Chins Up, Boobs Out.

Anonymous asked:

You had a crush on your platonic friend that you were at one time engaged to? And you wrote love songs? And you wanna play them?? Idk if you play them they might think you're still into them

a-fragile-sort-of-anarchy answered:

Oh, wait, have I not told you THE GREATEST LOVE STORY OF ALL TIME?

a-fragile-sort-of-anarchy

I was not engaged to this friend; I was engaged to another man, and me and this friend had a really… uncool friendship.

I would like to warn you that I am the bad guy in this story.

a-fragile-sort-of-anarchy

There’s a lot you need to know for this to all make sense, but the important thing is this:

I’m ten years old when I fall in love with a girl who we’ll call Laura.

I’m eleven years old when I tell her I’m a boy, hushed and frantic, like a prayer, and when she doesn’t laugh, something inside of me breaks open and I feel warm all over. I don’t think either of us understand what I mean, so we treat it like a game, and she calls me Scout, like in To Kill a Mockingbird, and says it’s because she thinks I’d be a good boy scout, and I like how she reads grown up books and I like how I never have to explain myself to her and we hold hands for a long, long time.

I’m twelve years old when she kisses me for the first time, and we don’t know what to do with our mouths and our teeth click and her braces cut my lip and she blurts out, “Idon'tlikegirls,” and I smile so wide that my lip splits open all over again.

I’m thirteen years old when the shrapnel of a thrown beer bottle bites into my face and my dad’s screaming, screaming, screaming about how I’m going to hell, about how someone said me and Laura were girlfriends, and I say, “I’m not her girlfriend,” and it’s not a lie but it also isn’t true, and I’m thinking about if it’s always going to be both and neither, but before I can figure it out, he sees the blood on my face and he’s calm again, pretending to love me enough to get me not to tell. I ride my bike to Laura’s house and cry and cry and cry.

I’m fourteen years old and we are pretend drunk on two cans of lukewarm, stolen beer, but pretend drunk is drunk enough for her to finally ask me if I meant it for real, about being a boy. I tell her I don’t know. It is the first and last time I lie to her. I know for sure, and I’m terrified.

I’m fifteen years old and she tells me she met a boy who we’ll call David. A real boy, she jokes, and that hurts about as much as anything, but I smile while she talks about his green eyes, and later when she’s touching me I can’t tell if my stomach turns because her hands are on my chest or because I’m scared of a time when they won’t be.

I’m sixteen years old and that’s old enough to know better than to cheat on people, but being with Laura doesn’t feel like cheating. It’s as easy as breathing, and besides, she isn’t even gay, and I’m not really a boy, that’s just an old joke, and it’s time to grow up, and so when she says she’s in love with David, I think maybe that’s for the best.

I’m seventeen years old and I’m so used to being a secret that I don’t think it’s weird that this dude’s idea of a date is the backseat of a parked car. He asks why I’m wearing, like, three goddamn sports bras, and I do whatever I have to do to make him stop asking questions. He doesn’t call me Scout and he doesn’t feel like her and I feel very far away the whole time, but I get used to it.

I’m eighteen years old the first time either of us say the word “trans” out loud. I tell her I think Roswell would be cool as a name. She agrees, but makes fun of me the whole time, and for just a second I forget I’m supposed to be in love with someone else.

I’m nineteen years old and it’s hard being in love with somebody who doesn’t even know your name.

I’m twenty years old and I am always just about to tell him, but it’s never the right time. There’s a wedding to plan, and I think maybe I really can pretend forever if I’m doing it for him. I call Laura just to hear somebody say my real name and when she does, over and over again, it all hurts so bad that I just start screaming.

I’m twenty-one years old and when he tries to fuck my friend because I can’t stand being touched anymore, I’m relieved. Before I can even get the words, “I’m breaking up with him,” out of my mouth, Laura’s kissing me. When I get back together with him, because it’s safe, because it’s easy, because I’m terrified, she says she can’t just sit and watch me rot, and I tell her to go fuck herself, like a wounded animal snapping and hissing at someone trying to free it from a trap.

I’m twenty-two years old and I don’t feel much of anything for a long while, but it’s marginally better than being dead.

I’m twenty-three, and I decide maybe dead might be better.

It’s late summer when I finally tell him, and early winter when he finally leaves, and when I tell her I’m starting testosterone, she gets so excited that she kisses me in front of David and it’s super weird for everybody, but anyways, do you think it would be funny if I showed her all of the gay shit I wrote about her. Now that we’re just friends? Just for fun. No real feelings.

humansofnewyork

(2/3) “My mother brought me to New York City when I was twelve years old. We lived in an area of Long Island called ‘five towns.’ The first four towns were economically mobile. But my town was the service community for the other four towns. Our parents were the maids and chauffeurs. I got myself a newspaper route when I turned thirteen. There was one older man on my route who’d always give me a big tip if I could tell him the news. So every morning I’d read two newspapers. And every night I’d listen to Frankie Crocker on the radio. He was ‘The Black Disc Jockey’ in New York at the time. Every night from 4 PM to 8 PM, he’d play ‘R and B’ on 1600 WWRL , and you were a punk if you missed it. One night he announced a contest to choose an honorary DJ. I wrote an amazing letter because I listened every day, and I ended up winning. I was sixteen years old. The prize was supposed to be fifteen minutes on the air, but Crocker was so impressed that he gave me forty-five. Before signing off, he asked me what I planned to do after graduating high school. I told him: ‘I’m going to be the next Frankie Crocker!’”

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.