solace

rian / hobbyist / happy to be here

[3ntrylevel]

welcome to my 3ntrylevel!

my name is rian. i would prefer if you would not refer to me with pronouns, but i am comfortable with he/it. please do not use feminine terms towards me. this blog is for me to experiment on my writing and because i promised myself to create more things this year. welcome and enjoy your stay :]!

please don’t interact with my account if you’re a radfem or a terf thaaanks

my ko-fi!

[3ntrylevel]

On Friendships and Friendship Breakups

At first I’d say that life is like a revolving door of people and relationships, though I don’t think that would be a proper metaphor for it. Revolving doors are doors, they’re entrance and exits, a space that solely exists for that purpose. A person, people in general, and thus life, does not exist for the purpose of entrance and exits. It exists as a thing that will continue, a stable object, whatever your definition of object might be. By that I mean whether the stable object be in the physical (body) sense or the metaphysical (soul) sense.

A universal truth that can be acknowledged out of someone’s life is that it sometimes does act as an entrance and exit for others. It’s a truth that we can’t escape or erase. Humans are social creatures, it’s proven time and time again that humans cannot exist without the existence of other humans. In that sense, maybe it could be acknowledged that life itself is other people. If we follow Sartre’s train of thought, of “L’enfer, c’est les autres” or “Hell is other people,” then the equation becomes life → other people → hell, or much simply, life → hell.

But that’s quite a somber thought, one that I ought to not indulge in this piece. I guarantee that there are other who may be able to do so, but I reckon that it’s not me. Instead, I want to talk about les autres, about other people, I want to talk about friendship and friends.

This piece was inspired by the recent friendship breakup that I went through, although “breakup” implies that both sides agreed to the circumstances. It was not. It was a purely one sided attempt of a “breakup.” I joked to my friend that I have already reached the phase of acceptance in the five stages of grief, but as we all know, grief itself is not a linear process. Some pieces of me are still stuck in it. Intellectualising it is my way of processing.

Regardless, I’d like to tell the stories of my own friendship breakups. In the twenty plus years I’ve lived, I can say that there have been three instances where it happened.

♟️

In high school, I was in an odd position in the social hierarchy. I wouldn’t call myself an outsider, but I wouldn’t say I was “in” either. I was somewhere in between, limping between the highs and lows of high school friendships. Either way, there was a girl that I was close to. Sometimes, I had the thought that our friendship felt like forcing together two pieces of puzzle that weren’t meant for each other. But maybe it was due to the circumstances—we were two odd pieces that didn’t match the set—so we started to orbit each other.

There were instances that we would butt heads and that I thought, “Oh our friendship isn’t healthy.” But we remained friends through it all. That’s just the woes of a teen going through high school and puberty. On the second year of university, it felt as if our friendship was getting more strained. Though, I thought that was normal. I went to one in a different country, and so did she. Maybe it was just the adjustment or busyness of adapting to a foreign place. That was my reasoning.

Then, she blocked me from all of my accounts. I couldn’t send her a line message, a WhatsApp, or even an Instagram DM. It happened all of a sudden. Coincidentally, it was also the same time as the height of COVID. I was isolated, in a foreign country, and the people who were physically around me acted as if I didn’t exist. (I soon found out the reason for this, it still leaves me bitter.)

I asked a mutual friend of the both of us to ask why she did it, she answered to my friend that it was because “I felt like our friendship is drifting apart, so it’s better to cut things off when it’s all still good.” Bullshit, right?

That was my first ever friendship breakup. It was a slow realisation that, “Oh, she doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore,” that I only found out because at the time I meticulously checked Instagram to see what my friends were doing since I couldn’t see them.

Oh, a funny thing though, I found out that her boyfriend (? I don’t know if they’re still together) still followed me a couple months after she sent that message to my friend. I knew that she had access to his account. So maybe she was still curious enough to know how I’ve been doing. Maybe not. I thought I was over it a year after, though it might also be because a lot of changes happened to my life shortly after.

But recently, I’ve been dreaming about her again. It’s funny, the dreams always begin with me chasing her down and asking her why she did that. They always ends up with us laughing like we used to in high school. It’s been three years since she blocked me.

♟️

The second time, it’s a little harder to talk about. Because I still feel guilty over it. There wasn’t some big fight that resulted in the end of our friendship. I didn’t feel like we were two pieces of a puzzle that didn’t fit together. No, nothing like that. Maybe we should start at the beginning.

It was the fault of circumstances again. I was in a bad place, mentally, and she needed someone to be there for her. I wanted to be needed, and she made me feel like I was. That I was good enough for someone to hang out with, to go out with, to eat dinner and go to places with. The year before, I was abandoned by half of my friends. It was easy to see why we both fit together very well.

Then, I started noticing the cracks between our similarities. Like the cracks on the paints of a wall. Sometimes, you can’t just help chipping away at it. I asked myself why I always felt so bad after I hung out with her, why I felt so… inferior to her.

At the end of the day, it was neither her nor mine’s fault. We were just again, two pieces of a puzzle brought together by the thread called circumstance. Maybe out of necessity. She asked me why I haven’t been speaking to her and why I removed her from my “finsta.” I’ve been using the excuse that I was busy with my thesis. Maybe I’ve been looking for an excuse to not say anything and just let our friendship die out. Maybe I acted like my friend did in my first friendship breakup.

I decided to write a long message that I can’t seem to remember anymore. Then I blocked her. I don’t know if she read it. Then I unblocked her again and sent another long message. Then I blocked her again. Maybe I was a coward and didn’t want to see the consequences of my own actions.

During my graduation ceremony, she smiled and waved at me, I was in a hurry but I remembered smiling and waving to her back.

I met a mutual friend of ours a few months ago, they told me that she asked about me. Just simply, how I was doing. I didn’t know if I made the right decision back then, I still don’t, and I don’t think I ever will know. I don’t ever regret being friends with her, and I know someplace in my heart still yearns to be with her. But maybe, in another life, we would still be at her house getting ready to go to bars and talking about boys. Not in this one. What a shame.

♟️

The last and third one is probably the one that hurts the most. Because I’m still reeling over it. For the last two friendship breakups, I remember that I’ve cried maybe once or twice after it happened. This one, I cried for two days straight because of it. Even writing it down still makes me feel emotional.

I’m going to start at the beginning. I don’t exactly remember how and when we became best friends. I just knew that at the time I really looked up at them, and I was so proud to become one of their best friends. We were both passionate about academia, we both were spiritual and collected tarot cards, I felt like we were mirroring each other in almost every single way. In the few ways that I’ve looked up to them, they’ve also told me that they do too. Especially in regards to how I look at life. I’ve never felt more comfortable with a person than I did with them, and I was so grateful that they even thought about me as a friend.

This one was a slow tumble towards a deep dark hole. The thing with them is that when they love someone romantically, they love them hard. I’ve never had a problem with it, I’m just glad that they always had someone to love them romantically. Because I knew that to them, being in a relationship is a very big deal.

But then, they moved far away. It wasn’t just a twenty minute walk anymore, or a five minute car ride that their ex would take me on to head to their house. At first it was fine, they would randomly call me and I would be happy to spend some time with them. We would text each other the most mundane things and it was all well and I was happy.

Then, they started being busier. Which at first, I had no problems with. They were achieving their dreams, getting a master’s degree, they had a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders that I couldn’t even imagine. Replies were getting slower, a couple hours, a couple days. Then, they got into a relationship. I was lucky if I got a reply in the same week.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when they told me they were coming back to our home country. Coincidentally, it was during my birthday too. We talked over the dates and what we wanted to do. By “we,” I meant I was asking questions and they responded, slowly.

Time went on. A few days before our scheduled meet-up, I texted them. They replied a few days later saying that they got too busy with their thesis. I told them it was fine, and that we can reschedule. Then I got dengue fever, and they asked about me a little bit. After I recovered, I told them that even though I was discharged from the hospital I still need to rest, and that we probably couldn’t meet up. After a few days of silence, I got angry and called two of my best friends if I was an asshole for feeling so. One of them said that they were in Bali spending time with their new partner. They were right.

I was devastated. I felt like I was being ignored, like I was replaced. Then I felt stupid, because I knew what type of person they were like when they were in love. On that same day, after the call, they messaged me apologising that they were a bad friend and that they were extending their stay so we would have more chances to meet up. I said “It’s okay,” and “I forgive you.” They responded to me a week later.

Then, a week after they last texted me, they suddenly called me, asking if I could come over and accompany them while they’re doing their thesis. They lived in a different city, but I didn’t care, I wanted to meet them. It would probably be the only chance I could meet them this year. I couldn’t go because of a few circumstances but I messaged them asking if we could reschedule again. They messaged me three days later saying, “sorry I already left the next day.”

At first, I wanted to write a message to her before I blocked them. A big fuck you. Saying “you say that to me after you’ve apologised for being a bad friend. did you really think I would be that understanding?” or just a “you’re a shitty friend. fuck you. don’t contact me again.” But a conversation with a friend, and based on my own previous grievances, made me realise that the biggest fuck you would just be to leave them in complete silence. Not receiving any sort of closure. So I did. It’s the first friendship breakup where I felt like I was completely satisfied with my decision. I already thought that our friendship couldn’t be mended to begin with, after all that. I should give myself space to be selfish too.

♟️

I doubt that these experiences would be the last time I would ever have a friendship breakup, but so far, those were the ones that I’ve experienced. A slow realisation that another person might not care about you the same way you do, that crumbling loneliness you feel, and pondering over whether or not you’ve made all the right decisions.

It’s a part of life, a cycle, a revolving door, a uroboros. Whatever metaphor you’d like to put it as.

But, even through all this I still don’t believe in Sartre’s words. I don’t think hell is other people. I (oftentimes) don’t regret the decision I make. I don’t regret letting these people in my life, even if we were merely tied together due to circumstances. Everything that has happened is still a part of me. I still dream about my first friend, when I do my makeup I’m reminded of my second friend, and when I listen to Mitski I remember my third friend. Sometimes, I would think, “oh, I should message [first friend],” or “I should get this for [second friend],” and then be hit with the thought that that’s not possible anymore.

There’s no real way of processing the emotions that you have after a friendship breakup, but being hurt over it is a real and completely valid thing to feel. It doesn’t matter if you were “just friends,” it happened and it hurts. It’s saying goodbye or being said goodbye to by a person you shared a lot of your life with. That grief still exists within you.

But the grief that you feel shouldn’t be the only thing you’re feeling as you process your emotions. Weren’t there some parts that were good? Didn’t you have a fun time? Didn’t you laugh and cry and smile together? Sometimes, things are just not meant to be. Right person wrong time, or the opposite, or some remix of the phrase. That’s all true too.

What’s important is that being friends with someone doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t make you stupid. Putting your walls down and letting someone into your life is probably the bravest thing a person could do. Breakups and goodbyes and farewells are just an inevitable part of your life. Cycles, uroboros.

I wrote this piece to process all the emotions that I felt during those periods of my times, but I also just wanted to say that hell is not other people. If it is, then maybe you’re meeting the wrong people. Because even through all the pain that I went through from those friendships and their endings, I still believe that other people are capable of good. Maybe it’s just circumstances. Maybe it was just time.

But I never regret the friendships I make. With that, I don’t regret the breakups I have to face either. Life is about being brave, being reckless, maybe a bit stupid. If making friends was a crime then I’d probably be jailed for life.

But it wouldn’t stop me. Not then, not now, not ever. Go and make some friends.

[3ntrylevel]

Notes on my childhood, by Rian B. (my ko-fi)

Notes on my childhood

When I was younger, slightly younger, maybe around my early teens. I knew that I wasn’t a girl. Even from when I was a kid, I was a pick-me. Looking back at it, it wasn’t because I hated my female peers. No, I tried to talk to them too. I kept up with Kylie’s lip kits, with the Korean lip tints that always made your lips dry at the end of the day, and I have had my makeup confiscated by teachers. But I was a pick-me not because I felt like I “wasn’t like the other girls.” It was simply because I didn’t feel like a girl. I wanted to be acknowledged by the other boys because I was a boy too. I was short, and chubby, and not very good at sports. I’ve always connected more with peers who were girls because I liked hanging out with them, but I never felt like I was a girl.

In my family, I was the youngest child out of two. So my parents always called me Adek, or what someone older would call someone younger in Indonesian. Everyone called me that, my parents, my brother, my grandparents, my uncles and aunts, everyone did. My mom is the oldest child out of her siblings, and I rarely met my father’s family. Everywhere, even when I was visiting my grandparents, I was simply just Adek. Then it changed when my uncle finally had kids, and then another uncle had kids too. Then, it changed from Adek to Mbak. It felt odd to be called that. I thought it was because I changed from simply being Adek or the youngest to being called Mbak which meant that someone else was younger than me. But it wasn’t just that. The term Adek and Kakak (which is the exact reverse of what being called Adek is) is gender neutral. There’s no implication on whether you’re a female or a male. You are simply just Adek or Kakak. But Mbak implies that you are a woman who is older, and I didn’t like that.

I don’t have any problems with ageing. I never thought I would pass the age of sixteen, eighteen, twenty, and in nine days I will be twenty two. So, no. The problem wasn’t because I was considered to be older. It was the fact that I was considered to be a woman now. A girl. That was the crux of the issue.

When I was in high school, I came out to my friends that I was transgender. I was a transgender male. I asked them to call me by my new name and that I exclusively used he/him pronouns. I cut my hair shorter, shorter than ever. My parents were visiting my brother in Japan and I got an undercut. I felt freer than I have ever felt in my life. My mom gave me hell for cutting it that short, but I was happy. I looked masculine, and because of my body shape, I could possibly pass as just a short guy.

Whenever my hair got longer, I had it cut. During the four years I spent in university, I cut it on my own. I felt comfortable enough with my own gender that I came out to anyone whom I felt like I was close to. But I wasn’t a transgender man anymore. I felt like the labels of gender were confining me so much that I couldn’t recognise who I was with the label that I put on myself.

So I just. Stopped caring.

I didn’t care how people perceived me. Though, that’s a feeling that I’ve felt for a long time. Living with my mom, not caring has been my motto throughout my childhood. My friends look at me and see that I am Rian. Not my dead name, not my pronouns. I don’t like English pronouns. In Indonesian, there’s no such thing as a gendered pronoun, not even a gendered noun. That’s why I think I love Indonesian more than English.

Sure, I still get gender dysmorphia, and when my hair gets to a certain length, or I look at myself too much in the mirror, I feel odd. But now, I don’t care anymore. I wear a full face of makeup, I wear dresses and long skirts, I wear high heels but I don’t think I’m a girl.

But don’t get me wrong, womanhood and being a woman is something that I hold near and dear to my heart. Whether that be through political reproductive rights or just the fact that I am born a woman, I will always feel a kinship to other women more so than to other men. But I’m not a girl. I’m not a boy either.

There may be a lesson to be learned from the twenty two years that I’ve lived, that I’ve experienced my gender, which would just be that: I don’t care. There are other things in the world that we should be thinking about. Your gender should be between you and yourself only. You shouldn’t care about how people perceive you, well, if you’re an asshole maybe you should. But how they perceive you, as a boy as a girl or as anything else, shouldn’t concern you. You should know best what it is that you are and no one can take that away from you.

Be happy that you get to choose who you are, even if that means that you’re still far far deep in the closet. You know who you are, and you know how to keep yourself safe. I love you.

[3ntrylevel]

forever, by rian b. (my ko-fi) 

“Do you think we’ll live like this forever?”

I look to my left, she’s sitting, her back on the side of the bed, head looking up at the crusty ceiling of our rental.

“What do you mean?”, my eyes are still glued onto my screen. I have a five thousand word report due. I’ve only written three thousand of them.

“I don’t know, feeling melancholic I guess.” It’s 3 AM.

“Well, if you’re talking about our current living conditions, no probably. And if you’re talking about everything in general, we all die. It’s a constant, it’s inevitable, it’s the only thing that’s sure in the world.” tick tack tick tack of my fingers.

“Do you think we’ll die together?”.

“I don’t know, maybe, probably,” hundred words down.

“Hm.” I can hear her typing away on her keyboard again.

[3ntrylevel]

Taking Care of Yourself

One of the biggest things that I have noticed as someone who is currently in the middle of adulthood is the responsibility that is held upon me to take care of myself. There seems to be a current trend on social media and “gen z” of self-care, and I think it has inadvertently made the gap of taking care of yourself much larger. Clips of TikTok videos or Instagram posts showing people with minimalistic rooms, clean pristine kitchens, and a ten-step skincare routine circulate daily. To me, these are simply far too intimidating for those who are just starting their own step into adulthood.

The fact is, many of us have generational trauma or certain mental illness conditions that make it daunting to even commit to the basic steps of “self-care”. Thus in the process of witnessing these kinds of internet content, we ostracise ourselves when watching them. The thought process for me is simple, I see those kinds of content and I think, “well it’s impossible for me to achieve that sort of thing!”.

For us, we simply do not have the privilege to achieve that level of “self-care”, we do not have the time nor the energy to do so. Our days are spent labouring in our jobs, or in my personal case, trying my best to submit assignments on time and attend classes. We go home exhausted and end up doing whatever it is we feel capable of doing.

Just so we’re clear, I absolutely do not place the blame on content creators who do post about these sorts of materials. Some do it because they enjoy it, some because it may encourage others to be able to reach that level of self-maintenance. But from my own perspective, I find them discouraging and actively avoid them out of shame of the conditions of my own room.

To be completely frank, I am still struggling with “taking care of myself”. I try my best, but sometimes I could even physically feel my body telling me you’re not doing enough! That doesn’t mean I agree with those that camp themselves in the position of “life is hell and I can do whatever I want to my own body.”

Which is well, fair enough!

What I’m here to say is that living life constantly on the edge and risking it daily may not be the best option. Saying “well I don’t care!” is not something that I, morally agree on. Still though, my opinion starts and ends with my own point of view on life. I don’t think I could, or would ever, judge someone on what they think about themselves.

But as the French say, c’est la vie! Life will always continue to move on, no matter how you say it doesn’t. If you’re here right now, reading this, then that means that the two of us are still living. There’s a saying that I think has been bastardised too many times (especially by paedophiles), and that’s “age is just a mentality”.

In the words of Japanese-American indie-pop singer Mitski,

And I was so young when I behaved twenty-five,

Yet now I find I’ve grown into a tall child.

is a mentality that I find many of us have grown with. Especially those that have been raised as a woman (see how this spins back into misogyny?). Sometimes, we grow up too fast and too soon, that we just simply do not see the point of it all. As a child who behaved like they were twenty-five, we feel like we’re too old to reside in our young bodies. We live life as if we’re already halfway past our expiration dates.

From this mentality, it’s difficult for us to care for ourselves. Why should we? When we already feel like we’ve lived twenty different lifetimes already.

Apologies to burst your bubble of self-deprecation, but I am (unfortunately) here to say that it’s time to grow up. No one will take care of you other than yourselves. You need to start caring about your own body, your own self, because it’s all that you have. When we strip ourselves down to the core and remove any sort of social construction society has placed on us, all we have left is our own body.

I am not here to preach the language of self-love to you. Learning to do so is something that is personal to you and only you. Each of us has our own experiences and it may be easier for some and harder for others. “Taking care of yourselves”, may not even be a part of self-love. I think it’s a part of respecting yourselves. Your body has served you well, and you should give it the same respect.

[3ntrylevel]

excerpts from my diary: on contemporary poetry by rian b. (my ko-fi)

on contemporary poetry 

i had a professor who only exclusively read poems from dead authors. he acted like it was something to be proud of. he would boasts about how he’s spent hours in front of the fireplace and dissecting every literature that he’s ever read. he’s your typical old man who would sigh and say, “kids just don’t read classics like they used to!”.

on one hand i get it. there’s something that’s so fascinating about how writings can transcend time and space. how a piece of writing written by a white man in the 1800s can resonate with so many people around the world two hundred years after. it truly speaks on how art is a universal language. well, maybe that and math.

but also, doesn’t it warm your heart to read something that you can truly relate to? a poem that would mention going to a boba shop at the local mall. waiting for the correct time to call a friend because they live a million kilometres away. eating at a mcdonalds. checking the settings on your touch screen phone. it makes me chuckle and say “hey! i do that too!”.

as much as i would laud and applaud our dead literary masters, there’s something so endearing about reading contemporary poetry. and hey, that just means that there’s probably less racism too.

[3ntrylevel]

enduring & persevering by rian b (my ko-fi)

enduring & persevering

life is about enduring and persevering. i don't want to be as sad as richard siken. but i don't want to lose myself to indulgences. life is about reading poetry and meeting your friends. life is about being in love and loving love. life is everything that you make it to be. i don't feel love in my joints. i don't feel love in my blood. but i feel love in my friends. in the spaces between the moon and dawn. i feel love as i endure and persevere. i feel love as deeply as i can and i hold on to it. i life for love and one day i hope love finds me too. but for now, i love you all, i hope that you all get the chance to love life too

[3ntrylevel]

i don’t want to be my mother by rian b.

my ko-fi

i don’t want to be my mother

when i was a kid, that was the mantra that i held onto. “at least i’m not my mother.” i don’t want to be like her. i know how much words hurt. i know how to count my calories. i can’t eat almonds without flinching. i wake up and look at my stomach on the mirror and think, “god, why can’t i look like this?”. i know how to count my bmi. i can’t have a scale in my house. fourty five. fifty. fifty five. i was the same weight as you when i gave birth! oh dear, who am i? i relish in my anger and i quench my thirst and i scream and i yell and i am in agony. but i am not my mother. i stand on my own two feet and i am not my mother. i am my own person, a pearly of my own self destruction. but i am not my mother.

[3ntrylevel]

excerpts from my diary: I have to die pretty, by rian b (my ko-fi)

I have to die pretty I think. I am Mitski singing how if I gave up on being pretty I wouldn’t know how to be alive. I choose the best mascara to run down my cheeks as I cry. The prettiest words to write on my diary. The best “Kendall Roy Breakdown” playlist as I spiral. I curate scenes in films and shows and see their breakdown and spiral and catharsis and say “I want that”. What am I if my breakdown is not readily televised and serenaded to an indie band fronted by a nepo baby and millions of teenagers watching saying “he’s just like me”. I live in bite-sized formats readily consumed and picked apart and thrown away for a newer, younger, bouncier cool girl. 

[sweatermuppet]

I Can't Be As Sad As Richard Siken by Kenyatta Rogers (click for better quality)

[Text ID: Let me not begin this by writing about dreams, let me not do that. I'll stop here. I'm not a very long winded person, in fact I hardly say much at all. I hardly speak. I rarely open my mouth.

In a box, on a shelf, in a closet, behind a door, down a hallway, somewhere. Somewhere there is a gun. I'm not very good at describing things. I'm not very good at telling much either. I am not really as angry as it seems. It is not that I don't believe.

I'll start over. I don't own a gun. Probably shouldn't. It'd be in my best interest if I didn't. I just said something. It means a lot to me. It means everything. I go to work and I hate it. This also means everything to me, because it means nothing.

I don't know if I ever do my job. My work and my job are two different things. I should quit, but I haven't. I'll be the first to admit when people are better than me. And most are. Almost all are actually. I'll snitch to my own murder. I did it. It was me all along.

I can't be as sad as Richard Siken. He's better than me. I want to be held at gunpoint in a grocery store. I wish boots were falling in the apartment above me. It's only cats though. Two of them. I sit at a bar and never talk to anyone. I'm not really alone. I have a beer then leave.

I feel as though I'm being too self-absorbed. My humidifier doesn't help me breathe better. The USA made for television version of Buried Alive was one of my favorite movies as a kid. In all honesty. I don't really remember what channel it came on. It had commercials.

Let me kind of start over. That TV show Hoarders, that's a good metaphor for what my brain looks like. Ever seen Mentos dropped into a bottle of Diet Coke? There is no metaphor for that. Nothing exists out of its own time. Eventually everything has to be lost. /End ID]

[sweatermuppet]

from my ongoing "ADVICE 2022" list

[Text ID: 1. make friends with the butches.

2. some men are meant to be mamas.

3. don't let yr lonely distort yr wants.

4. don't be ashamed to say bisexual.

5. abstinence reinvents hunger.

6. fetish will not replace understanding.

7. act faggy.

8. if you know the answer before asking, get creative in how you confirm it. /End ID]

[jovialtorchlight-deactivated202]

Pay what you can option for DAWNDARK

Ok, so officially:

Here’s the public, pay what you can link for DAWNDARK. You can download the PDF here. 

https://www.scribd.com/document/445938943/Dawn-Dark-Manuscript

If you like what you read, every penny counts. 

My paypal is [email protected], and my venmo is Jonny-Bolduc. 

If you can’t pay anything, that’s COMPLETELY fine. But, if not, please share the link. Reblog this. Show it to ur friends.  Help me make my dream of making my writing a sustainable future become a reality.  

And if you want a physical copy, they are on sale. 

https://app.thebookpatch.com/BookStore/dawndark/8fb22a1a-99df-48a4-a0a1-414db0e3353b

Much love to you all. 

[jovialtorchlight-deactivated202]

I’ve gotten Some amazing help but I don’t think I’ve ever been this stressed before in my life.

[jovialtorchlight-deactivated202]

My internet is going to be shut off lol wtf. I’m sorry if I’m flippant, I’m just struggling to keep it together

[jovialtorchlight-deactivated202]

I hate asking for help so much. I appreciate all the help. I just continually am in situations where shit rapidly gets out of control.

[jovialtorchlight-deactivated202]

Hey all, as a thank you I have a link to my soon to be released book called “DOG.” Please enjoy and let me know what you think.

https://www.scribd.com/document/565886694/DOG-PDF

DOG PDF

pdf of my new book “DOG”

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as a transexual, by rian b (ko-fi)

As a trans individual, it is almost a given that as soon as you reveal yourself, your body will always be under constant scrutiny. Trans bodies will always be viewed as a part of the binary. Our conscious thought on gender and how we want to be perceived as by the “others” would never make sense for those that don’t understand what it feels like to be us. At the end of the day, we’ll only be a non-binary girl or a non-binary boy. 

I understand that for individuals that have the pleasure to identify with the same gender assigned by a doctor have no way to be able to understand what it feels like to be us. But, wouldn’t it be nice for “others” to just accept us as is. Every single human being, no matter what pessimists and realists might argue, are unique and special. No matter how much society tries to beat down the idea that we’re all the same, I don’t think it’s true. My experiences and another’s will be similar, yes, but that does not mean that we are the same person. Who cares what other people say. This is what matters to me and if I’m not hurting others, then what’s wrong with the way I do it?

It feels like pulling teeth sometimes, having conversations with “others”. I feel like I’m talking to a child when I try to explain and yet I feel like I’m the child that’s trying to explain to them a make belief. I don’t want to feel empowered all the time, I want to be loved. I don’t want to be accepted by other people, because I believe that fundamentally, to accept is to understand. How can someone understand something as abstract as a human being’s identity? Hell, I don’t even know my own identity. 

I would like to be content. I would like for people to understand me sometimes. I would like people to always, always, love me no matter what. I am a hopeless romantic until the day I die and my Mr. Darcy is the kindness of humanity. Maybe there’s a reason that Jane Austen died alone. 

I am a hopeless romantic until the day I die and my Mr. Darcy is the kindness of humanity. Maybe there’s a reason that Jane Austen died alone. 

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i am love, by rian b (ko-fi)

call me a romantic or call me nothing, but i love love. the feeling you get when you get a call from your friend telling you that they've accomplished something. the feeling you get when you listen to a song and you dance to it in the light of the fake wooden floor of your kitchen. the feeling you get when you hug someone you haven't met in years and you let yourself melt in it. when your heart is filled with nothing but warmth and bliss and joy. there is nothing that will ever replace that. there is nothing that will ever replace the feeling of being in love. and what is there to not fall in love with the world? the way the sun rises every morning, the way the waves ripple in the light of day, the way your eyes glint in the strobe lights of some club at midnight. my darling i love you and i don't think i could get enough of you. i want to see you when i fall asleep at night. i want to see you when i close my eyes and when i hug you and when i touch you. i want to feel you underneath my skin and i want you to touch me like you are midas and i am gold. i love you i love you. i love feeling you i love feeling your warmth your touch and every single thing about you. nothing can ever make me feel like love has defeated me. love has made me who i am and i am love

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something about living, by rian b (ko-fi)

But yeah, I’ve been thinking about / living /. Not like the meaning of life or whatnot, God no. About living. Sometimes I think to myself if this is what my life is going to be. If I graduate, get a 9 to 5, get a studio apartment, and die and rot. I think that would be miserable. I think I wouldn’t be able to live like that. To not be able to make art. Work a fourty hour week and drink ‘till I black out every Friday night and spend the next two days recovering. Why can’t I spend the rest of my life creating, moulding, / revering / something? What’s the point of being born if I can’t say with certainty that yes, I love this. This, this, this emotion, this joy this and everything. I do not want to persevere, nor to persist. I am not willing to file down my claws and fangs and dull my senses for a purpose I do not serve. Society is not a God I worship and neither is the woes of the powerful. What I want is to be happy and to make others happy. Life is not persevering against struggles, life is smiles and warmth and shivers and toe curls and and and /

I am not writing this as a sign of / revolt / or to / rebel /. I merely think that maybe, we were created for no other reason than to make bowls of soup for each other. I think that should be enough. 

[3ntrylevel]

in love with a stranger, by rian b (ko-fi)

have you ever wondered what it feels like to fall in love with a stranger?

when you ride the train and you see the handsome man with soft black hair and he's smiling just right for you to see the chipped tooth he has before the car passed by so quickly.

when you go to a bakery and you smell the scent of freshly baked bread and the lady with the blonde hair tied up in a pretty ponytail with a gold scrunchy says "welcome back!" and you feel your heart skip a beat.

when the guy working down the bar at 3 am in the morning passes you a cold glass of water and offers to call a cab for you and your friend.

it's a magical feeling that.

i miss it dearly and i miss it poorly. we fall in love every day and it glimmers like gold and it trickles down like the gentle dew drops of the early morning.

i hope i am able to make a stranger fall in love with me too, and let them know i am also, in love with them.

[3ntrylevel]

i want to be pretty, by rian b 

[dedicated to @runewarble , happy late birthday bub!]

Keep reading

[3ntrylevel]

i dont like you @runewarble​