honor the body

summary: if you stare at the ceiling and think about your life enough times, you'll probably figure it out.

classifieds

Craigslist community classifieds, searched 11/27/25.

Boston

SANTA WHOLE COSTUME NOT JUST FACE. Any lonely females from the Lowell area? Baby cockatiels. Tutoring Russian. Men's workout Tuesday nite. Do NOT hire Capstone Masonry & Construction. Need help shoveling? Free Child Protection Kits.

> Rainy day best bud.

"Something about days like this I wish a buddy would pick me up go for a ride nuce quiet area where you can show off your face painting skills I love arts n crafts"

Baltimore

Casanova Love Spells. BARN OR SHED WANTED. CDs in a digital world. Lower back issues. Dirty Leucistic Axolotls. 150.00 to move 9 items and drop off items in baltimore Md. COMEDY GROUP FORMING. A lonely thanksgiving.

> Still.

"Still up to the same I see.
You left your misery masked in that vitriol, I don’t want it.
Thankful for real love that you could never give.
Goodbye."

New Orleans

Dart Frogs - $50. Navy Veteran widow seeks pension advice. Party TONIGHT. Helping the Grandmaw's out there. "3 cats for sale. Free need gone ASAP." Moon shards. Dumpsite for topsoil. Crank driver. Yard sale in Kenner. New Orleans going west.

> I wish we could sit at that spot...

"That you told me about.
I go there all the time and sit by the water and just think for a couple of hours.
Sometimes I wish I’d never met you.
But I’m glad I did - you changed me.
You never even having your toe in the door yet still picking up the phone changed me.
You going silent during the worst time of my life changed me.
You hurt me, and I didn’t deserve all of it. And you know it.

Anyways, tootles.
I love you, friend.
Wouldn’t kiss ya if I had the chance.
Won’t miss you after a while,
crocodile."

lay

this section has been copied from a physical notepad. this is an especially stream-of-consciousness piece of writing.

01:48 AM. as an exercise, I've decided to stare at the ceiling for 30 minutes with a notepad and see what comes out of me. I expect that none of this will be cohesive, but I suppose I'm just wondering what I'm missing as I reflect on how much time I spend in a day constantly busy and preoccupied.

I feel like I'm a seagull with an iphone the way I'm hitting the vape every night. it feels very easy to romanticize, a trans woman doing drugs to cope. I don't think it's a coping thing, necessarily, I just do it because I don't feel compelled to do anything else. when I arrive home from work, everything is quiet and I get bored very easily.

I wish that I could remember certain words without having to look up how they're shaped every time I want to use them, like 爱. at least I've written 我 so many times over the years in my various attempts to learn mandarin that I have no difficulty spelling it. must I write the word for love a thousand times until I remember it? probably. I want to learn a shorthand script or two to write in, and learning one for mandarin would be pretty cool too.

the rules of this exercise are that I can't look at my phone at all. not even to check the time, so I can't tell you how embarrassingly short of a time I've gone without thinking about my phone or the time that's passing. the rules also state that I can't fall asleep until the timer goes off and until I have this transcribed and published. I think the timer is going, but I've already forgotten. oh well.

I've been so busy and thirsty for knowledge and connection that I can notice how little I've been savoring things lately. there is art I've been meaning to make, there are garments I've been meaning to repair, and there are items I've been meaning to gather for skills I've been hoping to build. it just slips by me. not that I haven't been loving life or anything. I don't feel like I'm missing out on the experience of being alive. in fact, I feel satisfied in general.

to keep myself from getting distracted, I shoved my phone into the toybox.

the longer it takes me to start doing something I would like to be doing, like yoga or writing about how to engage with magic, the less accessible it feels, even if it's already inside of me. the trains in Boston are fairly loud, raucous affairs, a kind of roaring machinery accompanied by yelling and transit notices that culminate in an experience that's all but deafening at times.

I get a little overwhelmed when I'm on the train in ways that are easy for me to ignore by simply focusing on something else – reading my messages, learning something, attempting to decompress, putting together grocery lists, listening to music, and so on. most often, it's listless scrolling on my phone. I'm only human and the phone is rather distracting.

if I just did nothing, which I sometimes do, but with a pen and a notebook, would I be able to write anything? I try to write creatively on the train sometimes, but it's a little too loud for my thoughts to fully settle. I do like to draw people on the train or on the platform or at the bus station, which was something I was beginning to make a habit of before I lapsed. the written word, meanwhile, feels like untying a seized knot without the aid of sufficient fingernails or a marlinspike.

somehow, I arrive considering the shape of my femininity. the very second I placed a period at the end of that sentence, the alarm goes off. I realize I should be doing this for an hour, instead. I think I saw a David Lynch quote earlier today about how you need four uninterrupted hours to get one good hour of painting in. maybe the nature of my loneliness / isolation / solitude is only befitting of an artist.

maybe I'm meant to be alone so often. maybe it's a good thing to distance myself from everyone I know and love. I recognize this particular framing as being derivative of a poison thought I sometimes have, but the time spent in contemplation is something I recognize as worthwhile, certainly.

so much of my femininity is defined, to me, by taking action, holding things together, and being reliable emotional support. I want to take care of others and it's hard work the way I do it, putting so much of myself into it. I tell myself I don't want to, and then I'm compelled to volunteer to do things and follow through on them by some unseen ghost of duty within me. often, I brush up against my limits because I feel I must be responsible, diligent, studious, and correct in all things.

this results in something that is not exclusively feminine, but certainly correlates to it. I care very much about the presentation and performance of the self, and I actively try to leverage these things daily to get what I want. that is, the awareness of it allows me to cultivate results toward my goals. I want it to appear as though I have my shit together and I want to seem beautiful, wise, and proficient in everything I do with it all being apparently effortless. I want it to feel effortless, too.

to cultivate this full-time, however, means that when I struggle, I really struggle hard, and I barely even acknowledge that. I don't know how to ask for help effectively because I don't usually know what specifically I need help with. and when I do, I immediately analyze the situation and I try to form solutions. then I take care of it myself, or I try to find the people who can explain to me how I can solve the problem by my own hands. to "just ask for help" is a tremendously complicated and abstract skill for me.

interiors

03:50 AM. the rain pitter-patters on my window.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of apartment buildings with deep interiors that harbor rooms with no windows. I can only recall having ever been in one such building. it was in Dedham, I think, in an apartment that could be described as maximalist. a strange box without natural light. but then, I arrived in the evening after the sun had set by an hour, so it didn't feel like much of a difference.

I could envision those hallways stretching on endlessly, a maze of white, featureless doors. the occasional door bears decorations – a hanging of Chinese knotwork and a lucky cat, or a wreath. or a simple, brown doormat. or a Haitian flag draped over the door. maybe out-of-season decorations from sometime last year.

someone lives in each, and each with difference opinions from the next on the topics of isolation, claustrophobia, darkness, artificial lighting, entertainment, and what constitutes an acceptable dinner and breakfast.

honor the body

if my body were a temple – and let us believe for a moment that it really is – then it has survived the stewardship of many previous versions of myself. frankly, they had no idea what they were doing, and neither does the current priestess of the temple. however, in the era of which I have been aware that I'm trans, some common wisdom has been passed down generation after generation, which is that one must "honor the body."

originally, it was about how I deserved reciprocation during sex, which I was largely not receiving. but it's also been applied to how I eat, what I wear, how and when I stretch and exercise, how much water I drink, mindfulness, allowing myself rest, on and on. whenever I begin to feel myself suffering, like now, I'm reminded of this phrase and I begin to think about what things I'm missing.

the walls are sturdy but accumulate dust and black soot as my body has grown sore and stiff. your feet pull away from the rugs dirtier than they were before. perhaps it's best I not dwell on the current state of things. it makes me feel lousy. there is, however, some clear direction, and by stating it I'll feel inclined to actually make it happen.

first is that I must stretch. stretch often and stretch well. I stretched this morning and I feel so much more free to move. ancient tapestries have been taken down for cleaning, to carefully have the dust beaten out of them on my steps. too much stress is placed in the periphery of my lower back. to reduce the tension, the silk banners have been rearranged and repaired and will be provided with more points of contact. stretch, stretch, stretch, all to relieve the tension. the cracks in my walls will be repaired with time.

soil and ash from ritual fires have been tracked in – I need more water. I drink plenty and am well aware of its importance for my vital functions, but I have been encumbered by excess. that is, I eat enough that it's unhealthy for me and I don't feel satisfied. we've been through this song and dance several previous times. the former priestesses, in their shame and fervor, scrubbed the floors so thoroughly that it wore through the clay and stone and we needed time to rebuild. it would create a cycle of shoddy construction and cleaning that made the place borderline unlivable. now, however, though the balance is a delicate one, the art has been refined and passed down in a way that's healthy for the floors of the temple.

it has been so long since the building was erected that the original floorplans and the subsequent plans and contracts for the many additions and renovations have been lost. I really would like to exercise more. I want to learn a combat sport. it used to be the case that I couldn't envision anything for my future. I have an idea now of the things I want to learn and the directions I want to grow in. I'm learning how to give better massages so I can better care for my girlfriend, but also it's giving me a much clearer idea of body mechanics and the interconnectedness of musculature and soft tissue. I want to be fluent in mandarin and hindi and punjabi. I want a body that feels unencumbered.

whatever I do, I think I'll be alright. I'm thankful to live and experience this life.