that I have still not learned how to play
because I was always too afraid
that I would break the strings.
I have kept my heart
for much the same reason.

There is a pile of needles and syringes
that I do not know how to dispose of
a television
I cannot turn off
a hook that
nothing hangs from
a poster for a movie
I never saw
a portrait of
some stranger
I am not related to
a few old journals I should
probably burn
and a twin-sized bed
where I fucked your girlfriend
where I tuck myself in
where I fall asleep
in jeans
stained with the residue
of all my previous crimes,
the fully annotated and 
rather extensive list of which
is stapled to the door
for all to see,
95 theses
type beat.
I may not know very much about sucking dicks.
But I know a little about eating shit.
And I could teach all these people
a thing or two
about drinking to forget.
It was never modeled for me or assigned in class.
I had to learn it for myself,
with a hundred jukebox country songs
as my guidebook.
Jack Daniel himself slides down my throat,
chased by pickle brine,
while my lips stroke a bottle of Shiner Bock
like cunnilingus performed
at dive bar karaoke.

It has been said that my 
existence is a gift,
though a few skeptics
remain unconvinced.
But lately I feel like
some kind of 
magical nymph
that descends into the lives of strangers
to dispense a bit of reality-shifting wisdom,
a broken-down boneyard angel
throwing a monkey-wrench into the engine
of your alternate dimension,
after which I immediately vanish.
A manic pixie redneck bitch,
if there ever was one,
going about my day
in the hopes that
someone else writes
a poem about me just once.

For better or worse,
I always insist 
upon getting my money’s worth.
I collect self-fulfilling prophecies
for a living
and I am
inching ever closer
to the border of the bone.
I have fully committed to going out
with my Timbs on,
the ones with the laces
that always come untied
when it’s raining outside.

And before anyone asks,
yes, I did
deposit my intestinal tract
in a trash can out back
while the one straight man
in attendance
banshee-wailed
about the lack
of gender-segregated 
bathroom stalls.

stoop

I am sitting on
some other people’s stoop
with the two of you

They ask us to move
and we don’t

They ask us
who is the biggest diva
of the three
and we cannot agree

They ask us
who we love the most
and I say
me

and everybody laughs

and everybody daps me up

but I don’t mean it

because

I am pressed up 
close against
your cargo pants
for a reason

There is something
in your pockets
that belongs
to me

gender essentialism

There are two genders:

Horseshoe and Hand Grenade,
Breaking and Entering,
Iron Lung and Iron Maiden,
Gog and Magog,
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
Pinocchio and Gepetto,
Water and Electricity,
Sugar and Spice,
Jesus Piece and Piss Christ,
Sunburn and Moon Pie,
Humvee and Hyundai,
Bandolier and Bowie Knife,
Good Luck and Bad Vibes,
Mosquito Hawk and Butterfly,
Stopwatch and Doomsday Clock,
State School and Private Institution,
Public Housing and Gated Community,
Circus Tent and Debtors’ Prison,
Freak Show and Beauty Pageant,
Seeing Stone and Snow Globe,
Chainlink Fence and Brick Wall,
Open Wound and Closed Circuit,
Breast Milk and Corn Syrup,
Pre-Game and Post-Mortem,
Noah’s Ark and Aircraft Carrier,
Roman Candle and T-Shirt Cannon,
Water Bottle and Whiskey Handle,
Beating Heart and Severed Head,
Forever War and Never Again,
Bailing Twine and Barbed Wire,
Bascinet and Funeral Pyre,
Wheelbarrow and Tire Iron,
Corrugated Cardboard and Galvanized Steel,
Prickly Pear and Orange Peel,
Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee,
Forget About It and Remember When,
Money Going Out and Money Coming In,
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill,
Tax Refund and Telephone Bill,
Solo Cup and Dixie Cup,
Sierra Mist and 7UP,
Broken Down and Beaten Up,
Too Much and Not Enough.

i don’t know how it’s been almost 6 months since my last update on here. i had the intention of posting more regular updates but TBH they would all read about the same, at least in terms of my writing career, which is the thing that led most of you to follow me or care about my voice in the first place. i have basically only been doing ~professional~ writing when i am asked: a few bandcamp reviews here and there, a few bios, not much else. when i see other writers they ask me what i am working on and i do not have much to report back. but it is also a nice feeling because when i ask other writers the same question, the answer is riddled with stress and uncertainty, even when said other writers are working on objectively cool things. i was in that place for many years where the conditions of freelancing made it so impossible to relish and cherish any of my accomplishments. people would say “wow it’s so cool you write for pitchfork” and for some reason it never felt that cool. i guess because constantly being broke, begging people on the internet for money, chasing down checks, offering up your heart and soul on a plate is kinda the antithesis of cool. but for pretty much the first time in my adult life i have some semblance of stability and security even if i am not paid very much for breaking my back and busting my ass all day. at the very least being a real blue collar bitch now makes country songs hit a lot harder than they ever did before.

i know that a lot of folks, including those reading this, would like to see me get back on the horse with my published writing, and eventually i would like that too. i have this fear that a lot of people will no longer want to work with me for being a crazy bitch or w/e but i am realizing a lot of that fear is in my own head. the work has always spoken for itself. but TBH being in the rhythm of pitching is so exhausting and draining and not really what i want to be doing right now, even if am constantly worried about becoming completely irrelevant and dropping totally off the map. but i think sometimes pressuring myself to write is about proving myself to people who were never going to give me their respect in the first place. so when i feel the need to Do Something lately i have been asking myself: is this for me, or for someone else? not that doing things for others is always a bad thing. but publishing just for the sake of having something to show is not a very fruitful place to create from. in addition to my newfound stability — or at least the stability that can be found in a dependable biweekly paycheck — i am also relishing not being required to have opinions for the first time in my adult life. an early sign that i wanted to be an Artist more than just a Critic is that anytime i would be around other people, i would invariably be asked for my opinion on whatever the latest discourse object was. even if i had not engaged with the thing, it was always assumed that i would have engaged, that i could generate takes on demand, that i would be ready and willing to rip anything and everything to shreds. and TBH, that was never really my bag. i always resented that perception of myself. contrary to whatever the public perception of critics might be, i never enjoyed taking things to task. i never enjoyed writing negative reviews even if i was sometimes good at them. i wanted to sing praise, to uplift, to shine a light, and that is how i try to conduct myself in my personal interactions these days too.

if you don’t already know, i have been working as a cheesemonger for almost a year now and it has really changed everything for me. a lot of the reason why i pursued Freelance Writing as a profession to begin with was because i wanted to have a voice but not be perceived, which is a little bit of a contradiction. even if a voice is not tied to a physical form, it is still an extension of the self. pretty much everything i did was to erase myself and avoid person-to-person interaction, which was extremely unhealthy. my reclusive ways only hurt me and others around me. life forced my hand a little bit, but in being truly forced to get outside of several comfort zones by doing a job in which i am constantly surrounded and interfacing with a broad array of individuals, i’ve really learned firsthand not just how good i am at talking to people, but how much i enjoy talking to people. i love being a little bright spot in someone’s day. i love seeing that light in their eyes when i introduce them to a new piece of cheese that completely explodes their palette. i love being the friend who always brings fancy cheese to a party. and i love the instant rizz boost that has come from doing a job that makes you appreciate subtle yet complex flavors that many people don’t always appreciate. when you tell people at parties in new york city that you are a writer it becomes this game of proving yourself. and then often times there is this feeling that they want something from you, that they only want to know you because of your bylines. maybe now there are people who want to befriend me for the access and insight i provide into fromage but i think it’s mostly that i am an interesting person and this niche little industry that many people don’t know the intricacies of makes me a little more interesting. and cheese has also taught me some very real lessons about life: that there is so much more to all of us when you look beyond surface appearance or smell, and that there is always value in thrown-out scraps and old mold and used rinds. i am sure at some point i will write more about cheese in detail, but i would like to think that really exploring flavors and letting life rest in my mouth like i do with cheese feeds back into my creative process, especially as i explore more sensory-driven forms of writing like poetry.

my thing these days is just really embracing corny cliches in all their glory and living life as fully as i can. i think i am doing a pretty good job of those things. needless to say, i am in a tremendously different place than i was a year ago, but i think i am in a different and more positive place than i was even before that. while i might have had some semblance of Success, i was riddled with social anxiety and self-loathing. now i am learning to really love myself, which has allowed me to love other people in deeper and realer ways. and yeah, i don’t have much to show for myself these days, beyond the life i lead, and the tangible relationships i cultivate with real people. i think that is more than enough.

i took down most of the writing i did on substack last year, including The Piece. even a few things that i wrote after shedding most of the manic delusions are pretty embarrassing to me now. at some point when those memories are less real and raw and lowkey triggering for me, i might revisit some of those selections and republish them. and if anyone ever wants to read any of them again you can just reach out and ask me. i’ve had this idea to put together a little zine of some of my manic writing with added footnotes and director’s commentary. but i also think it’s just healthy to leave a lot of that shit behind and focus on the present and future. life is so much more beautiful when you stop focusing on what you have lost, and start focusing on what is there right now in your immediate reality. i think a lot about this quote from nipsey hussle: “anything i lost i wasn’t supposed to have, and anyone i lost wasn’t supposed to be there.” all that to say: if you are still there, you’re supposed to be there, and i’m supposed to be here too. and i truly hope that you enjoy being here as much as i do these days.

anyway, i do still actually have some written work to show for myself. i am really getting into my poetry and the prosody of it all and there is something very fulfilling about really sitting with the rhythm of a line and tweaking it over time. i really don’t know anything at all about the poetry world, even though i know some folks who have published poetry, so i could honestly really use advice and guidance. if you see any open calls for poetry submissions, please let me know. i would like to get my work out there in a form that is not just my substack or instagram stories. i also hope to do readings and give a real voice to my words because that is how they are meant to be received. i am hoping to put together a reading of my own in the fall instead of just sitting around and waiting for somebody to ask me to be a part of their reading. but if you want to ask me to be a part of your reading i would love that too. anyway, i did submit a few of these poems to a publication for consideration, and if they are published i will probably take them down from here. i am not sure how “Done” any of these are but i am happy with them. i hope you can take something away from the words in my poems, and from my words here too.

i love all of you very much. that’s really what it comes down to. thanks for fucking with me. if there are any typos in the previous paragraphs it is because i am writing this down freestyle mode before i have to leave for work.

Tranny On The Moon

I was the first tranny on the moon.
Did you know they put a tranny on the moon?
They said it would be one giant leap for representation,
but in reality, they just wanted to send me 
somewhere screams are neither heard nor seen.

No padded room is as soundproof as an airlock with no key,
no insane asylum as effective as your own personal Death Star,
left alone with no ground control to guide you home to Kolob,
and no vocal chords with which to transmit signals of celestial distress.

Laika was the very first bitch shot into space, but certainly not the last: 
The Milky Way lactated from all the angels banished out here,
far beyond the final glimpses of the stratosphere’s reflective tint,
this uncharted region of darkened ether
where constellations lose what remains of their faintly fleeting glimmer
and Orion’s arrows dare not reach.

I injected dark matter and midi-chlorians
once my stash of hormones ran its course,
and I hoarded all the freeze-dried ice cream sandwiches
until the only food left was my gelatin bones
and vacuum-sealed sous vide soul,
just a lonely anchovy stuffed within a tin coffin,
the remains of my waking life smeared against the 
bleary-eyed confines of a cryogenically-preserved isolation chamber.

I’ve lost track of how many wormholes closed behind me,
I forgot the stardate years ago, 
but every now and then,
I catch the passing halcyon shadow of Icarus cast across the cockpit window,
pushing back against the lack of gravity,
and I remember just how easily I could take one small step
into the most endless and untethered of graves.

Confessions, Part II (Remix)

All of my favorite artists are dead,
and I am the one who killed them.

I have held their screams in my head,
washed my hands in their blood
worn their skin and adorned their crimson masks,
drawn and quartered their cited sources
in a Galahad quest for my own 
apocryphal understanding of reality,
interpreting autofictional confessions 
as gospel truth whenever metaphor
was in short supply.

I speak the words they are condemned 
to remember and repeat, 
traumas recreated on a nightly basis
for someone else’s benefit,
idolatries exchanged on the razor’s edge.
Translated into a dozen tongues,
now available in paperback:
Your mass-market life
on the discount rack of oblivion.

My cover band only specializes in 
funeral dirges and cries for help,
stabbing myself in the chest
as a tribute act to Elliott Smith,
an Auto-Tuned noose at the ready 
on the off-chance someone requests 
“She’s Lost Control.”
Indulgences available at the merch table,
Independent balling like a martyr.

Trigger the pitched-up bit-crushed sample of a 
sawed-off shotgun blast on the MIDI pad,
the needle scratch of a bone crack,
the banshee wail of mania bubble-wrapped,
the perpetual air-raid siren of tinnitus.

Every note inscribed on my thigh,
every lie copyrighted,
every savior assassinated,
every muse made mortal,
every idol expendable,
every album posthumously cobbled as corporate golem,
every corpse dressed for a party it cannot attend.

I hope they hire you to ghostwrite my memoirs,
because you were there
when I crucified my Lord.

listening to jimmy buffett while overlooking the hudson

There is no class division or caste system upon the ocean:
cruise ships and cargo barges 
traverse the same waves
and both may sink like a stone
without a moment’s notice.

What a miracle it is merely to float!
Standing on an unstable and soluble surface,
no ground below and
no goal but to keep your
head above water.

Twinkle of oil derricks in the distance,
sun slithering into sepia,
before one last gasp
and then 
down you go.

this one doesn't have a name yet

in the library of my nightmares
every book is written
by someone
who hates me

i borrow them anyway
carefully cracking
each spine in two 
to exact my revenge

I’m back to doom-scrolling, anxiously cycling between the same few browser tabs, foolishly refreshing the page time and again, searching for signs of life from people who have gone silent. I turn my phone upside-down in the hopes that when I pick it back up, one of the names I so desperately wish to hear from will appear on the screen—maybe even your name. But closely-monitored pots never reach a boil, and whatever affirmation I’m looking for never seems to come; the encouragement that I do receive only leaves me wanting more.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to insist that your voice deserves to be heard, that your experiences are worth being expressed in public view, that the utterances of your breath contain value. But is that not what we all do, every time we open our mouths? To speak is to survive; communication is an inescapable necessity of human existence. I think the desire to write, more precisely to share that writing with the world, is often just to remind people that I still exist. That I am still here, still breathing, still bleeding—even if what I say is not particularly insightful or important.

I’ve been trying to think of something to write to you all for a few months now. It’s not that I feel like I owe anyone anything. But I don’t want to write only to fill a hole in my head—I like to actually have something to say. I do enjoy giving updates as to where I’m at and what I’m working on, but too often I end up promising things that I never deliver on, and I’d rather not do that anymore. I worry that some perceive me as a compulsive liar or chronic bullshitter, when really I’m just unfocused and insecure, especially now. I recorded a few interviews for a new podcast last year, but I never put them out, because I knew I would almost immediately lose any momentum I had—maybe the only thing more embarrassing than a Substack that the author forgets about after a few entries is a podcast that fizzles out after a few episodes. I spent so much of last year talking ceaselessly that I’d also just become pretty sick of my own voice, as both writer and orator.

I had so many big ideas for whatever the fuck “Proselyte Magazine” was going to be, a few of them not even half-bad, but all the energy and interest and confidence vanished. I wanted to prove myself so badly and control a narrative that was always out of my hands by creating something worthwhile, but now I mostly want to hang my head in shame. I just feel completely run-through. I have a hard time trusting my own analysis anymore, because I got so many things completely and horribly wrong. Opinions and reactions come slower to me now—I don’t know if the mood stabilizer has dulled my brain, or if I am just less quick to judge, lest I be judged myself. I worry that every original idea and creative impulse I have is a symptom of mania’s re-emergence, and that anything I write or any art I make will be scrutinized for signs of my own insanity.

Anyway. None of this is new. I’ve charted this territory in my last few transmissions and the self-pitying and self-flagellation is getting weary for us both. I’ve been journaling significantly more than I ever have, because it is probably best to work through these thoughts out of view. Almost anytime I revisit something I published over the last few months about everything I’ve been through, I’ve been pretty thoroughly embarrassed, as my understanding of what happened to my mind continues to evolve with each passing day. Putting it out there means committing to one interpretation and that’s not conducive to growth.

Writing for my eyes alone is strangely disarming, after years spent writing almost exclusively for an audience, and there is a freedom in leaving sentences unfinished. A paranoid voice in my head asks what would happen if someone were to read my journals after I die, but thankfully I think my handwriting is too sloppy for anyone to interpret my words as a Rosetta Stone for the human psyche, as some did with certain things I published last year. At this point, I think it is best for me to create in whatever form it takes without any concern for sharing what I create with the world.

I wrote my first album review in almost a year, on the excellent new album Showbiz! from New York’s young legend MIKE. There was a point last year where I genuinely did not think I would ever do this kind of meat-and-potatoes music writing again, but it feels good to write something purposeful and to-the-point in a professional voice like I used to do on the regular, especially when it’s about rap music.

In mania, even when the words flowed easily, they exhausted me, because everything felt so fucking personal. I heard and saw my own experience in everything. I couldn’t help it, but any subject I set out to write about became a distorted mirror reflection of myself, until empathy dissolved into solipsism and I could no longer divide where others ended and I began. Psychosis resides on the porous border between selfishness and selflessness. Criticism became autofiction. Theory became memoir. Everyone else became me, and I became whatever anyone said I was, because existence had ceased beyond the spectacle of perception.

So it’s a reassuring reminder of my brain’s return to normal operations that I can do this kind of writing again—or any kind of writing—without completely losing hold of myself. I think it’s healthy for me to get back on this particular horse and prove I can still do it, if only to myself. I hope to do more again.

Despite the discouragement I expressed earlier in this newsletter, I do feel like I’m on stable ground for the first time in a long time. It feels good to go to a job where I feel useful and valued even if it’s not anything that changes the world. It feels good to read again, and to write again even if no one reads it. It feels good to record my sound collages and make music even if no one hears it. It feels good to go on walks when it’s not too cold, it feels good to sleep in, it feels good to cook breakfast for myself every morning, it feels good to have a fully-stocked fridge, it feels good to go to more concerts than I have in years, it feels good to cry, it feels good to learn, it feels good to listen, it feels good to not be at war with my mind or with anyone else. And it honestly feels pretty good to be alive. Maybe there’s not anything wrong with writing just to remind you of that fact.

I’d considered writing something around the turn of the New Year looking back at 2024. But looking back and looking over your shoulder are often one and the same, and I think it’s better for me to just focus on the road ahead, until I’m at a safe enough distance to not turn into a pillar of salt. In the process of composing this update, I wrote about a thousand more words about my experiences of mania and psychosis, which took so much out of me that I had to immediately take a nap. I’ve decided to let that simmer longer instead of vomiting out something half-formed as I so often do. I would like to think I’m getting a little better at articulating and understanding it all—and even better at not immediately sharing what I write and showing my hand. In lieu of that, I’d like to offer something I wrote at the tail-end of 2024, when asked for some reflections on the year. I’m not sure what, but it feels like the beginning of something:

“As I reflect on 2024, I try my best to zoom out and consider the big picture, but it has been difficult to see beyond the turmoil of my own life. This past summer, I spent two weeks in the psychiatric unit of Woodhull Hospital in New York City, after being involuntarily committed due to a severe manic episode. On the way there, I had undertaken a treacherous journey, a road to hell paved with burnt bridges, broken hearts, bloody wounds, and the very worst of intentions. The holding cell of that hospital was truly a purgatory, as I waited to learn whether I would continue on to the abyss, or take a hard right back to reality; while our world might often feel like a fiery pit to which we have been condemned, I am grateful to count myself still among the living.

In the grand scheme of anyone’s life, two weeks is only a brief window, but those two weeks completely re-oriented my perception of reality and how I move through the world. When everything had been stripped away save for the tattoos on my skin, all that was left were my words, and it was amidst the darkest night of my soul, in a place riddled with black mold, that I finally found my voice. As I sat in a windowless room, waiting for a stern and unsympathetic doctor to decide my fate, the TV blasted news of Gaza; the mental health system in this country seems intent on further traumatizing its victims with a ceaseless ambient soundtrack of the most upsetting images you can imagine.

But watching the children of Palestine lose limbs, lives, and loved ones, I felt an intense feeling of resolve. If these souls—who have not only lost every creature comfort and human right I have ever taken for granted, but in many cases never even had them to begin with—can continue to fight back and speak up against a world order that so desperately craves their silence, I can too. In another universe, I might have remained quiet and docile in that hostile environment—especially given the uncertainty and anxiety that can come with existing as a trans woman in “the system”—but it is because of the example of those children in Gaza that I continued to advocate for myself.

So that’s what defined this year for me: perhaps less of an important event, and more of an essential lesson that I will carry with me to my grave. There is always someone whose suffering is unfathomably worse than yours, whose wounds are deeper, whose life is more carelessly discarded by the state. But that is not a reason to minimize your own struggle: it is a reason to keep going, because the human spirit is the strongest of metals, one that cannot be tested until you’re deep inside a blazing furnace with no possibility of escape. You will never know what you can endure until you’ve gone through it. And when you’ve survived to the other side, don’t turn away from the fire: go back to it, and help pull someone else out.”

As always, thanks for reading and for listening and for still being there. I’m very grateful to anyone who cares or engages at all. I see you and hear you and I’m here for you too. Stay safe, and keep staying alive.

P.S. Here are my latest sound collages. I’m going to upload them to Bandcamp soon. I recently pitched them to someone as “if DJ Screw was a bipolar trans bitch who made musique concrete.” At some point I would like to write a little more in detail about the process of making them and how it’s evolved, but I’ll worry about the words later.