7:30

It's fifteen hours and ten minutes before my birthday, and I want to die.

Signifying my last day at 25, next year starts tomorrow, endless calendars emerging, playlisting plans and possibilities.

The exhaustion is hitting me, tears glinted the shirt upon dropping along my friend's shoulder.

They are my favorite birthday gift, though the person composing words from the hands typing this would daresay warmly that they are their favorite person.

My head hurts, my hip aches from time to time, voice and piano lessons yesterday seem so faraway.

The happiness of when the sun shone brighter just earlier feels like a different time entirely, an era squashing hours to a squirt.

A check, a letter torn to shreds, hibiscus fornicated into false prides and prophecies garnishing my computer monitor, amongst many relatively speaking of a near college graduate.

Celebrating today, tomorrow, and my grand walk and hopefully talk across the stage, I heed the urge to continue further.

Perhaps I grew tired of getting angry at myself for letting monster mistaken aa mother make my birthday all about her.

The 4k's, the unaccepted apologies and unanswered promises unspoken for, not my forte, but rather against what I'm for.

Most people around my age, surrounded by the affluence that could've shaped me into a grievance full of disdainful influence, I am grateful instead for celebrating what no longer feels afraid to admit is painful.

Whether it be what most neolib normies would dismiss as small, how two of three refrigerator bags bare anti-DEI, pro-Israel insignia.

Concern only grew into cantankerous clamor baring more seawater from my soft. sweet insides; four figures attempting to desperately win me back, go figure.

I can hear a shared-blooded, heart-chosen relative echoing in my thoughts, "keep the money."

Trust me, it'll be put to where it's meant to go, checked now or saved for later.

The gift of covering my assets, continuing my tracks, and individuating my patient deliverance without delay, is not what hurts.

I hear the music that wants to bring me to my knees, my voice to a thrall of release and relief, perhaps the headache, and tense neck and shoulders, and throbbing hips and buttocks, will bare witness and thanks in letting me see them, what they've been holding, what we've been feeling that has yet to be felt.

My cheeks, my teeth, it's close, the agony.

Do I miss it, feeling like celebration is worth making the time for? When ritual feels like a reason to disturb, disrupt, distrust, a reason to only limit festivities and debauchery to select dates of specialty?

Today's Canterbury Tales, the cybersecurity breach of Instructure's infrastructure, causing a momentary additional celebration and glimpse of what I can accomplish or dreamily perceive to be possible, an ethical hacking certificate amongst curiosity for math and physics associates, impending certainty of philosophy greeting me with a 'four-year' diploma twice as many years later.

Does it hurt to feel it all? Does it hurt to feel at all? Does it hurt to feel so happy then, only to not feel it at all sometime later, even though it's still here, and there?

Granted, passively and erratically bumping my canids against the lower parts of my upper lips seems to be the jaw exercises leading to some of the tension, along with hunching over, which is meant to stretch the water outward from my body.

Believe me, I am free of this, prior to more peaceful realizations and acceptances distantly deeming it that.

Being free is fabulous, even though it may not appear to feel so, all the time.

I am hearing the song that is meant to be felt, no singing from me, only sobbing the hurt and profuse pain into peace, pieces coming back together and feeling whole again, home, like a family.

One moment please,

---------------------------

Gracie Abrams helps me cope

Whether she knows or figures so without second thought

Beyond Abrahamic tendencies and legacies of abuse, and the protective layers of bereft and belligerent, her voice helps me connect with mine, and the feelings telling me to scream, "I HATE HER"

"I hate all that she's put me through, all the pain she's given me."

"I hate that she's happy while thinking we're okay, and I hate that she hates that we aren't."

"And I hate myself for giving time to even 'entertain' this," even though it's to feel.

IF I COULD FUCKING KILL HER, YOU, SMASH NASAL FRAGMENTS OF YOUR FUCKING PRIDE INTO YOUR EMPTY ABORTED ASS BRAIN, I WOULD MAKE EVERY THREAT BESTOWED UPON YOU, EVERY INSULT BEATEN INTO YOU, WORTH CHERISHING, AS GENTLE

I AM NOT ENDING MY DAY LIKE THIS BECAUSE OF YOU YOU CRAZY, HISTRIONIC, EXORBIANTLY SELF-ABSORBED, CORN HUSK OF A HUSSY, THE MOST DELUDED AND DESTRUCTIVE OF BITCHES

THAT IS FUCKING YOU!!!

AND I, will never, forgive you

I forgive myself though, for holding on, and hoping in something that wasn't worth hoping for

My head hurts less, my heart opens, my gut loosens, my hips breathe and sigh in relief,

A sign that I'm further free, more at home

I am no longer focused on how angry I feel, how sad I feel, because I accept that I feel them, and that I feel joy, and hope, and care, and compassion, and longing, and yearning, and much more.

I now know, and allow, and accept, that I feel not okay right now, and that by feeling it, that I will feel okay.

Grief and joy on the same day is quite the wave to ride.

I could sense distraction fading away into the wilderness and background

Concentration becoming a warm glimpse and glimmer, an embrace.

My head finally drops forward, neck stretches, lower back sighing in thanks

Nasal drips drip from thy lips into a towel made of easily collapsible papier-mache

And on this last day of 25, I sigh in happiness, breathe in relief, and trust and know that I am okay.

Happy birthday pride, to thee as me, The Piano Trans (they/them)