a conversation between my current body and my past body

the impossible project

…no no, you don’t get it.

get what?

just comprehend something for me, for a moment. imagine…you’re not a project. you’re not something to be improved on, or finished.

what do you mean?

I want you to understand that this is not the outcome you wanted.

get out from behind that desk.

tell me about a time where you felt happy with yourself.

pffff……I don’t know. maybe when I could fit in size 8 jeans?

that was a good time, wasn’t it. huh. at least we can agree on something.

you must be happy with yourself now. I’m waiting for that. I feel like I’m constantly being fought. I’m tired of that. so I don’t understand why you’re still hiding.

I want you to know first that I’m still working on it.

thought you weren’t a project?

I’m not, but happiness is. but I also want you to know that this is what you’ve got ahead of you. that you are in for more rough times. that it’s not like you just flick a switch and suddenly, you are perfect. perfection doesn’t exist.

something better exists.

I don’t know if this is better. what is your idea of better? I may be just another version of disappointment.

nothing could be more disappointing than this. I suppose you don’t remember the back problems from all the constricting. the curves and the hips. the babyface.

I want that again.

the babyface?

yeah. I miss it. makes for better selfies.

I can’t believe you.

let me remind you that we are two bodies having a conversation with each other, about each other.

I am so much more than a body. and you are. bodies are the only representation people have of themselves.

how so?

well, without a body, people wouldn’t be able to be placed in the world, or be seen and heard by others. people wouldn’t be able to get jobs, think or feel, express themselves, or even live.

I don’t know what this has to do with dysphoria.

what I mean is that bodies define people. bodies are the first impression.

I understand you. they are. so when I say I want a babyface again, is that so outrageous?

because look where you are. what you’ve managed to become. every day I work towards you. I wake up to be constricted. I can feel my hip bones compressing in weird ways when I’m put in that damn straitjacket. what you are, what you’ve become, is livable. this is what I mean when I say bodies mean more.

well, give yourself some credit. you’ve lived 18 years and only suffered a considerable amount of damage. what about the times when you’ve been fed painkillers and doused in ointments? plastered up? somewhere, there’s a will, to survive and belong in the world.

I’m being kept alive out of hope that one day I can resemble at least a shred of you. I can’t believe how easily you overlook all of this pain. don’t you remember it? you are the future. you are what all of this will amount to. tell me, show me, that this is all worth something.

alright, you know what. I’m stepping out now. don’t say I didn’t warn you.

.

.

.

still worth it?

alright. I admit. it’s not what I expected.

what did you expect? wait, hold on, I know.

you expected something like being placed in a machine that deletes all of the undesirable parts of yourself at will. like a fussy coffee order: something that straightens you up and makes you bolder, but allows you to retain that softness, that youthfulness. gives you a little edge, a little speckling of facial hair and a stronger brow…but you’re still pretty. you still walk that fashionable line between boy and man.

fashionable?

you let tumblr dictate what we should or shouldn’t be. you’ve boxed yourself in so much that anything else is a disappointment.

hold on. I’m being rewritten, stripped down to the bare bones of a blank canvas. every crumb of me is being rethought. so I think we can allow a little creative inspiration for what I could be.

don’t worry. for the first couple of years, your inspiration will come true. facial hair will grow in, but only pre-pubescently. your landscape will remain soft. the voice will drop pretty quickly, brow and jaw will harden, shoulders will broaden, but you won’t feel like you’ve lost anything.

and then what?

you’ll start feeling like a replacement. a strange, alien one. you will balloon. the hair you want you’ll lose, and the hair you don’t want will grow. your skin will become rough and lined. parts of you will be unrecognisable, but it’ll happen so gradually that it’s far too late by the time you’ve fully comprehended it. you know like the film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? the only remnant of your past form will be that damn birth mark on your forehead.

I want to feel like a replacement. I want to look unrecognisable.

yes, but only in that same unattainable way. only like that picture of - god, who is it - that model on the internet. remember the one? shirtless, posing all pale and skinny with a cigarette. that image lived rent free in you, and now it’s burned into my psyche every day.

you seem hurt. I’m sorry for that.

speaking super plainly? I’m just tired. I want to be freed from whatever this is.

well, me too. you look like freedom, though. a form of it. maybe not the form I expected or wanted. but you’re taking up the space you’re owed. I don’t even mean figuratively. your outward growth is you reclaiming the space you were denied.

that’s a very profound way to say I’ve gained weight.

I think, really, your tiredness stems from your awareness that I exist. I’m a burden on you.

don’t say that.

don’t tell me you don’t hate the sight of me right now.

I must acknowledge that without you, I wouldn’t be here.

but don’t you see? we are both a burden on each other. I am your past, you are my future, but neither of us are very thankful to see the other. and all of this stems from, what?

a desire to resemble something else. something we will never attain.

we both want out of what we have, what we’ve had and what we will have. what does that say about our existence?

but your perception of me is, to a degree, untrue. contrarily to what you think, I’m open to the unexpected. this whole thing is unexpected. I gave up expecting things back in 2012, when a rusty needle was pulled across my arm. I didn’t think that would ever happen, nor the daily crushing of my core with various materials. the banging of my head against the wall. when I was without food for three days.

at this point, anything could happen, and I’m prepared for it.

you’re prepared for this?

I guess I am. I’m prepared to do some mourning, but also some expanding. to feel some regrets, but some gratitudes. who’s to say you haven’t been the ideal, this whole time?

hahaha, I don’t believe you. have another look at that internet model, then get back to me.

I’m serious. I don’t know what’s what anymore. all I know is that I want out of this. so I think, really, if you are what is ahead of me,

your taking up of space,

each of your lines and skin folds an experience that is something other than wishing you were dead,

then surely, you must be the ideal.