[lowlaif]

Hey, remember that one fic about awkward android boners back in 2018?

I do. Woke up in a cold sweat thinking about how my most well-known work is actually kind of atrocious, and had to start fixing it on this random Sunday.

So, if you're at all curious what 6 years of progress do to someone's storytelling capabilities, feel very free to check it out:

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[lowlaif]

Konpeito

never seen a star up close.

kinda wanna eat one.

and no, not one of those starlets hanging out in ridiculously overpriced LA villas - now finally available in "sustainable" minus an ecological footprint rivaling the size of their range rovers. the owner will fly in from two towns over so they get there early for their yearly yacht trip and ill activate adblock so palantir cant pester me with 50-euro airline ads to the maldives because shit, money is going to be a bit tight this month

i want to eat a star. actual heaps of gas and space dust and heat and whatdoiknow, im not a scientist, id rather not belie my words by googling the exact chemical configuration of something thats just bright and pacifying to me, something thatll melt on my tongue. 'm not even gonna chew. just gonna swallow it. the way i ate chocolate as a kid because relishing in something meant enough time for it to be taken away. the way i drink medicine because - if you gulp it down really quickly, it doesnt have time to taste bitter: anything can be honeyed milk if you clench your teeth hard enough

did you know thats what galaxy means anyway? milk? i wonder what galactical honey would be, then. whether id think its sweet or spicy, whether id like the taste or want to spit it out. if itd go down with well-rounded corners or lodge itself into my throat and stay there. fishbones. i also wonder whether astronauts ever feel scammed when they set foot on the ISS and realize theyre not going to bear witness to a sky made out of sparkling lights and silver threads and golden spots and rainbow clouds but rather just a sea so inky black it's going to make breathing difficult not just by lack of oxygen alone. earths much too reflective for any other luminescent object to be visible to the naked eye, ive been told, hence why youd just be looking at a planet so bright it surely hurts to stare at it, and i wonder what it feels like, being up there and gazing down only to be blinded when youre so used to looking up and squinting?

im homesick thinking of kids drawing earth into the upper right corner of their drawings. i dont actually know if theres stars up there though everybody tells me those pinprick lights are, and i cant breathe when im busy trying to figure out what exact level of depression the stale air around me tastes like. but something in my brain clicks when i think of shiny things and theres no empirical evidence that grabbing the sparkly stuff up above my head wont cure me so i want to, i want to, i want to. wanting always boils down to sinking your teeth into it and ive filed my canines far too often to fear the force of my bite now

people dance on the moon and i mimic their steps in my bedroom and though these are just small steps i dont know the names of the poor sods stuck on the ISS either, even though there's only been like 500 of them and they're all way better at living life than i am. my hands ghost over where i instinctively know the light switches of my flat are and wonder if up there somebody's got a nightlight, cheap plastic stars attached to their ceilings, one of those little projectors that put constellations on your walls. whether they ever have trouble sleeping and if yes, what the hell do they look up at then? who do they cast their wishes to?

never seen a star up close. never held one. but the concept is so familiar, so ingrained into whatever our shared consciousness is made out of, that i want with my molars. i itch to keep it in my tummy so it keeps me warm on the cold days and i only trust what i see so i want to look at it until my retinas burn, until the sound of the big bang echos in the confines of my brain. itll drown out all other unwanted thoughts and itll sing in the genetic make-up of my descendants long after my neighbours cant hear me sing in the shower anymore. ill cup my palms and pray into them. begging is easier when youre in position and im on my knees and i swear ill never run out of things to whisper to the radiant little ember in my hands because it is beautiful and because i like shiny things and because stars have always made us look up at them and

When I finally get my teeth on it and swallow it whole I'm sure a piece of the star will get lodged in my throat like. fishbones. in a last-ditch effort at vengeance. I'll spend the rest of my life attempting to choke it back up.

"I made it with love," I'll say after I finally managed to do so.

"Careful, it's hot."

[lowlaif]

I walk through my old neighbourhood and I stare. My mind's been running on whatever the energetic equivalent of a murky light in a mouldy basement is, so all of the coherent thoughts I could've theoretically had have now ended up in a shamble of notions and memories and white noise and that ugly green charging station at the corner to the old stationary store that definitely hasn't been there before. Lately, my thoughts keep gravitating to Elon Musk. To electric cars. To how the climate has decided it's going to burn baby burn and make one hell of a show out of it. What a lobster might feel, boiling alive. I have been thinking about laughter. The nice pearly kind. The kind that sounds a lot like a broken diesel motor on good days and more like scraping your fingernails against a blackboard on a bad one, the laughter that feels like a taunt. I double check my phone gallery for a photo of unplugged chargers so I don’t forget them in the outlet and wonder if a millionaire even knows where the outlets in their home are. Do they know? I've known these streets from nightmares and daydreams and scuffed knees on broken pavement, a patchwork of asphalt over potholes no one really bothered to fix, nooks and crannies I know better than myself because I used to hide in them, that’s what I know. I’m painfully aware that the mixture of grey houses and grey cement and grey me really doesn't blend with the atrocious green of that new charging station, a green so toxic it hurts my eyes, but there’s nothing I can do aside from letting it burn baby burn. My thoughts shift to electrical fires. To resentment. To sparks and ignition and exhaust pipes. To commodifying safety in order to make way for innovention. My thoughts shift everywhere so they can’t shift to the rest and facing them feels like hearing people breathe through the walls of a place you can’t quite call home anymore. When I take a moment to inhale air that's still too thick for comfort, I hear my younger self laughing and crying and asking who the hell I am and why do you look Like That. My thoughts keep gravitating to Elon Musk. He could probably launch himself onto Mars should push come to shove. This isn't a poem. It hasn't been. I'm just complaining. That outlet simply doesn't look right over there, so green and modern. There's not a single graffiti on it and I might, in childish defiance, catch myself hating it for a second like an old lady resents a new park bench for being new. "Times sure have changed," I muse under my breath and keep walking. But have I? Have I?

[lowlaif]

It's 3 in the morning again.

Why am I awake? What am I doing?

My life passes by and I feel like someone watching its reflection in my eyes would somehow feel more than I do.

[lowlaif]

I have this habit of wanting short hair and never cutting it. Like a metronome. Push and Pull. At some point, I would've definitely organized an appointment with a hairdresser. Definitely. At least that's what I tell myself, while I misuse a pandemic as my yearly excuse for why I'm entering my wintry hibernation phase again.

In jest, I add to the column of my strengths that people often compare me to a cockroach. Those are hardy, after all. Hard to kill. I work hard to weave compliments out of the words aimed at my heart so they don't succeed at weaving the noose around my neck and I fail. Some Days are better than others. The metronome's song is distant then. Push and Pull.

On Some Days, I look into the mirror, see my split ends and am nothing more. Or I'm the eyes that don't seem to match the rest of my face - contraband - the crooked nose that must allude to my personality.

But on Other days, when I'm not Pushing and not Pulling but being Pushed, being Pulled, my eyes rest on my mouth without fail, and words weave a snare even my broken, battle-hardened nails won't do much against.

"Blow Job Lips." That's one of the terms in the noose. I can't look away, I never could, and softly think "Seems about right." to myself.

Right now isn't Some Days, or Other Days, however, no, right now is TO DAY, and today my thoughts glide through my mind like a flat stone over a lake, provided it's been thrown somewhat decently. The rope tightens. The kitchen scissors don't manage to cut through my tidy ponytail on the first attempt, but they're worn, so I forgive them. Cutting hair takes practice, after all. Throwing rocks seems more difficult to me.

("It isn't," my mouth says, "It's increasingly easy when your target's made of glass.")

Now that the push and pull is _just that_, nothing more, and now that it is finally TODAY, I stand tall in front of the mirror, stare unblinkingly at a crooked hairstyle I've thoroughly screwed up and AM it, in a weird, weird way.

My Blow Job Lips do something they rarely do. 

One corner resting a little higher. Hair and smile so terribly lopsided.

A cockroach, huh?

Seems about right.

[lowlaif]

There's many ways to destroy something. Splitting. Ripping. Throwing. Smiting.

To destroy is to hurl a plate at the nearest wall, or hold a dry leaf over an open fire. To destroy is to blacken a document, bite your nails, and scratch a scabbed wound. It is to look someone in the face and tell them you never cared.

You could fix a plate with glue. You could attempt to stitch silk back together, and mend relationships as well. But the scar and the memory remain, often visibly, the original material now so, so much more brittle, prone to even worse breakage. Who can accept an apology if it's drowned out by the echo of cracks, and rips, and splinters, and screams, anyway? I for sure never learned how to, and I don't want to learn, either.

It's easy, anyway. Destroying. You don't need much more than a crack. A tear. A scar. Nothing's simpler than breaking off pieces of drywall after a fist's been through it, or igniting leaked gas when a nearby cable throws the occasional spark. There are many ways to destroy things, and they're always active and loud and explosive and rough and big and eye-catching and it's always, always an act of anger. At least that's what people tell you. That's what they want you to know.

But oh, not me. Not in my case. I'm not like that.

I'm "civilized".

I spotted the ladder in the fabric a long time ago, and I waited until it grew big enough to hook my fingers in. Then I began pulling, even as the thread rubbed painfully against my hands and chaffed my palms, watching as it all unraveled in calm fascination. Undoing the careful stitch wasn't hard and I knew, I knew I could just mend it back together, so this wasn't a problem. This wasn't worrisome. I was calm, and careful, and deliberate, and this wasn't destruction. It wasn't. I wasn't even angry.

I was just undoing myself at the seams.

[lowlaif]

My smile is a sentient thing. Weren't it for the two clasps in my cheeks holding it in place it would slither right off my face and melt into a puddle to my feet.

[lowlaif]

It's never my own words that resonate with me.

It's those of others.

Poetic, holy, full of meaning (if that even exists), rhythmic and melodic and simply nice to listen to. Works of art hanging in the Louvre and grasping attention without having to vie for it. Warm milk tea on a cold day.

My own words feel cheap and curdled and clandestine in my mouth. How do you compare the act of hurling a sledgehammer at a wall to an original Monet?

I can't even sort out my own emotions. Why is there others I can rely on to feel for me and put in words what I can't even grasp? Why am I so incapable of saying something, anything of worth and someone else has managed to come up with the words "Despite everything, it's still you."?

They're true. And they're scary. Despite everything, my best attempts, wishes, and prayers, it still is me.

That's why, even if the sledgehammer in question is much more of a pebble, I might as well throw it at the wall again.

[lowlaif]

I used to think I have a way with words.

But I get lost in my own hometown, even when using maps. I manage to stumble over the paths my thoughts take, all the time. Never, not once have I been able to find the most suitable route of action when confronted with one of the many detours my life takes, and not once have I been able to drag myself out from the dead-end I've unwillingly steered myself into.

Still. I used to think I have a way with words.

Now that I've gotten lost more times than I can remember, I'm realizing I never had a way with anything to begin with.

[lowlaif]

I recall writing notes back when I wanted to remember rather than forget.

Despite not being sinistral, my handwriting's always been quite unfortunate, lopsided in a way that would leave its imprint by marking the outward-facing side of my palm with discoloration. An annoying circumstance, really. Still can't stand singing documents after all this time.

Lately, I've been thinking that's the same with speech. You say something, and a piece stays, as blurred and unintelligible as it is. It might be gone the next time you wash your hands. Or you used whatever the linguistic equivalent of a ball-point pen is; that smudge takes a bit longer to fade. So, when you say something horrible, and hours later finally take a deep breath and look at your palm, there's a dull red sprawl spread over your skin, not quite angry as it was before, but present nonetheless. Taunting somehow. Shameful. A tattoo you've gotten during a mental blackout and regretted ever since.

...

I talk too much.

I leave too many marks.

I talk and I talk and I think my hand doesn't have enough room to echo all the horrors I've let fall over my lips in a moment of perceived strength and objective weakness.

Then I hold my upward-facing palms under the tap for hours on end, like a prayer, but one particular pattern is still there, no matter how many times I've attempted to paint over it with prettier words. The few times my gaze doesn't remain glued to it, my thoughts stick instead, and I will always know it’s there, even if years of speaking have left a thick layer of ink on top.

I can still see it.

The first time I called myself worthless.

[lowlaif]

There's a furnace inside of me and I keep shovelling coal into it.

No clue what it does, actually, but the last time I stopped shovelling a part of my brain began screeching so loud I can still feel my ears ring.

[lowlaif]

Something in the shape of my thoughts lies on the ground and bleeds.

I kick it; no response.

It's stopped moving ages ago.

[lowlaif]

Give me your eyes.

Just for one second.

I miss having mine sparkle when the sun hits them just right.

[lowlaif]

sin is sin in the eye of the beholder and i have burned for too long to start differentiating now

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"Overdramatic bitch", I snap at myself, curling up on the bathroom floor, while the shower is running so no one can hear me.

"You're just doing it for attention."

[lowlaif]

Currently drinking a toast to past me.

You were pretty cringe, but damn. Not a single day passes where I don't wish I could still refer to you in first person.