Because it feels good;*

because I want to;

because I used to believe that I was broken;

because my deformed hymen was surgically removed in seventh grade;

because I was always called “bossy” as a girl;

because I’m not a girl;

because it makes me feel like a man;

because of what those men did to me when I was a girl;

because it makes me feel powerful;

because Daddy knows best;

because boys called me a prostitute in middle school;

because before I got to decide who I was, I was a slut;

because I got my tits chopped off;

because my shoulders are broad;

because of the tone and timbre of my voice;

because of what was taken from me;

because I protect what is left of me;

because I won’t let anyone that is not ME touch ME;

because this is how you get to feel me;

because it turns me on;

because it takes a lot to turn me on;

because it’s in my nature;*

because it’s against nature;*

because this is religion;

because I am God;

because you look pretty on your knees;

because I want to live;

because I felt like I was going to die;*

because it makes me feel invincible;*

because I like the way you sound when you’re weak;

because I like you better with my fist inside of you;

because I have always lived with pain;

because I will always live with pain;

because I was different;*

because I didn’t get enough attention as a child and I’m overcompensating;

because I want to feel the pleasure through another;

because of Lady Gaga as the monarch ruling over men in fishnets, the latex nun, the androgynous top, the topless rockstar in a leather jacket singing in front of a cross in the Alejandro music video;

because of Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones;

because I control pain, pain doesn’t control me;

because I control fear, fear doesn’t control me;

because I want to disappoint my parents;

because it’s nasty;*

because it’s fun;*

because submission is the greatest act of love;

because my parents said BE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE, and this is what I want to be;*

because fear lurks on the edge of eroticism;

because I like riding the edge;

because I have authority issues;

because of Tom of Finland;

because gay guys get everything;

because when I listened to Lana Del Rey as a girl, I wanted to be the man she is singing about;

because of bruises;

because of Christ and the Crucifixion;*

because of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster;

because of Nine Inch Nails;

because of Dykes on Bikes;

because of On Our Backs, Samois, Chain Reaction, Fatale Media, Quim, Venus Infers, Bad Attitude, Coming to Power, The Second Coming, Macho Sluts, Love Bites, Nothing but the Girl, and Dark Room;

because of abjection;

because the body is an offering;

because destruction is an act of creation;

because of the Pagan Poetry music video;

because of Crash (1996);

because of Bob Flanagan;

because I like the feeling of a black bandana in my back left pocket, because we have a secret language;

because I got a research grant to study at the Leather Museum and Archives in undergrad;

because of Pat Califia, Gayle Rubin, G.B. Jones, Bruce LaBruce, John Willie, Bettie Page, Irving Klaw, Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch, Skeeter, Del LaGrace Volcano, Catherine Opie, Kitty Tsui, Phyllis Christopher, Morgan Gwenwald, and Suzanne Schifflett;

because Joan Jett has a leather pride flag sticker on her bass guitar;

because of Bloodsisters (1995);

because my leather jacket is armor;

because I love control;

because I’m distractible;

because I trust myself, because you trust me;

because “freak” and “pervert” are terms of endearment;

because of my childhood;

because of my father;

because I am my own Daddy now;

because of the thrill;

because of the history;

because surrender is sweet;*

because I was born into a world of suffering;*

because I’m attracted to it;*

because it is an act of courage; *

because it does take guts;*

bcause I’m proud of it;*

because you always hurt the one you love.*

lines ending with an asterisk* are Bob Flanagan’s words

My first semester of freshman year at Vassar, Fi and I had a nearly identical schedule.

Spanish 206: Reading and Writing in Hispanic Culture. There, you gave a heartfelt presentation on the gender neutral pronoun “elle.” We had to write about one of the pieces on display in the gallery on campus for our final. We wanted to go back after class, smoke weed, and stare at the Rothko together. We never did.

Sociology 151: Mind, Body, Soul. Our teacher was obviously an alcoholic. He could be found most nights drinking alone at Savona’s, the fancy Italian restaurant that bordered campus. Everything about his spin on the topic Mind, Body, Soul was sardonic at best.

English 101: The Ends of Black Autobiography. We sat at the same table for our First Year Seminar. This is where I got to know you best. In Prof. Simpson’s class, we would take pictures during our downtime on Photo Booth, on the Macbook I would later euthanize with an accidental beer spill. I would do anything to get those photos back. I thought my grief would resurrect it, but it still won’t turn back on.

When we got back from Thanksgiving break, you changed your name. A metamorphosis. How lucky I was to bear witness.

At Vassar, I was a husk of a person. All the stuffy rich kid bullshit suffocated me. I sat in class with the wokeified descendants of war criminals. My roommates’ parents were Tony award winners. None of this was normal. You were a breath of fresh air.

I remember mustering up the courage to ask you for your phone number. We became friends outside of class. This was a huge accomplishment for my husk of a self. I was so proud to be your friend.

I remember you mentioned your girlfriend once when we were in your dorm-room-turned-hotbox. I felt a pang of jealousy. Not because I wanted to be with you, but because I had proof there was someone on campus who got to be closer with you than I was.

I remember listening to black metal in your car, flipping through the CD case. I found a disc I recognized, Taylor Swift’s eponymous debut. And we discussed how it was a really solid album, especially for her first-ever record. How the jet fuel must have corroded her soul. It was this range that made you so effortlessly cool. In a school full of posers and elitist snobs, you were yourself. No frills.

I remember you were the first person I drank Barefoot Wine Fruitscato with. It was your favorite. It became my favorite, too.

I remember we talked about tattoos. A lot. My arms were probably twice the size of yours. You said you were jealous of me because I had more room. (Everyone at Vassar had an eating disorder. At least, that’s how it felt. The eating disorder I came to college with became increasingly worse. I would pass out in the hallway or at my shift working at the library—a phenomenon I have never done before or since. But you, Fi, were a free thinker). There was nothing underhanded about your comment.

I bring up the concept of bigger body = more room at tattoo appointments ever since. Lex has been tattooing for years, and she had never heard anything like that before. Hearing that changed something in her brain chemistry, so she said. It changed mine, too. One of your classmates from high school reached out to me. A couple days ago, they were getting a tattoo in Jersey. They ran into one of your friends in the shop, who was getting a tribute tattoo for you. I will always feel you through the tattoo needle. That is a promise.

I scarcely had a will to live at Vassar. Your nihilism was refreshing in its matter of factness. You were brilliant, I hardly questioned you. You were a master of the sciences. You could rattle off facts about ecological collapse and climate change. There was no worry in your voice.

After seeing Ezra’s story, I found myself scouring for traces of you online, to no avail. No obituary. Death records in New Jersey are sealed. You have been effectively scrubbed off of the grid. This is by your design, I would imagine.

I never look backwards, especially at my stint at Vassar College. I would go so far as to say I hate thinking about Vassar. Vassar, where I was sexually assaulted and body shamed and misunderstood and disposed of. The summer after freshman year, I had nightmares about going back to campus.

You were the last person I hung out with on campus. You were the first person I told that I was dropping out. You told me you supported me fully, that I was better for it.

I left you behind. I believed that if I stayed at Vassar for another three years, I would have killed myself. That alternate reality feels likelier than ever.

We fell out of touch when I moved back to Seattle and transferred to another university. I think of you when I struggle with the size of my body—remembering the gift of more room for tattoos, how the body is in offering, and that we have the agency to do what we want with it. You made your choice.

You were so brilliant. Infinitely wise. It was my honor to watch you transform, to listen to you speak, to see the gears turning your head, to watch your skin fill with tattoos (like the cicada tattoo above your knee. The woman carved into a tree trunk. I studied you. I admired you. It was easy to).

If my advisor at Vassar ever gave me anything, it was the delightful coincidence of our schedules overlapping. It was hours spent with you. Sober and stoned, I cherish them all the same.

There will never be another Fi. I wish you well. I’m so glad we met. Thank you for changing my life. Thank you for changing the way I see my body. Thank you for healing me, without even knowing. You were a breath of fresh air. Happy belated birthday, angel.

The femme disciple kneels before an altar of stone. Ask yourself, have you been faithful? Have you been living in His image? And is this salvation?

I fell in love with withholding. You fell in love with me. I envy you. I keep this to myself. You want me. You will never have me. Love is not enough.

You wonder how I would taste, what faces I would make. I believe in what is mine. This is mine.

Your desire is clay in my hands. I make new shapes. With skill, precision, focus. The apartment floor is an operating table. With sweat, spit, hunger. The backseat is a game reserve.

I open the portal. I cut into the flesh. And it hurts. There is no resistance. This is a mercy killing.

There is a completeness to our dance. I lead, you follow. There is no resistance. No let’s trys or do you wants or would you evers. I take you whenever I please. I undress you with my eyes. I wrap you around my fist. And I believe in what is mine. You are mine.

I am hungry. I am insatiable. I am a whore. I will never marry. I take Medusa as a lover. I am devotion incarnate. For you, I am salvation. For you, I am stone.

In the series of heartbreaks, I rewind the tape. Playback.

Enter Maria.

I. On the night you raped me, you told me I was your favorite writer.

Remember the nights when we would empty wine bottles and belt out Adele songs in my kitchen, long after the karaoke bar closed? Chainsmoking an entire pack of Marlboro golds out my window, when the whole world was our ashtray? Barely coming up for air between the sangria and the smoke and the harmonies and the kisses?

Or on walks home, when we would send each other songs? You, “You and I” by the Violent Femmes. I, “Me & You Together Song” by The 1975. How we reminded each other like giddy school kids that you and I made an us. I would always wake up the next morning still lovedrunk. And for the next while, the world swelled with magic and melodrama. The afterglow. I would read into your new playlists, hoping you were doing the same.

You told me those were the best nights of your life. And I always believed you, just enough. You would leave me with something to linger inside of. All those cigarettes seemed like such a great idea at the time. As endearing turned to inconvenient, I kept every window of my studio wide open for days at a time. Now, it was just my ashtray of a life—cold, alone, half-ashamed of my lack of impulse control.

“We like to indulge in the same ways,” you said to me once at a post-karaoke lovefest. I don’t believe you at all anymore.

In the days after you raped me, I tried to simulate warm-fuzzy feelings. I tried to accept it, romanticize it, deal with it in whatever way. I even listened to “Feelin’ That Glow” by Roberta Flack and “Think I’m In Love” by Beck, mining for semblance. I came up empty.

You pulled me in and it was my honor. Until you pushed me down. Over. And over. All night long.

“You’re my favorite writer” turned into “I always get what I want” once your apartment cleared out. It’s hours of pushing my hands down. “You sound like a man.” You’re using me like one. “You can protect me.” From who? From yourself? Afterwards, you told me we must have been roofied. That’s impossible, I thought. I remember everything you forgot.

II. On the night you raped me, you told me I was your favorite writer.

So, I rewind the tape. I play the night back in my head. When I pass the last bar we went to, or your apartment building, or the street I walked up to get to work in the morning. You sure did leave me with something to linger inside of.

From the top. We first met when Holland brought you and Molly to queer craft night at Riley’s house (Fiona calls that place Skinny Dyke Hell, and she’s right). We talked about those obscure commercial breaks on Disney Channel from the 2000s, like Choo Choo Soul with Genevieve and As The Bell Rings. You had just moved down from Vancouver.

We met again at a Halloween party, also at Skinny Dyke Hell. You were dressed as Christina Ricci’s character from Buffalo 66, the underage blonde girl with blue eyeshadow. We promised to make plans for real this time.

Cut to this Halloween. Before I could even step foot into Mayson’s house, I ran into your old roommates on the sidewalk doing Whippits dressed as Morticia and Gomez Addams. “AUDREY! Where have you beeeeeeeen?” said Gomez. My stomach dropped. You haven’t told them. What would you even say?

On the night you raped me, you sang “Angels Like You” by Miley Cyrus at karaoke. Strained, out of your range, I was still happy to watch you perform. My turn. I did “High and Dry” by Radiohead, a classic. I looked for you, and you were outside bumming a cigarette from some random older dude. At least you’re consistent.

III. On the night you raped me, you told me I was your favorite writer.

Today is the one year anniversary of my rape. On my commute home, I walked past the bar we went to that fateful night. It is (in)conveniently located across the street from the train station. I have grown thicker skin over the past twelve months; I have deescalated from a cortisol spike to a fleeting thought of your crime as I cross this landmark. But tonight was different. Tonight, I saw you smoking a cigarette outside.

You will write songs about me that no one will hear and I will write essays about you that’ll get a few dozen like on Substack. And we’ll call it healing. But you went back to the fucking bar, Maria. To celebrate our anniversary. Or, did you forget?

I took the long way home tonight. I deserved a cigarette, too. Three wild bunnies froze as I approached my apartment, each smaller than the last. I paused and we stood there, not knowing what to do with each other. In this moment, I am frozen. This time last year, I was frozen too.

I thank those three sweet bunnies for the reminder of the animal inside me, of our shared fear responses. Us four—Audrey, bunny, bunny, bunny—did nothing wrong. We are mere animals with natural fear responses. We are safe now.

There will always be more bunnies and more moonlight and more cigarettes and more long walks home on summer evenings and more safety and more joy and more love and more room for everyone except you.

Happy anniversary.

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Lambie. My third tattoo. Portrait of a childhood stuffed animal. Right arm. September 4th, 2021.

1. A tattoo is a gift to my body, marking it as my own.

2. A tattoo is a gift to my history, may the ink settle in memory of needle against flesh. Amen.

3. A tattoo is a gift to the permanency of adulthood, standing in defiance to the serrated shards of youth.

This is reparenting. I must catalogue my childhood through beautiful things.

I received Lambie sometime in infancy. I was enraptured for much of my early childhood, particularly at bedtime. Bedtime. The worst period in the 24-hour cycle. Each morning, I woke dreading the process of going to sleep once more. A plague with no treatment. The reality was crushing: I have to do this again and again, forever?

For all of my consciousness, I have never been able to sleep. Bedtime was when death or fear or terror or toxic breath or wandering hands lurked or stalked or hunted. Nowhere was I smaller. Still, as the night grew darker I would lay in horror as I felt my body expand into the mattress.

The sacrificial lamb. My only ally, witness, comfort. A child and their soft pink object of choice against the toxic hands and wandering breath that came every night at bedtime.

It was around four months later that I understood the depths of my aesthetic representation of Lambie on my arm.

I was shocked at the results when I searched “muttons lamb stuffed animal” on eBay for photo references of my prized possession. Untouched, uncuddled, unclutched, silky smooth fur, a petal pink embroidered nose, and, of course, the glorious satin bow. This image was alien, far from the Lambie I knew: matted swirls, freckled with fabric pills from painstaking odysseys in the laundry room; rough white triangle, cement foundation for the darling nose long gone; string dangling somberly from the center of the neck, once securing the lush sash.

The Lambie inked into my arm has a heart for a nose and a ribbon resting proudly atop the swirls I have always known. This fusion of worn and gentle claims an era beyond memory in which Lambie was most important to me, gifted with magical psychic protection, already swirled by the exasperated grip of my little hands.

My body has never been mine. Tattooing is the first technology I found for bodily autonomy. Tattoos allow me to refigure the pain that is inscribed on my body. With needle and ink, pain is a tool I use to create beauty out of the ugly.

Ink makes it real.

God bless the linebacker shoulders I was always teased about growing up as a girl failure. Thank you—they help carry the ache. For now, I stand tall in my broadness. (The list of what I can fix is so short, but my posture is on there). And I stand up for you in your absence.

God bless the loud mouth I was always despised for growing up as a girl failure. Thank you—the volume echoes across time and space, all the way from Seattle to wherever you, my dear reader, find me. For now, I get louder when I am afraid. (The list of what scares me is so short, but going unheard is on there). And I speak up for you in your absence.

Queerness as salvation feels like this: one day, you will discover all the reasons you hated yourself then are all the reasons you love yourself now. The husky voice, the husky build, the sharp tongue, the broadness, the loudness, the boisterousness, the self assurance, the dominance. It couldn’t be beaten out me if they tried. And they tried.

I don’t know if I believe in God, but please let there be angels.

I don’t know about heaven, but please let there be a Better Place.

Last week, I went back to South Carolina for the first time since 2013. My grandparents live down there. Think polite, WASPy, country clubby Evangelical Christians. They use a golf cart to go to the grocery store. My grandfather admitted—to my sister, the interlocutor—that he does not understand homosexuality. And that perhaps if I had a relationship with Christ, this would all sort itself out. And I could be understood, maybe even saved. I didn’t hear a word of this until they had gone to sleep that night. We never spoke about it. And by now, they know not to fuck with me.

And in a cruel twist of fate, I was seated one row behind my first girlfriend from junior year of high school on the flight back home to Seattle. I don’t think she ever came out. I don’t think she ever will. She loved me in a squirmish sort of way. We never spoke about it. And by now, she knows not to fuck with me.

Here’s the thing. As hurtful as these personal affairs may be, consider them gas in the engine of my undying commitment to protecting my queer community. No amount of prayer or piety or Bible study or preaching or confession or blessing could save my dear neighbor Juniper in her laundry room that night. She has since been deified in her own way, the secular saint that never should’ve been. I am not worried about salvation. I am worried about my community staying alive. Fuck your afterlife, I want Juniper’s fucking life back.

This is urgent. It cannot wait until the last weekend of the month where millions of dollars will be pumped into my city. Where some of us will camp out to watch corporate floats clog the streets downtown, and some of us will get loaded, and some of us will get lucky, and some of us will get taken advantage of, and some of us will lose our inhibitions, and some of us will lose our phone, and some of us will stay home.

This is urgent. This is not about tomorrow. Or the day after. All we have is today. All we have is each other. Today. So today, I will puff my chest and shout as loud as I can from the depths of my aching heart. My dear neighbor, Juniper—I will always think of you, I will always write for you, I will always love you. Happy Pride month from Earth.

Tonight, my grandmother delivers its oral history.

This is my reminder.

My bottle of beer sweats onto the wood of the porch.

I do not.

This is her reminder. ✦

When her grandparents settled in Nebraska,

they hosted a fiftieth wedding anniversary party.

The whole town showed up.

A neighbor brought the gown as a gift from France.

Its scalloped edges are threaded with real gold,

believe it or not.

Trust me, she says, it’s more precious than fine china.

There’s an even article in the newspaper about it.

Here’s evidence—a blurry image on an iPad contains the yellowed clipping.

Now,

the heirloom is too small for my grandmother.

And her daughter.

And my older sister.

No one fits.

This is by design.

Perhaps it was made too small.

As it cannot be returned,

it must be turned over.

And for all my life, I have watched these women squeeze.

And squeeze and try to squeeze and fail to squeeze and

Shrink.

And shrink and try to shrink and fail to shrink and

Starve.

And starve and try to starve and fail to starve and

I tried it on once.

When it didn’t fit,

I was man enough to admit it never would.

Now,

I am the first in the bloodline to put the dress down entirely

and pick up a pair of trousers.

This is not my first time crying in my favorite coffee shop, far from it. I weirdly prefer crying in public. During my earth-shattering, de-Uhauling lesbian breakup at the start of the year, my ex would yell at me, demanding I cry in front of them, questioning my lack of tearfulness. I have learned to turn inward in conflict, an inheritance from my father. I prefer stoicism, my so-called art of retreat. Or recalcitrance. I like to chalk it up to stone butchness and transmasculine affectation when I want to justify this to myself.

But I would always cry on the train instead. As soon as I stepped out of our ever-fracturing home and onto the sidewalk, I felt the comfort of anonymized release.

I am not afraid of vulnerability, though I once was. But I would rather a cafe full of strangers watch me cry than my first love. So maybe I am.

Poetry has been a beautiful tool for me recently, allowing me to access vulnerability through codes, symbols, metaphors. It’s both controlled and unrestrained. I would love to have my work seen on the same level of the great poets who animate my soul, like my sweet Jeff. But I would hurt some feelings in the process, I’m sure. I create for me and me alone.

It’s hard to know you are the first in your lineage with the option for self love when you still can’t find it so then you feel like shit for not seizing the opportunity—the moment when luck turns to guilt. But I am so struck by the words of others that I will keep looking for the courage to hurt in public, beyond my tears. With my words, too. This is what moves me to create, knowing how deeply I can appreciate the guts of a stranger.

Because it’s all about guts. Blood and guts and spilling all the time. Like the nagging voice in your head that wants to say “I love you” during sex, but do you love her? Or is it just habit?

I am not afraid of what’s inside. But I would rather venture outside of the home I built with my first love and into a coffee shop once occupied by a dead musician in order to to access myself. So maybe I am.

My hymenectomy—a procedure so esoteric that modern technology does not acknowledge it as a word, forever underlined with the red dots of misspelling—was on Valentine’s Day. A fitting time to get my cherry popped. If there is a God, he does have a sense of humor.

My mother rushed me to the emergency room when I revealed to her that something was trapping my tampon inside of me. When I tugged on the string, it felt like being hung from a meat hook. Turns out, I had what they call a “septate hymen.” The physicians at the pediatric hospital used a Q tip with vaseline on it to push my hymen out of the way and free the tampon from my insides. Then it had to be cut out of me. I asked my mom if I could get Kylie Cosmetics merch for my troubles on the way home. I ordered a crewneck.

I told the kids at school that I got “laser surgery on my ankle” when they asked why I was absent on Valentine’s Day which, admittedly, was a terrible lie. But this was eighth grade, alright? This dweeb, S——r, would kick me in the ankles whenever he got the chance from that point forward, calling my bluff. What a loser.

At the time of my hymenectomy, my first-ever surgery, I was probably a 36 DDD. I grew to an H cup—with no signs of stopping—by the time of my second surgery, the breast reduction that saved my life. My body made no sense to me. These hallmarks of classic femininity—my chest and my hymen—were completely ruining my life.

I found no pleasure in my corporeality. Male attention has always been unsatisfying. Believe it or not, pubescent boys do not like the smart, boisterous firebrand—even, or especially, if she has huge knockers.

Cut to the first week of ninth grade. I was walking to the library to retrieve a few books from the syllabi. A——n, a kid from my middle school, was sitting on the floor outside the library’s entrance—a classic spot for the burgeoning incel. As I traipsed in, he looked up and recognized me. And he said aloud—maybe to another floor dweller, maybe to no one, I don’t remember that detail—“There goes the fat slut.”

I found out this past November that he killed himself. Of course he did. What a loser.

I attributed the brokenness of my body to the patriarchy, now that my hymen was taken care of. I was galvanized by the nonstop harassment that was my daily life as a teenage girl. I founded Intersectional Feminism club at my high school a couple months and a boatload of jeers later, which (shockingly!) only made me more unlikable. I made posters advertising our meetings. I don’t think any of them lasted through a full school day.

Another fucker, B—e, came to the first meeting of Intersectional Feminism club on a dare. He sat in the back of Miss Townsend’s Spanish classroom and ate Burger King. I can still smell the grease as I worked through a panic attack at the front of the room, trying to race through the slideshow I so carefully put together. I guess he made $50 off of this endeavor. Years later, he requested to follow me on Instagram. What a loser.

This was not the first time I’ve been fucked with, nor the last. But I’m relentless. I have never cared about being liked. Or understood. This is one of my greatest blessings in life.

I wanted to get closer to my girl friends, so I started Snapchatting boys to have more in common with them. I never conceived of meeting up in person. And they had to be from different high schools—as abstract as possible. This way, my desire was triangulated, successfully bringing me closer to the girlies. My friends and I would take topless pictures in the mirror together and send boys videos of us making out. Problematic, I know. Thankfully, I’ve outgrown this practice. If I walk just a few streets down the road on a Friday night, I can still find girls in frat basements doing the same shit in real life as “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry plays in the background. Barf.

My mother and I got into a blowout fight when my sister revealed that I was sending nudes—something I told her in confidence, something I knew she was doing too. Well, I told my mom it was “empowering.” That was my retort. It was not oxymoronic for the president of Intersectional Feminism club to be distributing (my own) child pornography. What I didn’t have the language for at the time was…it really was a joke to me. I was always snickering behind the screen. I did, in fact, find these boys to be pathetic.

In hindsight, I wouldn’t describe this as “empowering,” per se. But it felt like survival. It did make me feel powerful in the moment. It was a means to an end. In participating in my own exploitation digitally, I wasn’t burdened by the social pressure of seeking out a boyfriend in real life. If I had to be a slut, I was going to be an e-slut. Plus, this gave me a valid reason to tell my friends to take their shirts off—my true motivation.

Six weeks before my 19th birthday, I received the breast reduction that saved my life. Maneuvering the medical industry as a transmasc lesbian is a whole other essay. To keep it short, let me invoke the great trans scholar Susan Stryker, “As we rise up from the operating tables of our rebirth, we transsexuals are something more, and something other, than the creatures our makers intended us to be.”

I had been identifying as non-binary for three-ish years by the time of my surgery, but I had yet to experience gender euphoria. My life changed. For good. Forever. I now have the immense privilege of moving freely in public space without being consciously or unconsciously hypersexualized by strangers.

And somewhere along the way, between the first and second surgeries, I found butchness. It wasn’t on a specific a day. There wasn’t an a-ha! moment. I cannot place this revelation chronologically. I just…found it. Or rather, butchness found me.

Finding stone butchness changed my life all over again. This innate brokenness, the scars of my hymenectomy, and the prison of my flesh all started to dissolve. The stone is heavy, so much so that it outweighs all the heaviness inscribed onto my body prior. Everything started to make sense.

My lived experience is steeped in the rich, complex, dark, beautiful history of stone butch identity. Nothing connects me to my queer future more than the queer past. I will forever be indebted to my queer ancestors, and I will thank them effusively every time I get the chance.

I love stone butches. I love the butches and femmes that love us. I love being alive. And I love that one of those fuckers from my childhood is dead. I don’t care if that’s petty. I have never cared about being liked. Or understood. This is one of my greatest blessings in life. Though I have never cared about being liked, I have always wanted to be heard. This keeps me moving forward.

So, thank you for listening.

i can still feel the devil in the shadow of my silence. i still know its name. the first taste came from mother’s milk. dribbling down the pink pudginess of my new face, silence is a meal that left me hungry, wanting, clamorous. NOISE IS A SHIELD, SILENCE IS A WEAPON. who would believe this loudness is brimming with secrets, undigested since birth?

the sharpness of my tongue tastes of danger, the grind of glass against molars and the sour massacre of connective tissue. i was too young to know how glass would scatter when the mirror slipped between my fingers. it is nothing like a mosaic. nestled into the closet’s carpeting, shuddering as i undress. embedded under fingernails, crippling the pen even three years later.

i recall the thick, wet air of interrogation, the impossibility of breath. i defer to the words of others as a respirator. my tongue traces each syllable as i contemplate the bittersweet taste of being known, of being honest. lyrics have spoken back to me when silence weighed on my tongue - so bitter it lingers like a rotting stamp, so metallic i am forced to spit. lyrics slip past the truth lodged in the back of my throat and through them, i find my voice. i search for small parts of myself in all that surrounds me. i turn over leaves and i look behind curtains and i listen. i listen. and i pray to be heard.

the dictionary definition of a deep cut is “an obscure song by a well known musician.” i use deep cut in this context to describe words that hit me like a punch to the fucking gut. deep cuts is a collection of fragments reflecting back at me who i was, who i am, who i am becoming.

i long to sip the languid stillness of truth suspended in air, beyond the horror of broken glass and the blood of my own tongue.

listen to the deep cuts playlist here.

The last time I saw with new eyes, I’m not sure if it was God or myself or something in between us. That’s still up in the air. Regardless, I know where I was. Driving over the 520 bridge in Seattle. The sun was starting to creep out and bounce off of the surface of Lake Washington. A sign of brighter days. The view from the driver’s seat was utterly panoramic. The outline of my city sandwiched by a vastness of blue atop and below it. I beheld the expanse of water that I was cruising on top of, feeling its magnitude in full.

No image can do this moment justice. In my father’s Kia, I was enveloped in wholeness. Or holiness. Probably both. I queued “Everybody’s Talkin’” by Harry Nilsson. I said out loud (to myself), “I used to pray for times like these.” And I burst into tears. The bridge is my prayer.

My first memory of the exquisiteness that is floating over the floating bridge was around age ten. I was the youngest in the car. My friend’s babysitter Carli (who had a Hello Kitty tattoo and would dot the “i” at the end of her name with a heart…Swoon. I always had a thing for babysitters) drove a hoard of middle schoolers to Bell Square on the Eastside. Remember going to the mall? We played “Stupid Hoe” by Nicki Minaj and “The Hills” by The Weeknd on the way there.

Over a decade later, I began to consider the majesty of the place I have always called home. In this moment, novelty and nostalgia convened—swaddling me in their shared warmth.

Now, I have a confession. I was the grifter friend. You know the one. Little Mx. Can I Get A Ride. Learning to drive at 15 was hell. My driving school was staffed by former police officers. Quick question: do you know how difficult it is to get a white man off of the police force in the suburbs of Seattle? Think about that for two seconds. And there I was, trapped in a car with these fools. At age 15. With H-cup tits. So, you can imagine how that went. And I was told this was for my safety! Oh, the irony!

Like many of my high school friends, I took my driver’s test shortly after turning 16. Welp. I failed to yield at an unprotected left turn. A car came barreling towards me. My instructor used the emergency brake on the passenger side. The oncoming driver shouted out their window. Queue the panic attack. It was horrifying. And I gave up.

I am an overachiever, and I had just failed a test. To this day, it’s the only test I’ve ever failed. My ego wasn’t just bruised, it was curb stomped. This wound festered for years on end. I’m very grateful for my friends, family, partners, and public transportation; each of them played a part in getting me to and fro in my debilitating state of driving avoidance. Thank you, and I’m sorry.

I resigned to my fate. Then, I started lying. I made new friends and all of them were locals. They all had cars. I told them I was licensed, just scared of driving. The shame compounded.

A month after I turned 22, I was raped by a girl I knew. I remember sitting in my best friend’s basement a week or so after my assault. A husk of a person. I wanted to love the girl that hurt me. But how? I told my best friend I didn’t want to feel like a victim. What the fuck am I supposed to do right now? After a beat, I turned to her and asked, “Is driving hard?” She told me it’s not hard, but it’s kind of boring. And I told her (reassuring myself more than anything) so many stupid people were on the road. Surely, I was capable. My rapist also didn’t have her license, and I didn’t want to relate to her anymore. I needed distance. I needed to go somewhere. I needed to be somewhere else.

My best friend, Grayce, and I are at the level of friendship where we can do nothing together. So, teaching me how to drive turned out to be a great time filler. We started in the parking lot of a community college by her house, like all newbies do. That summer, Grayce and I would pass teenage boys with their dads doing the very same thing. It was kind of charming. I immediately thanked Grayce for the safety I felt with my femme lesbian driving instructor. There was no rush, no pressure, no timeline. It was two friends. Switching seats.

I got my driver’s license on February 18th, 2026. I celebrated this quietly. This is my fault. I told conflicting stories to different people. And I was fucking embarrassed. So, this is my confession. My long overdue apology for lying and grifting and guzzling your gas.

Now, back to the bridge.

Up until a few short months ago, every single time I’ve been in a car was with other people. I’m finding so much glory in what is, for most 22-year-olds I know, simply a hassle or a nuisance or straight up mundanity. But holy shit am I proud of myself. God bless my knack for redirection.

Surely, I am capable. My rapist doesn’t have her license, and I don’t relate to her anymore. I created distance. I can go anywhere. I can be somewhere else.

Driving on the 520 bridge, I felt alone in the most divine way. And my song choice scored this moment.

Disconnected from the eyes and voices of others, though aware of them, I felt God. I think. Whatever it was, I know it feels like the beauty of aloneness, not loneliness. Of stillness, not stuckness. Of solitude, not isolation. I could see the beginning and end of everything. I used to pray for times like this.

I immediately fell in love with the bubbly redhead who played Cat Valentine. Being the star student that I am, I began to research this actress in my spare time. I consider myself somewhat of an Ariana Grande historian. Before there were Arianators, there were Tiny Elephants. We go wayyyyy back.

I wasn’t allowed to have social media (obviously…this was third grade). In place of the mobile app, I took to Twitter.com on my iPod Touch. I remember Ari asking her followers to reply with which cover art option they preferred for the “Put Your Hearts Up” single release in 2011. Trapped behind the log-in screen and extremely valid age restrictions, I watched her interact with the emerging fandom as a child voyeur.

I had undiagnosed ADHD and an endless supply of devotion for women. Ari was my first vessel for the fangirl within. I began religiously watching her YouTube channel, OSnapItzAri. There, I discovered Ari got her start on Broadway with Victorious co-star Liz Gillies in 13 the Musical, written by Jason Robert Brown. (When Ari posted a video kissing Liz Gilles to her Instagram years later, it was the best day of my life). As a disciple of the children’s theatre myself, my love for Ari grew. (Years down the road, my sister and I would both—separately—star in amateur productions of 13). So, I kept digging.

In place of social media, I downloaded the trivia app QuizUp. By 2013, I was ranked #1 in Ariana Grande trivia in the United States.

I went to the Honeymoon tour, bought her debut perfume Ari by Ariana at Ulta, watched every interview and vlog I could find, combed through every pixel of her Tumblr, and streamed her music as if my life depended on it. When I was 13, I played Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. When I was 18, I got Glinda’s wand tattooed to memorialize the director whom I grew very close to. Imagine my delight when Ari got cast as Glinda—and got a boatload of Glinda tattoos to boot. That’s my girlllll.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once I hit double digits, I declared that I was going vegan on a family vacation. This was my way of opting out of hotel breakfast, exclusively ordering salads at restaurants, and generally depriving my pubescent body of necessary nutrients. And…Ari was vegan! Like, that’s my girl!

In all fairness, this was around the same time that I tried on my mother’s wedding dress—hoping for one of those cinematic coming-of-age moments—and it didn’t fit. God, I felt like such a failure. I was already too much, too broad, too wrong to be the bride my mother was. I was barely ten.

I do not blame Ariana Grande for my eating disorder. I would have had an eating disorder if another female artist captured my heart in her place. But for the superfan that I was, Ariana and I sharing this open secret was…so special. I projected a perverse intimacy onto our shared restriction.

I have what they call atypical anorexia, which means you were never medically underweight. Um…thanks for calling it that? Salt in the wound, much? I aspired to have Ariana Grande’s body because it was so wildly, fantastically unattainable. We were doing the same thing, to varying results. Ari was widely known among edtwt for MacBook pictures of her thigh gap under the guise of outfit inspo and the occasional recipe (typically a salad) or more commonly a treat (typically a half of a dragonfruit) posted on her Snapchat @moonlightbae. I want to be clear—Ariana was absolutely creating thinspo content. It is impossible for me to presume she was unaware of this fact. No, we were all sick together. This was 2013, goddamnit! She knew. And her name, Ariana Grande, seals the deal. Ugh. It’s almost like this has turned into some sardonic brand.

Over the years, my obsession with Ariana Grande has waned. My attention is far more divided these days. But Wicked and its sequel were undeniable blockbuster hits. Very recently, everybody had eyes on Ariana Grande—not just her fans. Now, things are rumbling in the fandom once more as she embarks on a short tour and teases AG8, her eighth studio album. As a matter of fact, I have three friends flying across the country—from Washington state to Georgia—to see Ari on the eternal sunshine tour in Atlanta.

I love her so much. But I don’t know how much longer I can watch her whittle herself away.

Her emaciation does make me uncomfortable. I do feel triggered. I have spent years divorcing myself from the mindset of a disordered eater. And it’s hard and ugly and deeply shameful to admit, but here goes—seeing Ariana look as frail as she does feels like she won the war and I surrendered a while ago. And suddenly I’m back in my mother’s closet, and her wedding gown won’t shimmy over my shoulders.

I was never successfully (or should I say “typically”?) anorexic. I never looked visibly ill to a passerby. I was never told to “eat a cookie.” Put otherwise, I was never cut out to be emaciated. As an adult I can look at this talented woman I was utterly obsessed with, and begin question what it really was about her specifically. I had plenty of teen idols to choose from. Sure, we have the same zodiac sign and the Glinda thing and the tattoos and the musical theatre in common. But it’s more than that.

We also shared an eternal ache, a perpetual hunger, a nagging emptiness.

I dug just below the surface, and I found a girl with a fucked up relationship to food just like me. That was our common denominator.

This entire essay is admittedly parasocial. I clearly have many narratives in my head about a woman I’ve only ever shared space with when my parents bought me a ticket to her show as a Christmas gift. That being said, I think Ari has always wanted to become someone else. For a while there, it was Victoria Monet. Now, I believe it’s Kristen Chenoweth—the hair, the voice, the frame. It looks pretty obvious to the keenly trained eye. And it’s really difficult to watch this play out. Nobody is forcing me to, but this woman has captured my heart!

It feels I’m watching like a slow-motion car crash. And my eyes were first fixed on this woman 16 years ago—because of her charm, talent, and precociousness. I have watched her change DRAMATICALLY (I want to write about Ariana’s racebending/blackfishing, with an emphasis on her hair, in an impending photo essay. But the very last thing I’m going to do is include images in this piece, so hold tight on my CRT analysis of Ari). Fans have been making edits comparing her demeanor on the Wicked press tours to her stage presence on her last few arena tours. There’s a clip on a carpet where Ari pretends she doesn’t know how to dance (?) spliced with clips from her dancing on the thank u, next tour. It has 14 million views.

Fuck, dude. And this is what fans are creating, with their own time and energy. Now, we are about to have an influx of visuals—from tour and from the rollout of AG8—and I feel like I have to mentally prepare myself. But I’m not sure how to. I do not want to ignore the artist I love(d). But I do not want to ignore her sickness.

Ari is not the only one. She’s just one of the biggest (or littlest?) figures in what I’m calling “public displays of emaciation.” And it makes me sick. No, it makes me more committed to recovery. Whatever. You get what I mean.

At least music is an auditory medium. At least I can close my eyes and listen to the voice I have always loved and pretend my heart is not breaking and pray that she will be okay.

I began to grasp the language for my gender near the end of high school, but it was only a year ago that I fully understood transness as essential to my habitus and long-term survival.

I feel as though this is the first summer I have ever truly lived through because it is my first summer in swim trunks. It is my first summer with a scarred chest that does not itch. It is my first summer enveloped in trans joy.

I made “Divine Creatures” (my first zine) in spring because I needed a place to put my rage. And from it my rage has taken the shape of catharsis.

When I held the first ever printed copy in my hands, I have never been so proud of one of my creative products. It’s a fucked up transition diary of sorts, because I feel as proud of my zine as a created thing as I do of myself as a created thing.

I got the words Divine Creature tattooed on my arms in autumn. These are the only words tattooed on me. With each act of Creation, I become more myself.

My home exists in interstice of the sharpness and the mutilation.

I love my trans body, the desecrated temple.

for roadkill

on the

blackened wayside

remember:

I will carry

the soft bony animal

of your body

home

every time.

Heavy and

slow

your rot, too

precious for

dirt and

chainlink.

I will dress you up

pretty and

kiss you

again

every time.

Christy Martin reminds the reporter interviewing her for Sports Illustrated magazine. She’s on the press tour for the biopic, Christy, shooting a cover alongside the actress portraying her, Sydney Sweeney.

As soon as Sweeney was announced as the lead (and producer!) for Christy, the story of a closeted butch lesbian boxer, I presumed this film was not intended for a lesbian viewership. I hoped to evade Christy following its theatrical release in the winter of 2025; the very thought of watching it felt self-injurious. Unsurprisingly, the movie was a box office bomb, making under $2 million with a $15 million budget. Time marches on.

On an otherwise unnotable train ride, I happened upon a left-behind copy of Sports Illustrated magazine in the seat beside me. Suddenly, I was confronted with the state of lesbian representation in the media face to face–with Sydney Sweeney looking back at me.

To promote Christy, our cover girl is pictured on the SI Winter 2025 issue in a boxing gym with the real-life Christy Martin standing behind her. I flip through the rag to discover a full-page image of Christy in her glory days. A tight action shot. Martin is in full swing–mulleted, helmeted, mouthguarded, barefaced, sweaty, masculine, and badass.

I turn the page to reveal a tacky portrait of Sydney Sweeney smoldering.

Sweeney looks like she’s on a music video set. The wardrobe is as chic and detail-oriented as a last-minute look for a costume party hosted in a frat basement. I begin to dissect the image. The diamond necklace. The American flag boxing shorts peeking out of the right-hand corner of the page. The wet hair as a subtle nod to sweat. The angle of her chin as masculine posturing, the start to many a #masc thirst trap on TikTok. And perhaps most obviously, the gravity-defying cleavage framed by an oversized scoop neck white tank top pulled down as far as the fabric will allow. Woah. This is precisely how female masculinity is commodified for the male gaze.

In the daze of a red out, I emerge from the train to fresh air ushering in reality. I remember the ostentations Sweeney relies on to propel her celebrity forward–do eugenics and denim jeans ring a bell, anyone? Selling her bath water because “we” ‘wouldn’t stop asking’? Most recently, she staged a publicity stunt in which she threw bras over the Hollywood sign to promote the launch of her lingerie brand. Still gripping the magazine in my fist, I pause and begin to wonder: am I a victim of rage bait? Is this cover another manufactured controversy that simply slipped past the lesbian community? Am I ready to duke it out with the Sweeneyheads to defend my fellow butches?

I head back into the ring to take a closer look at the glamour shot.

Wait. This looks perversely familiar.

Upon further inspection, Sydney’s pinup shares all the same elements of the original 1996 Sports Illustrated cover with Christy Martin scaled down in the corner of page 38. Gloves are replaced with subtler wraps. Instead of Martin’s Peter Pan posture, Sweeney bends over. Where Martin is defiant, Sweeney is suggestive. Martin’s glare is inflated beside Sweeney’s bedroom eyes. The biggest difference– the neckline of the women’s white tank top, harping on Sweeney’s best-known feature.

I see pieces of myself in both images. I am brave enough to admit that I was once the girl sizing down my pushup bra for added oomph and posturing as the sex siren for a male audience. I wore an H cup before my breast reduction at age nineteen. So when I watched Euphoria, I related to Cassie, Sweeney’s character, and the suffocating inescapability of living inside an underaged, oversexualized body. As a teenager, I negotiated these terms and tried to find control over the discourse of my cartoonishly large rack. I leaned in.

After my surgery, I was able to hone my masculinity and puff out my chest like Martin. I have lived on both sides. The tactile experience of turning from page 38 to 39 and watching a female boxer (as a masculine reality) transform into a female boxer (as a hyperfeminized fantasy) disturbed me. The subtext whispers to the reader: isn’t it shocking how Miss America played that great big lesbian?

Dating back to the first swimwear cover in 1964, the cover girls of Sports Illustrated represent adolescent sexual awakening–for boys and closeted lesbians alike. I can still think back to those brief, mystical moments I shared with SI bikini models growing up. For just one month out of the year, I was transfixed by the women with dolphin-smooth skin who popped up in the grocery store checkout aisle with my mother.

SI Swim was my avenue to admire sexy women without arousing suspicion. As the world went analog, so did my methods. Another neutralized zone for my ogling was Yandy, an online lingerie brand. In lieu of SI Swim winters, every autumn I found my way back to Yandy.com–not as a consumer, but as a sexually confused teenager girl. Yandy is best known for their sexy versions of pop culture references for Halloween. Don’t believe me? Here’s Sexy Ozempic.

Sexy Wordle.

And Sexy Stanley Cup.

So, given my experience with this sort of thing, I immediately saw the portrait of Sweeney as a Yandy model selling me a Sexy Lesbian Costume for Halloween 2026.

A memorable Yandy costume has three hallmarks: sexy, novel, and cheap.

Yandy’s strain of female sexuality shares the same DNA as Sports Illustrated–capital S “Sexy,” a mass-produced commodity clearly intended for the male gaze. Sweeney already has the look of a Yandy model on lock. All styling choices–an uninspiring top with exaggerated cleavage, red carpet glam, and Kardashianified wet hair–are consistent to the Yandy beauty standard.

Yandy’s gimmick is placing sexuality where it once was not. The brand is notorious for their uber-contemporary sexy costumes–pictures that scream “Yup, that was Halloween 20__.” Take Sexy The Dress from 2015.

Or the Sexy College Admissions Scandal from 2019.

Yandy costumes do not hold up. They are disposable. Use once and destroy.

This is life in a post-Love Lies Bleeding world, after the bloom of “sapphic pop,” and the advent #wlw–where lesbianism has gained social currency in the mainstream as a novelty. [Translation: a nonsexual image of a butch lesbian (Martin’s 1996 cover) is costumified as a capital S “Sexy” as a flash-in-the-pan fad. This SI image is a cheapened costuming of butchness–as a gimmick, as a commodity. This is a Yandy-ified version of the Christy Martin 1996 cover, a parody of a real-life masculine butch lesbian boxer. Hello].

Christy is not the product being sold. Sydney is in a Sexy costume of a masculine female athlete’s Sports Illustrated cover. [Here on the page, Sweeney was selling my identity to me as a male fantasy, selling the transformation of lesbians as real people into lesbians as fantasies. This is a reminder that commodified lesbianism, as represented on this page, is not for me. I am not the audience at all. It’s a reminder that my identity is clay in the patriarchy’s hands.]

This isn’t about me. This is about Sydney.

Importantly, Sweeney did not look like this on set. Christy is a deliberate attempt to desexualize the movie star in order to prove her acting ability. Sweeney was trying to sell authentic female masculinity and athleticism with her performance, gaining 30 pounds and training for months at a shed in Idaho. [The magazine shoot came after Christy wrapped, as a part of the press rollout. This is how Christy was marketed to the male-dominated Sports Illustrated readership. the spread was a creative decision made in an attempt to get men to engage with a sports movie about a closeted masculine female athlete.] All the heteronormative femininity that Sweeney abandoned for Christy is overcompensated for in the oversexualized Sports Illustrated photo shoot. How do you market a movie where a sex symbol is desexualized? False advertising!

Sweeney’s blonde, hyper-sexed “MAGA Barbie” public image is cut by her butching it up for this role. SI echoes this sentiment: the feature is teased as “The new biopic offered the actress to alter her star persona.” The movie was not made for Christy Martin as much as it was to widen Sweeney’s range. Sweeney is a producer, casting herself in the role. Lesbian actress Ruby Rose criticized the film on Threads, alleging she was dropped from the film along with other queer actors when Sweeney signed on and calling Sweeney a “cretin.” It is a detriment to the queer community, an opportunity lost. What was gained? Padding for Sweeney’s ego.

Throughout the cover story, Christy Martin reminds us that this hubbub is not about her. The feature opens with: “Christy Martin is not enjoying this press tour” as what she wants “...more than anything is to go home.” At her best, she is ambivalent. When asked about what to wear on set, she wants to go with “whatever looks best with Sweeney’s choice.” Martin is “visibly relieved” when the shoot is over. What does Martin love? “watching the rooms react to Sydney.” This is about Sydney.

But what is Sydney Sweeney about? She is completely vacant in the interview, spouting platitudes about using her platform and leading with kindness. What do people get wrong about her? “A lot of things,” she retorts and refuses to elaborate. What started out as a meaningful story about grit was diluted on screen and parodied on page when Sweeney hopped on the project. What am I to do with my outrage? Sweeney openly refuses to address her political controversies or affiliations. There is no expectation that she would speak out on behalf of the queer community.

Sports Illustrated is another story.

The golden age of Sports Illustrated models is over. Over the past few years, Sports Illustrated has addressed backlash and intentionally shot diverse models. They had Martha Stewart as a cover girl in 2023. In 2025, an out lesbian appeared on the cover of SI for the first time. They published a writeup for Pride. To present this image with their current brand identity feels anachronistic. SI is reneging their wokeism. To tell the story of Christy Martin and present this version of an image, an invocation of the first cover, updated 30 years later, is an embarrassment. It’s a low blow. This is Sports Illustrated in their woke era. What happened? Is this ambivalence, or did they want the scandal too?

Am I giving it to them?

Here’s the thing. I don’t want to talk about Sydney Sweeney anymore. With the impending release of Euphoria season three later this year, I am preemptively experiencing Sydney Sweeney fatigue. Regardless, this costume of sexed-up butchness for the male gaze won’t fly. When these things aren’t in our faces, media giants continue to get away with an issue that continues to infringe upon lesbian lives. This cover is months old, but there is still time to get more sympathizers in my corner. One million views on TikTok is not enough.

I want an apology from Sports Illustrated magazine. Without acknowledgement, we are normalizing our mockery. SI should at least be consistent with their rebrand.

So, this isn’t about Sydney.

This is about us.

from the inside

is to touch

hollowness.

Generational curses

are never

pretty.

I am not pretty.

In place of beauty,

I collect

meaningless junk

movie stub earring

origami fortune teller

a feather

bus pass and the negatives.

I am newspaper clippings wisdom teeth

all the songs my father played for me.

The making of man is

torn flesh.

To touch me

on the surface

is to bask

in the pleasures of the

mutilated.

Lord,

may I be forever new,

Amen.

Tonight I waltzed with beauty,

my sweet hollowness,

and we drank

to all I have

to all I give away

and may God bless all that was taken.

Blessed be

this clumsy dance

with an ugly drunk,

my sweet, sweet hollowness.

I will find

the place

you never

touched

and live

there.

And call it

home.

And hang

curtains

and brew

tea and

learn to

garden

and never

forget to

take out

the compost

before flies

colonize

the rot.

I know

the way

there.

I even

have keys.

I will find

the place

you never

touched and

live there

and be happy.

Just like that,

tomorrow is

today.

And I

am afraid

to knock.