an ode to my girlhood.

five times comforted:      ( five times the receiver comforted the sender ) for Alice

5 times ... meme ( no longer accepting ) + @demone-volpe // lupin

A tongue that clicks tight to the roof of her mouth. Blue eyes that dart, and observe, and learn! Alice looks to this person with her cheeks that hollow out, lips pouting, as if testing and checking and TRYING TO FEEL. "... this is real life, isn't it?" looking to this man, this stranger for whom she smiles now, up and at them! On two legs, dusting at the knees, there's so much that remained an unknown, yes, but... there too was a feeling within her that they could at least get her started. And with every grand adventure! There was someone with knowledge, and perhaps that was why he was here? Why be afraid, when the world was already setting her up for some form of success with his presence in the here and now? A hand held out, as if nothing were at all remiss, as if she didn't remember her own death, as if to be reborn weren't but a strange thing at all for her. "I'm Alice! And you are?" because it all must start somewhere.

Oh how anger, how confusion rots like madness in her! Fruit that's been spoilt, is that not Alice now, who remembers too much with every passing, every death. And there's so few that understand the plight of it, but Lupin does! How her laughter that cracks like a winding thing, like upended clockwork, peels raw within her mouth, terror SEEPING THROUGH at the cracks. "Why must I remember it all!" laughing, laughing! Doesn't she look at if she might just break if allowed to live like this? "What use is a heroine with no hope for humanity? Why, there's no use for her at all!" as if it were some cat's riddle to be spun and indelicately placed where the path splits, or perhaps this was her. Alice couldn't be Alice without her muchness, and humanity, oh, she looks to him as if to plead for death, her words a rattling thing within her chest. "What do I do? How can I live like this with no use and no purpose?" she'll plead and cry and laugh in all the same beat, but Lupin, ah, a kinder soul than she ever could expect... he'll hold together her crowded, shattered pieces, and let her beg, barter and plead until all of it wrings dry out of her in sheer exhaustion. Until there's nothing left, but sleep.

"WHY HELLO," there's a curious little smile from her, looking to a face that seems all to unbothered by her appearance. Ah, was it like that then? “And what a beautiful, dizzying, delightful demon you are.” she means it, with all her twisting heart, the smile that blooms for it spilling all her ink for him. Alice goes chasing something twisty and windy to end up here, within this demon's domain - after her damnable cat, her Cheshire daydream unwinding and winding up like a mechanical and dimensional thing. It seems he knows her, but what's a girl to do! Alice remembers nothing at all, having traded her memories and her madness to a witch, in exchange for a sliver of peace for her pieces. And that damnable cat, in upside-down contrarian nature, is watching to be sure the curse, her price, has stuck. But she smiles, anyways. "I'm awfully sorry if you knew me before. You see, I've gone and made an awful deal, so if we've known each other before, I might not remember it in this lifetime. I'd be awfully pleased if you did remember me though! I promise. In fact... it's a relief that somebody does, really." one pinky, delicately linking to Lupin's own, finger, claw, finger - shifting fast! The universe is slipping, sliding, ready to dissolve.

Oh how girlhood could be a strange thing for a young girl! Or, as young as she thinks she might be. Truthfully, Alice only knows that there's been other hers in other lives, and that perhaps she's far older than she looks, and far younger than THE UNIVERSE AT LARGE. That's hardly something to hold do, isn't it? But she exists, with no start, and no ending, like the red string of fate itself, ever winding, winding... she sighs, she hums. A tired thing with a shifting gaze that feels listless now, her heart a sore and aching thing. Lupin there, all glowing eyes and a distinct lack of his usual flirtation, watching her as she digs a foot within the sand of this beach, stretched endless the way that Time itself might. "... I think I might have really loved them, you know. But they keep asking for the impossible. Remember me, they always say. But I can't remember anything but silhouettes and outlines each time I die, each time I'm reborn. What do I do? I've just gone and disappointed them all again." a pat on the head - and Alice smiles, ever so slightly. "... mmm... you're right. It'll be fine, won't it? Isn't it a splendid gift, regardless? I can give them one whole life of love. Spoil them rotten with the stuff. Won't that be enough?"

Names, names, names, they sit in a hat, waiting to be pulled out by the right hands. She only gets snippets when strolling through someone's dreams, you're there, you're gone, and with this one, she's been handed it with a sense of grace that she wasn't quite expecting from someone of his stature. But all he wants is a story, or so he says, Alice taking that seat at his side with fallen grace, legs swinging, unbothered it seems by the shifting of his form, the unsettling of his skin. This Lupin fellow seems quite the comfort indeed! Old scars, new ones, too, she leans, palms sinking into soft fabric. "What KIND OF STORY did you want to hear? Or know about… is it about me? Being a heroine isn’t what they teach you in fairy tales. Not all the dreams I end up in are happy, and filled with nice people… I’ve hurt people, and bathed in their trauma, I defeat their terrors, by choking the life out of them. Because if I don’t, they hurt me instead. I kill and I kill and I kill and I take it all. Half the time… I don’t even know what’s real, anymore.” a glance his way, a smile that borders on apologetic. “… I don’t even know if you’re real.” bright, again, as if the switch has flipped. "But you haven't tried to eat me yet! So... perhaps that's a win for this lifetime? Hm! Maybe... if you'd be so kind. I'd love to hear a story from you instead?"

The terrifying plight of a son, who was once a daughter

as a trans man, I very often view myself pre-transition as a different entity. Not all trans men like to do this, but I do.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember her wide eyes, her bright smile, her love for the world and all it held for her to discover.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember how she cast those eyes down, how unsure of herself she became. Those once wide eyes dulling with each passing day, the wide smile traded for one with her lips together, self conscious of her overbite. I remember how heartbroken she was at change, and how devastated she was with loss, and how mortified she was being alone and how she screamed and screamed and nobody came to help her.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember how hard she tried. How out of place she felt, how no matter where she went, it was like sitting in the middle seat on a plane, and being just too large to keep to yourself. How she started to know to be ashamed of her body, ashamed of her girlhood, ashamed of the space she occupied, ashamed of her interests, ashamed of her mind, ashamed of her heart...

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember the shame. The embarrassment. The setbacks, the growth, the joy when she finally felt like she belonged, even though something was off. The fear, the shame, the anger, the resentment, the dread, the feelings that have no names that bubbled to the surface when she realized she was played for the fool. More than once. I remember she almost didn't recover.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember she began to understand the meaning of her girlhood, followed by more shame. Followed by another realization. Who said she always had to be a girl? And then, the girl became the boy.

And so, when I remember the boy after the girl, I remember more internal struggle than ever. I remember rejecting girlhood all-together. And then as the boy gets older, he sees that the girlhood transcends gender. He begins to see how he is now both a son, and a daughter. And how he is his mother, and how his mother was him, a daughter, once. So long ago. And how she is her mother, who was a girl who was a daughter, once, so much longer ago.

And then I remember the girl before the boy, the daughter before the son, and how her mother built her. How her mother ruined her. How her mother built her a cage of girlhood, of daughterhood, out of the pieces of her cage, and her mother's cage. And the daughter-turned-son knows that he is his mother, and his mother was once him, and how much he is still a daughter despite now being a son, and how he wouldn't wish it to be any other way, and oh god he wishes he never helped build this cage. Why can't you leave this poor future son alone! why did you build your past daughter this cage?

Don't you remember? The daughter? The daughter before she was a girl, or a mother, before there was a daughter to be a son. Don't you remember her? How she never wanted this cage of girls turned daughters turned mothers? But the girl, the daughter doesn't know it's being built. She doesn't know she's helping to build it. And the mother doesn't know that what she's building is a cage. Only that her mother built it for her when she was once a daughter, so so long ago.

I remember the girl before the boy, and I remember the boy after the girl, and I remember how safe the cage was for them. How lovely it was. How they couldn't see that it was made of the ugly viscera of girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother hurt, how the bars hurt to touch, and how you couldn't stand any way but with your head bowed. I remember the girl and the boy, the son and the daughter, seeing the cage, what it was made of. I remember their vow, to leave the cage together.

I remember the girl before the boy, and the boy after the girl, pushing the boundaries of the cage. Forcing it to let them stand, forcing it to let them lie comfortably, forcing it to take up space, and I remember the moment the girl and the boy, the son and the daughter, before and after and in the sight of their mother, did not curl away, and make themselves small. They demanded they be allowed space to take up, and they took it up without shame, and I remember, remembering the girl before the boy, and feeling so proud of her, wishing she could know.

I remember when the boy after the girl, carried the girl before the boy somewhere the cage was nowhere to be seen. I remember they had escaped the girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother gift to their girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother who burdened them with the gift of building the girl-turned-daughter-turned mother prison around themselves. And I remember the daughter turned son carried thst daughter so far that he saw something. The bars of the cage. He'd never left.

I remember being the girl before the daughter, and the son after that. The-girl-turned-daughter-turned-boy-turned-son. I remembered being them all. And I remember hating myself for not escaping this girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother created prison the way I'd promised.

But then I thought. In a cage, that's all you really can do. And i knew that this prison made of myself and my mother, and my mother and her mother, and her mother and her mother's mother, all of whom once were daughters, who were once girls, who once had mothers, was not bestowed upon me as a burden, but as a gift to understanding my mother, who was a daughter, who was a girl, who had a mother, who now is a mother, with a son, who was once a boy, who was once a daughter, who was once a girl, who has a mother.

And I remember how lovingly I hate my mother, and how terribly I love her, and how heavily I blame her, and how much I am coming to understand her, and suddenly, the cage is no longer a cage. This thing limiting who I was allowed to be was no longer in my way.

I remember the moment, when the girl-turned-daughter-turned-boy-turned-son broke free of the cage. Never was it a cage at all, but a reminder of his mother, and her mother, and her mother's mother, and the ugly verbal, mental viscera that comes with being a mother and a daughter and a girl all at the same time, and a protection from abandoning this long repeated path of girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother before he was able to understand that he is his mother, and his mother was him, and that all along, she was never meant to be right or wrong, or perfect in all the ways you can be. She was meant to show him the pain and joy of daughterhood, so that she too could give the gift of motherhood, and the knowledge that daughterhood is forever.

Someday, I'll remember, that I am a son, who is a daughter, who is a man, who was a son, who was a boy, who was a daughter, who was a girl, who had a mother, who started it all, and started it right.

someone play bigmouth strikes again by the smiths

@yourlipisbleeding