#not ennead

[thessidy]

Two brothers stand upon a ridge. The steppe has not been kind these past years; far from the hard life eked out by their grandparents, further still from the bounty whence attracted their forebears. No, this would be the last time they spoke together below the boundless sky, gazing at these wide open plains.

“To the setting sun,” one brother says, “where rains still gather.”

“To the lower horizon,” says the other, “Where mountains may provide us shelter and game.”

One last clasp of weathered hands; one last goodbye to bhrehter and swesor. “But our children,” one says, “will in the same tongue remember mother and father.”

“And the horses, and cows,” says the other, “and birds and bears. They will hear and see and know and love, they will watch the stars and name the days.”

“And they will speak,” both said, and each apart went their way.

[thessidy]

Almost every night I dream of flight. But flight demands such a price: my body is warped, my arms mangled and my bones made brittle. Because the freedom the birds enjoy requires them to have completely changed every aspect of their life, of their being. Yes, we are free to fly – but our bones must be hollow, our bodies light and weak, our digestions quick and inefficient, our lungs specialized and so large they cram out other bodily functions. Your body is mostly water; over a quarter of me is air. Your human body is dense; mine is so, so void. I will always live in fear of animals, both flying and otherwise, that want to kill me. I am so small, but at least I am free.

[thessidy]

The problem with souls is they don’t age. Physically, sure, when you’re old you can be your young self again, but will you ever really get along with those who died young? And the children, of course, they need their own area — confused as they are, never the chance to grow up or mature.

But the babies, that’s the most pitiful of all. And, unsurprisingly, the most common. They don’t call it the pit of unending wails for nothing. Not from pain, of course. More like confusion. An animalistic sort of fear. It’s not right, it’s just not. But it is how it is.

[thessidy]

I don’t know what they gave us, but our bodies are changing. My arms are convulsing and twisting and lengthening, my hands with longer fingers to better grasp and reach. My skin pales sickly silk, my eyes grey, in agony I reach and grasp and find my hair falling in droves from my scalp—

but when I try to scream, I find my mouth covered. I panic, try to breathe, my nose is merely two holes flat against my face. I am their perfect servant, now: silent, lanky, easy to groom and preen, my long arms suited for reaching and grabbing what my masters cannot. I do their bidding with tearful eyes, my only method of expression, my greyed eyes that will never again see our bodies whole.

[thessidy]

I’m tired of being trans. 

That’s it. I’m just tired of it. I’m tired of the dysphoria, tired of hating myself and my body and my face and everything physical about me every damn time I look in the mirror. I’m tired of deliberately keeping the fan off so the shower’s steam obscures my image. I’m tired of lying to my parents and my sister, I’m tired of letting people misgender me just so I can be ‘agreeable’, I’m tired. I’m tired of carrying this weight on my shoulders every damn day, knowing I hate who I am and I can’t do anything about it. I’m tired of presenting how I was assigned, I’m tired of knowing that I can’t or I’m not willing to do anything to change that because it’s just too much damn work to look fem. I’m tired of knowing I will never look the way I want to. I’m tired of having a damn physical vessel at all. 

I’m tired of knowing the world hates me. I’m tired of inserting those stupid fucking caveats, “not everyone” OBVIOUSLY, not my wife, not my friends, not the maybe 40ish percent of US voters or whatever. I’m tired because that number is fucking miniscule compared to the number of people I deal with on a regular basis, even smaller compared to the number of people in other countries, in other times, who would and will never accept who I am. I’m TIRED of being this way and I’m tired of wishing and KNOWING that I can’t stop it. I’m tired of trying.

[thessidy]

The birds have stopped. Frozen, entirely. I know time marches: breeze blows the ribbons and leaves, bugs drone on. Yet these birds stand frozen as if suspended in amber, as if terrified. Why? Why? What is wrong? What do they hear or see or feel that I cannot? Something is deeply wrong and I am very afraid.

[thessidy]

No one really knows what to think of this new vessel. Clearly out of context from the rest of the deposit, of no comparable artistic style or school — who made this? Where did it come from? An heirloom, they presume, much older than the surrounding layers, but why?

And the vessel itself. A canopic jar, judging by its contents, but covered in globules like a pine cone or grape cluster. Except the globules each have a line straight down the middle, and nearest the base just a few open up as a beetle’s wings — an apt comparison, save for the fleshy terracotta revealed below. For the figures underneath, grasping and gripping onto the jar as a foal to the mare, were humanoid. Human, one might say, until they saw the single beetle-winged figure near the jar’s crown, baring fangs and staring with dead empty eyes.

[thessidy]

A tired old trope, but I felt the warmth of the sun and thought of you. “The light of my life” doesn’t cut it. I looked up to give thanks, and of course — how am I to gaze upon one whose beauty is so blinding? But when you shine I can see clearly the mottled leaves, the chickadees and flittering robins, the grasses all cast in golden hue, savoring your warmth — without whom life itself would not exist. All would shrivel and freeze and die. It’s night and day, my life without or with.

How can I make offerings to one as you? As millions of stars glitter, numerous as thawing dew, our meeting as slim a chance as water in the Goldilocks zone, you who give me life.