Elucidating Questions

I love when there’s casual, blatant, unapologetic, cross dressing, in children’s anime.

Pokemon really did pull it off

If the first season of it aired now the next episode I’m going to watch would be labeled as woke propaganda

Yet there it is, nestled comfortably in the past

In a 9 or 10 year old me that didn’t see a problem with a cis dude in make up and a skirt

Probably thought it was funny

Which, while not the appropriate reaction, made sense in a young me

They tried to edit it out, they cut episodes and stuff, but some of it snuck in

Little wishes of Japanese creators presented in anime form

Wouldn’t it be great if?

It would be great if there was no cross dressing

Everyone just wore whatever they wanted

But those little rebellions through anime

When I rewatched the episode with the guy in the lighthouse

And he started asking what the point of humanity was in this system where everything had a place

I don’t know what the English was

But it was as if that statement slept inside me for decades and then woke on its own

I’d had the exact same thought

I know thought is not organic

We are a species of passing down

Everything about us has been thought or felt, perhaps in different ways, but still the same at their core, by others before us

But that wondering

Why are we here?

Why do they have roles and we don’t?

And we feel it, this loss of a role

Thousands of years of humans trying to find their reason for existing

What are we?

And why?

What a thing to put in a children’s show

It most certainly went over my head

I wonder how many thoughts and feelings I have are echoed from the past?

Things I didn’t understand, that my mind had tucked away until I did

How much is young me driving my life?

Besides me being a product of, well, me?

I was hesitant, but for a moment, to venture this far back into my memory

There must be a reason I only have select memories from then

Of course I know at least one reason

Being molested isn’t exactly a fun experience

That man should lose his life for what he did to me

I say I don’t believe in the death penalty, but then I remember that people do things like that

He was so calm doing it

I can’t have been the only one

I feel very trepidant treading here

I think I remember

But do I?

And what don’t I remember?

Now that I’m out of the forest of creation it’s hard to find meaning in this

But perhaps it will be a tool to diving into these places I long left resting in the past?

Not like last time when the decades were taunting me

I’m equipped this time

I may as well have fun with it

Like enjoying the random gender nonconforming bits and pieces

I brought some things with me

I’m going on a journey to find what I left behind

What became my inner thoughts without me noticing

My tattoo looks like someone barfed colours on my arm and saran wrapped it

In the vague shape of Saturn

And it itches like a bitch sometimes

But it didn’t hurt as much as creating the scars we were covering did

Or the way it ached for days afterwards

It just feels mildly moist and I kind of hate it?

But I’m willing to do whatever to make this thing heal properly despite all my various blood, skin, anything problems

It looks like it’s scabbing

What am interesting process this is

And humans had to perfect it too

Some however many hundred people were history’s guinea pigs

Well I like guinea pigs, so it’s fine

It feels like a right of passage

In a different way than my piercing did

Maybe more ancient

Scarification probably being the first kind

And I’m covering mine up

No, not really

封印されている

土星で

Acknowledging that I tried to find Death

And Time told me to wait my turn

But that I won’t go down that dark road again, regardless of turn

Someday I’m going to remember getting this tattoo as a fond memory, maybe I’ll have all the planets, maybe I won’t

But I’ve got Saturn on my side

I can’t forget you’re with me now

Who sees a happy ending and is plunged into loneliness and despair?

Well, me, apparently

It’s such a good happy ending

And I’ve seen it before, but for some reason I was still hoping it would be different

I wanted a bittersweet ending

I hate this

I hate that this is my reaction to happy love stories now

I ruined happy endings by not believing in them anymore

Now they feel like a personal slight

I don’t know why it’s my gut reaction

I’m immediately slightly disgusted when romances go well

And then I despair about the feeling

And how terribly lonely it makes me feel

Nothing can quell the part of me that feels like I’m being denied what I need and that everyone else is parading it around to spite me

And I hate that part of me so much

Storytellers haven’t done anything of the sort

Fantasy merely isn’t reality

Love doesn’t work like that

Magic doesn’t

I wanted a magic that would show him that I’m gone

Show him my absence

Pity

What else would that elicit?

I don’t want pity

But you waited too long Universe

I wouldn’t believe any love story written for me now anyways

You waited until I didn’t believe in anyone anymore

Anything

All these years begging for someone to see me

You’ve never sent me anyone I could trust enough to do that

And now I don’t believe that person exists

I yearn into the night

Fleeting moments of weakness

I know no one’s coming

That this is hell and I am damned to it

That my one wish in life would never be granted

I don’t cry from surprise I cry from bitter disappointment

Alone in the capitalistic desert

No one would find me even if I screamed

Love stories are for the worthy

That wasn’t an acceptable consolation prize

My life

What was it for, I wonder?

I woke up at some time this morning before light and was talking to myself in Japanese

Something about the darkness in the early morning being one of this season’s good points

But it just occurred to me now that half asleep me speaks fluent Japanese

Half asleep me did not used to speak fluent Japanese

I wonder if I can continue learning like I always did?

I’ll just become an anime character again

許して先生

That was a good title today

3366

Earth, Earth, Saturn, Saturn

3 being half of 6

The way it looks like it’s continuing a sequence of some sort

Yes, very fitting

A mirror which shows the looker their strengths? Or perhaps the opposite?

I can see him tonight

But I couldn’t last night

How fitting and theatrical

Always fitting and theatrical

Universe you are as or more dramatic than I am

And Happenstance

A tricksy thing

The best moments

The worst

I wonder why my sleepy self felt the need to learn a second language?

And when did it happen?

I remember so clearly touching down in Tokyo and forgetting everything

Like I hadn’t studied a day in my life

Maybe it was that tiny pride in me

You won’t catch me unprepared again

I apparently speak full sentences about the state of the season now

On the tail of a day I’ve already forgotten

A day I will remember

A special day.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had more than one of these in two months

How do I carry them forward without dirtying them with my touch?

If I put them in hiding I’ll find them, clear and crisp like walking into them

But I want to think of them

The human memory is so fickle and strange

If I wrap them up tightly

And only look from the outside

Maybe they’ll be clear enough for a future me to see

What a perfect title for this

You’re in my skin now

The process was amazing

It aches like the accomplishment of not cutting into my skin again

I did it

And it didn’t hurt like hurting does

Maybe it was easier to bear because it was real?

I don’t feel like anything could hurt worse than the pain my body puts me through

Endorphins

Adrenaline

I currently feel great

Exhaustion looms

I imagine I will be resting aggressively the rest of the day

It doesn’t quite feel real yet

I keep looking at it

I will probably expect it to fall off until it proves it doesn’t

So real

Pain that actually has a source

And I can look at it and know what’s causing it

I don’t know exactly how to put into words the experience

The artist is amazing

I was right to pick her

Handydart has really opened up the world to me

The bus driver

I remember her asking, “you’re going alone?”

First tattoo

Honestly the artist herself filled the void of companion and I will never forget that

I love it

And I did it by myself

How many people wouldn’t have tattoos if it weren’t for being with friends?

Not a crazy number, sure

But probably significant

Your absence was felt, yes

Strange question asker

Anyone’s was

I did this for me, though

It would have been nice to have a person to hold on to after

Sure, always

But I used to not go places because no one would come with me

Look at me now

I need someone, but I don’t need anyone

Independent

For a bit anyways

Dreading the next tragedy

But I’m here and that means something

I did this and that means something

Everything feels so right, right now.

Let’s call it a nesting day

A pain on my arm

The echo of tomorrow

It’s my first

And I’m the first in my blood family to get one

I feel like I’m pouring history into my skin

Tattoos have such depths

And such shallows, but let’s ignore those for a moment

Maybe it’s fitting that the clouds are obscuring you tonight

I’m marrying you to my skin tomorrow

Finally

Enduring pain for beauty

Such a metaphor

I’m obscuring but not covering the lines I carved into my skin desperately digging for Death

Some will remain

That’s the point

You can’t erase it, I can’t, anyways

Time, well you insist you can

Maybe that’s why I’m putting you there

It’s muddled

So many colourful feelings

You are the promise I made when I signed the contract

Not even knowing I was signing my life away to me

If I could halt that pen

Just like him

Signed to a boy in the dark that was Death disguised

No, perhaps, not disguised

Perhaps it was clear to everyone except the writer

Do you stop your hand in horror of what you write?

What would it tell me?

The duck danced in the dark for the prince who chose the princess

How woefully apt

I don’t know what I am

I don’t know why the spirits speak through me

Why they want to

I don’t know why the future drips out in intertextual drops

Maybe I am a bad sign

It grows clearer

As I lose myself in this solitude

Maybe today I was supposed to rest

I feel worn out

Stretched

Like a rubber band that was pulled too tight for too long

And the plastic has hardened

Split in places

Do I bring this face to you?

Will you hold me now?

In my dreams I always show you the strongest face I have

And you crack through it

But if I was to show you weakness

Would you face me still?

I feel like anything other than my all is failure

Because even with my all I still fail

I have too many worries

I wish to lay them down at someone’s feet

Have them look at them like the unimportant things they are and tell me it’s all okay

But my worries tend to be important

And there are no feet to lay them at

I imagine a world where no one loses

That would have been nice

But he won

And though my heart

It wails at times

There is nothing we ever could have done

True love is special

And though it hurts me to see it

Because I will never know it first hand

It’s beautiful

And would be treasured

I beg for my bed

There’s not much left in today anyways

A day to disappear into the past

Gone forever

What is a happy ending?

That everything wrapped up neatly

No one goes without

Ending

Well, it’s not like I want it to end anyways I guess

What would a world where I don’t yearn for a happy ending look like?