#zine text

[crumbsinthesea]

from text of a zine, 19th may ’26

could have written in my diary, or tried to, but somehow it’s not the same as what a zine allows. wonder if i will learn a way to write zine-like there, or if they are just different spaces/places

don’t expect a zine to fix it, don’t expect tomorrow to be different

there may be a shift or there may not be. i will have made a zine, it’s a place for what i am carrying.

things are bad/hard, but i also know that then i will pick myself up and carry on, because this is what happens every time. it only lasts so long. there is no full collapse. there is me, alone, and at some point it’s different enough to continue. thought yesterday (?) of how it was when C’s world came apart.

don’t know if that happened to me or not. what that even means. don’t know what it means for the world or for me to come apart. things changed and I have. things are not the same. I am not the same. (C said I am the same person – in a specific context – but I know I am not.) K said I am full up with grief.

where is that meant to go – how is it meant to? do you lance it like a boil, do you pour it? do you wait whilst you digest it? what if you can’t, or not well? what do you need to be able to? (is it even legitimate grief?)

things are hard and bad but I know I will carry on. always like that.

have felt like I should write something to/for K, because I will feel like this and then come Thursday it won’t be there. the water I’ve had cupped in my fingers will have run right through and there won’t be anything there. nothing to hand over. I need help, to try to get out, to carry it, I don’t know. that old ‘it’s so bad/it’s not that bad’ that repeats itself

don’t know how to tell or show her. because once I move from it I can’t access it the same. don’t know what difference i think it will make if I can tell her

but otherwise we just chat about stuff and then I go away and all of that is still there untouched

and when I think, I don’t know how much longer, I always do keep going. how much longer?

don’t even know how to give shape to it, so much

don’t know what else i had wanted to say

tired, fighting parts of me saying i should shut up and stop wallowing. and everything always has to be my fault and that is so much, over and over

don’t know how to shake it, begin to. even if I have already been beginning.

want to get to stop now. want it to be over.

my dad had a car accident and i haven’t even texted him

I need help but I don’t know what help there even is or how to ask. i’m exhausted.

what is this world, this life

feeling like I can’t access things to say for the tired or just it isn’t there any more. no clarity of mind

watched the film from Kit’s workshop. the one from earlier this year. don’t have a way to put that into words yet, if I will

still these questions about legitimacy

that i am living like this (too)

(that this is my fault)

thinking about mum and the kitten, her brother. the strong feelings I’d had, wanting to say it wasn’t her fault

and when I said it it was me who could hear

want to not try, want to just stop – but no one will pick me up except me. there’s no one else here. there’s no one else here. there’s no one else here.

something in my phone call with C, hard to put into words. the distance from this person, one of my closest people. but that huge gap. where the worlds are different. don’t know if that’s why this happened, these past couple of days.

(consider the limits. consider the limits of the field)

or if it’s the combined weight of impending future & health stuff and everything.

maybe just inevitable because all of this is always there and always too much. and E being gone, again. I don’t know. all of it probably

I don’t know how and I don’t know who can help me. things are not the same and I am not the same, and they are, over and over, and I am. almost out of space. don’t know what I have said. it hurts. it hurts so much and I don’t know how. and it’s all so – nothing. immense pain doesn’t really look like anything.

i don’t know how it’s possible. so tired. don’t want to have to try. i’m scared and i don’t know how and i don’t want to have to do any of it. want to give up. there isn’t a way to. there isn’t a way out. time keeps passing.

[crumbsinthesea]

I don’t really know what words to start with. writing this with a pen I got from yet another pavement box. inveterate scavenger. I can’t really help it. the potential stuff in the box, in that bag by the bin. a glittering excitement. more things – and they are ‘allowed’ because they are free, they are secondhand, they are unwanted. I don’t want to be writing about this. it makes me want to cry.

there is no point to making this zine. there no reason to do this rather than any of the other things I might be doing. watching nonsense tv, sinking the hours into it. swallowing the internet.

and yet also – if I make a zine I’ll have made a zine. it will have been pointless, it’s probably a waste of paper, probably I should be better at treating it as a precious resource, probably these pages aren’t worth the scrawl of my thoughts.

even as I say about it being pointless, as pointless as anything else – it is all just filling time, and none of it will change things, I just go round and round – if I have the idea or desire to make something – a zine, a collage – I’m going to follow it.

there is such a mismatch between sitting sedately, quietly at a table in the flat I get to live in on my own, listening to a song on repeat in headphones, glueing cut out paper to printer paper folded into a little booklet, writing these words – and the – what is there underneath.

the fucking – the despair, the screaming that I can’t, can’t keep living like this, but it’s far away, muffled, and I do, I do keep living like this. these cycles – yesterday I didn’t make it out of the house, spent a lot of the day watching tv, trying to escape the day, living. feeling lonely. I don’t know if I will make it out today or not. it’s dark, though not late. just after the clocks have gone back. I got dressed, realizing that I wasn’t making it out before it got dark, that decision freeing something up. made coffee, a mug cake. gathered what I needed to make this. and I’ll make this zine, write out these words and stick things in the pages, and the music will go round and round with me. and afterwards maybe I’ll go out into the dark, walk pavements and see the stars. see the way the streetlit city is different from the day city. and this is how it goes. it’s bad, I don’t go out, can’t do things, and then it pushes me to break that, do things that mean it shifts a bit. often it’s late walks, sometimes I drink, or go out to buy alcohol and then drink. it can help me to do things. it’s change but nothing changes in any bigger way, I go back round again, again, again. it’s never even dramatic, there’s something so fucking boring about it. it’s mostly just me, and I do the things I have to do to keep going – and for what? all of it is so pointless and it’s not where I feel I ought to be, how I should be, need to be living. but I don’t seem to know how to get out.

tired of that cycle, of pulling myself out, of keeping going only to do it again and again and somehow also never get to the core of it.

I think I’ve always wanted desperately a sudden huge clarity and shaft of light to shift things.

the isolation and loneliness is really bad – but also that feels like my fault. and guess what? the only way to change that is for me to do something about it.

I don’t know if I can, or if I know how, or if I want to.

it’s not how it works. there is no shaft of light. it will not magically shift and clear and be over. that’s never fucking happening.

it’s the small shifts, it’s the fucking incremental and the over and over again.

I am so fucking sick of myself.

I am so tired of everything, ‘simple’, ‘basic’ things being hard.

I’m tired of my self pity.

she said it’s hard for me to feel compassion for myself. when C was so hard on herself to survive I didn’t want her to be. I’m hard on myself but I don’t think it’s even effective. if it could actually get me somewhere then that might be something

writing all of these words it’s like – who fucking cares??!

just do something already. but I don’t and I don’t and I don’t.

you can just…not, and no one will stop you. nothing happens. you can just not and nothing happens. not immediately anyway. part of me wants to push that to its limits, just not, just not with everything and see where it gets me. but the thing is that’s boring, the thing is that the thing that pulls me out kicks in like every other time. so I don’t stay there.

you can not do things to look after yourself or make wrong decisions or do stuff that makes things worse, and there’s just no one there, no one stops you or helps you and you just keep going.

so instead I do something like making this zine. sometimes I don’t know if that’s better.

I know hyper-individualism is bullshit. it feels like my isolation is my fault, and probably on some level like I deserve it

but I don’t know how to find “the collective” even though like every fucking thing it’s all of these tiny steps and increments. I am so tired of all of it. years and years.

is it better if I say it isn’t that easy?

she asked if I recognised that it was hard and I was doing my best. but like, what if that isn’t enough and doesn’t make it better?

it might make it “liveable”, but the thing is it isn’t really but you do anyway because what else is there? what else is there?

it’s so quiet, it doesn’t even look like anything. I might be miserable but it isn’t dramatic, there’s no plot, a story where nothing happens. and over and over. it’s not like breaking even if I feel like I want to sometimes

it’s like nothing. there’s fucking nothing there. there’s no one here but me. there’s no one here but me.

zine making as mad method. but I’m not even mad properly

and yes of course this is all fucking unfair, a mixture of moaning about my misery whilst doing nothing about it and denying there’s even anything there.

if I was fine I wouldn’t be here.

if I was fine I wouldn’t be here.

I need someone to hear. I need someone to know but also I need no one to

I don’t know how to live like the world isn’t impossible

I hate the angst in this zine and it’s all just fucking nonsense. it’s not like I can call it ‘art’ or anything. and I can say it doesn’t matter because it’s not for anyone else than me, it’s not meant to have a ‘purpose’

but I need it to be seen and heard but also that’s not enough. inside there’s just ‘make it better’

make it better

make it better

make it better

I don’t know how it gets better or different

I don’t know how

so tired of trying and then also having nothing to show for it. don’t know if I’m trying or not. it’s awful but nothing is happening and nothing is really bad.

it’s hard to grieve what they are saying is not gone, i wrote. maybe i am saying that too. i am saying there is nothing to grieve.

nothing to grieve so nowhere for anything to go.

if there is nothing to grieve then why does it hurt?

(zine text 28.10.25)

[teaktty]

another zine idea. again, just text, still considering layout/aesthetic

~~~~~~

<still thinking of title>

let us just check in on some things

• there are changes in mood and well-being which occur with feminising hrt

• there can be increased emotional sensitivity, and potentially rollercoaster-like experiences in emotional state

"These changes can be profound and impactful, as they often coincide with the individual’s exploration and affirmation of their gender identity. It’s crucial to recognize that emotional changes are a normal part of the hormone therapy process and should be communicated openly with healthcare providers [and with loved ones and friends]"

"Understanding and addressing emotional and psychological changes are essential components of holistic care for transgender individuals. Embracing and navigating these changes can contribute to improved mental well-being and a stronger sense of gender affirmation."

can people please keep this stuff in mind?

we should be able to be open with friends and loved ones, and still reasonably expect empathy, compassion, support, and love.

is that too much to ask? please consider asking yourself

lilith knows we don't need more hurdles or pit traps

thanks

[teaktty]

text for a zine, still considering layout and style/aesthetic

~~~~~~

Phone

i wish i were my partners phone

or one of their dogs

my insides flip and flutter, churn and cramp

i crave love, any display of love

a smile, a kind word, a gentle touch

i want to be held, i want to hold them

raising how i feel the world shakes,

the chasm widens

sometimes they are there, so close, but kilometers away

i try to reach, only to make things worse and the void grows

panic grows, i don't really understand what is happening

i have absolutely no idea what to do to explain, apologise, reconnect

i sink deeper into abject dispair

please, i will do anything

i am so committed to this, to us

there has to be a path we can make or follow

if i need to walk it alone for us to not hurt each other, i will happily do so

please

help

i really don't know what to do

i am yours

i very love you

Connection

[radlgbtzine]

Okay I’m lucid now! I’ve fixed the App and if you need to modify it you can go back in and fix what you need to fix now! 

~Mod Sky