Paper and Leaves
A short story.
Before I share this short fiction piece, let me give you some life updates:
My July was taken up by moving to a new rental. Unfortunately, this means I didn’t hit my goal of posting at least two times per month. I can’t be too hard on myself, though. I have been cleaning, organizing, and unpacking just about every day, especially the last three weeks. I feel so spread out - internally spinning and physically exhausted. I also decided to sell my old bedroom furniture, so I haven’t been able to put much of it together. It’s been hard to relax with my life in boxes surrounding me. Luckily, if all goes to plan, I should have new furniture picked up today so I can finally get my room put together!
Since I haven’t been able to write much, I decided to share a fiction piece that I wrote in 2019. This was once published in a now-defunct online journal called Lupercalia Press. One of the characters is an ex partner named July, so it feels like a good moment in time to share it :) I wrote it as a fictionalized version of my own life, with some of the hurdles I was facing while making the decision to start testosterone. Tomorrow is my four year anniversary on T, and I’m happy to bring this piece back to reflect on how much my life has changed since then. Small content warning: it is sexually explicit.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I’m excited to get back to my regular writing schedule once I get my household in order! As far as everything goes, this is easily one of the nicest place I’ve lived in my entire life. I am surrounded by blessings and abundance, and I hope you feel that energy in your own life <3 Especially if you’ve also had housing changes this season!
Paper and Leaves
Maggie Nelson1 opened herself to a man who kept a pile of cocks in a shower stall. She never left him even through his physical transition.
I keep my cocks in the drawer on my side of the bed. I am not a man, and I am not a woman.
I’m leaving because I am afraid of
the physical changes you want
like the beard
I’m not that attracted to masculinity
I’m attracted to who you are now
I wish you the best
I was standing on the edge of emptiness, everything around me colorful paper and sunlight. I forgot the emptiness was yawning there below me. You left and the strings holding it all together snapped. The emptiness swallowed it all, even the origami birds that flapped in blue. It is dark now and my jaw is square. My fat and muscles are distributed differently. People give me confused looks but at least I am not a woman. At least I am not a man. You, July, are gone now. I float in the nothingness unsure of where my skin starts.
Sure, attraction isn’t everything to me
But I’m worried about the social side of it
I mean the perception
Like, we wouldn’t look straight anymore
What was Maggie Nelson worried about, when her lover decided to take hormones? Was she worried at all? Did the sex change?
I keep condoms in my wallet when I go to bars, cock in bag. When I take women home, or go home with women, I strap myself together and slide the condom on. When I slide myself in her I remember learning how to pleasure with a nerveless sex. She moans and I hold her and I think about when you held me when I entered your ass. When your face scrunched in that new pleasure and I kissed you. When two cocks didn’t mean two men or a certain kind of sex but an exchange of release and validation. We didn’t use condoms.
We meet for lunch and you startle at the sound of my voice. You scratch your chin where you can’t yet grow hair as I wipe food from my dark stubble. Obviously, I still love you. You’re mourning the old image of me and wishing you could embody the new one.
I feel terrible and selfish
but I’m scared
At first, I didn’t think my reasons for taking hormones were enough. I thought your hesitation was a sign that I shouldn’t. But when I looked in the mirror I imagined a body that developed muscles differently, I imaged a face that I needed to shave. I couldn’t get rid of these images. I touched the flesh I loved and knew it could be putty.
We met when my body was still a prison. We fucked often. We looked in the mirror together and our hands grasped. I started to break out of myself. We constructed our world in paper because it didn’t need to be strong to hold us in. We left the doors open and the breeze flowed through.
A friend calls: I saw July at the store yesterday. He looked lost.
I’m walking down familiar sidewalks, decaying leaves sighing their last breaths. The world is taking life from its edges for a season of rest. I walk past roofers who pay me no mind. Months ago, they would call out from the safety of the roof to ask me if I had a boyfriend. I go past the park where children in coats fall over each other. I pack ground bud into my one-hitter and smoke it like a cigarette. Quiet aches fill me inside. The sky sheds light through a wall of clouds. I feel a star die and my mass collapses to the center.
I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you much
I decided to wait for the hurt to subside
I still love you and I’m even more afraid
Maybe I made a mistake
I sigh into my open palms. This love sticks itself to the cracks of my life and I’m still finding new ones. I go to the mirror and stare into my own eyes until they’re all I can see. I take clippers and shave my head. I lay naked on my bedsheets. I traded love for a body that love didn’t want. I touch the muscles on my abdomen and am overcome with the fear of other hands. I want July to kiss my shoulders again. The world shudders on its axis.
A woman at the bar lets me touch her hand and call her sweet. We move to the dance floor and she swirls around me. I place my hand on the small of her back and lean into her cheek. I begin to remake a world, not of paper but petals and leaves. Maggie Nelson saw her love and family as the Argo, something that is made anew whenever something needs to change, but at the core of itself always the same. My life is no Argo, there is no core, and the names change every day. I don’t mind this fact, and I admire the life of Maggie Nelson. I take the woman home and show her my cocks. She picks one up and laughs with excitement. We lay next to each other smiling and drifting. I feel a breeze toss me on its way.
All references to Maggie Nelson are from The Argonauts.