by J.T. Barker
Sickening.
There are things on this earth that I just can't stand. Blatant disregard for other humans lives. People who refuse to understand something. I'm generally a very open-minded and liberal person. I'm the person that everyone comes to when they need a shoulder to cry on and ear to talk to. I listen unbiased and I don't judge people for what they tell me. (Sometimes I feel like I should be addressed as Father when ever I'm listening to confessions.) After I've listened to what someone has to say to me I give advise to them - point them in the right direction and give them a good website - that kind of stuff.
What sickens me is when ever I need someone's shoulder to cry on or someone's ear to listen to me, I end up with the wrong shoulder and the wrong ear. It's come down to me not being able to express my true emotions in any kind of public setting. I can't cry unless I'm alone. I can't express my anger at someone face to face.
It's sad that my only release for my anger is through ranting and raging to ignorant walls and not being able to release emotion. Basically I've become a bottler. I bottle up all of my emotions. Sometimes people shake me up so much all I want to do is explode right there in their hands. But instead, I count to three, go somewhere private and fall apart anticlimactically. It sickens me that I'm the most open minded person I know. In a town of nothing but ignorant fools I happen to be the only person willing to listen and understand while the people I listen to and try to help, are unwilling to help me.
One person who came out to me actually started spreading rumors about me. I gave them my time and helped them through a bit of depression. And then when it gets out that he is gay, he starts to spread vicious rumors about me. Not just, "Oh, man. You know that Barker kid? Did you know he's gay?" No. Instead there where rumors along the lines of, "Man I caught that Barker kid blowing some guy in the bathroom the other day..." and, "You know that Barker kid likes it anal?" What gives him the right? First off, I'm not gay, and I can't stand anal. I'm also saving myself for marriage (if that ever happens). What the hell gives this person the right? Is he just trying to shove the focus off of his sexuality by making me the object of torment and ridicule once again? It's bad enough I was tortured in junior high school for looking like an ambiguous sissy. Sadly, puberty wiped any trace of ambiguity off of me. Now, I'm heavy set and hairy with the rumor of being gay added to that. As if my plate wasn't full enough already. Nothing is the way it should be. It's sickening.
I can't walk by a crowd of two or more people without hearing giggling and my name being whispered. But still, I decide to help people. I still listen unbiased. I still offer a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear. I still find it sickening...
(After Thought: Maybe psychiatrist would be a good profession for me. Dr. J. T. Barker PhD…)
[Note: I'm not attempting to offend anyone. Please don't post any negatie comments, they are NOT needed at the moment. I just wanted to rant, so all I did with this is type the first sentence and let the rest flow. If it doesn't make sence to you thats to bad, I didn't write it for you.]
Here is a brief background of the minor things I've been through in my short life. I'm sure that there is more to come.
My body is incongruous with what I am. I'm pretty sure that this is true for many of the people that read this. When I was six I began going through my "sissy phase"(but you all probably realize the absurdity of the word "phase" here) along with an increased hyperactivity. This was around the time that my parents decided I should see a child psychologist. The report said that there where no mental defects except for ADHD. So my mom filled out some paperwork for my Ritalin and I was immediately barred from eating sugar. The child psychologist failed to mention any presence of gender dysphoria. So I grew up as an ADHD kid with a special diet in elementary school. I wasn't allowed to have sugary snacks, so while the other kids had chocolate chip cookies, I grew quite fond of eating carrot sticks.
Entering my third grade year my parents divorced and nobody would tell me why. I was eight years old, and began living with my mom, my older sister, and my younger sister. Incidentally this is the same year I began to realize the anatomical difference between male and female, I didn't know why they split the girls bathroom from the boys bathroom (Kindergarten through second grade, there was a single unisex bathroom in all of the classrooms. Third grade and up they divided the bathrooms). Sadly I was the kid that got hassled for walking into the girls bathroom. Not only did I get hassled by other students, but I was also given detention.
Skip forward four years. In seventh grade, I began to notice things. Well, actually I began to notice the lack of two things and the presence of a few other things. All the girls in my grade began maturing and developing while I began to mature and develop in an entirely different way. One of my best friends from elementary school had grown from having a flat chest to having to wear a 32C cup. I on the other hand started growing hair. My straight blonde hair began to darken, frizz , curl, and thicken. I hadn't even began to gain weight though. So in my state of mid androgyny I was labeled as a little queer boy and kids decided not to believe me but to instead listen to some kid named Chase. It got so bad that I would get beaten in gym(which by the way is another story) and cornered in the bathrooms(which is part of why I don't use public bathrooms anymore). After one particular skirmish (in which I came home with a broken ankle, blackened eyes, a missing tooth, and several bruises that speckled my entire body) my mom finally decided that I needed to transfer schools.
My life at this school was very much uneventful. I had become depressed before the transfer and by now I was suicidal. I became masochistic and tried several different ways of torturing myself(pricking myself with needles1, cutting2, and tried overdosing myself on a handful of Concerta, Adderal, and Ritalin. (Nothing happened, I had apparently already worked up a high tolerance for these by constant dose changes. I don't remember the rest of that day though) So in my depression I sunk into eating for comfort. This is when I started becoming overweight. I gained one hundred pounds by my fifteenth birthday. At two hundred eighty pounds with curly brown hair in the tenth grade, I was hardly a sissy anymore. Sadly, this is the polar opposite of what I thought I would be.
My sixteenth birthday was one of the singular most depressing moments I have had thus far. All of my former "Friends" were having their "Sweet Sixteen" and partying. Getting their drivers licenses the next day and driving to school in their new cars. On my sixteenth birthday, I stayed in my room and cried. I had come to the final realization that I would never have my desired body image. I still had no clue what I might be. Why was I different?
February of my tenth grade year(I had been held back twice) I was diagnosed as Narcoleptic. I went to a sleep center in the local hospital and they wired me up to a machine and I felt like I was being put back into the "Matrix" with the amount of wires and tubes running from me. I slept all night and took a few naps during the day while they watched me and evaluated how I slept and how I acted while awake. The doctor (working with my current useless psychiatric counselor) my previous diagnoses of ADHD was retracted. From the explanation I received, my inattentiveness was not because of an attention disorder, but because I was asleep most of the time. My hyperactivity had nothing to do with a hyperactivity disorder, but instead was most likely because of my tendency to sleep to much, causing people to think I was being hyperactive while I was actually awake, and inattentive while asleep.
Still, nobody notices anything else that could be wrong with me. Once they give me one diagnosis the throw me into a pit inhabited by forgotten people with similar judgments upon their medical and mental states. I feel neglected and ignored.
I sit here now, eighteen years old, two hundred thirty pounds and dieting, with no car, a guitar without a band, and a voice that nobody listens too. J. T. Barker isn't even my real name - just a pseudonym. A false name for a false body.
-Have a good Valentines day everyone. If you're with a special someone right now, please - tell them that you love them right now. Even if you just said it five minutes ago or even five seconds ago, say it.
This is the tale
Of a man in black
With revenge in sight,
And blade in hand,
He set out to kill
The ones who dared.
The ones who dared
To slander his name.
The ones who dared
To throw him to the flames.
For these are the ones
Who, after all these years
Could not see the face
Would not see the tears.
These are the ones
The ones who dared.
For I am the one
Who they shall fear.
Eulogy for an Old Friendship
Chapter 1
"'Good afternoon students. I hope you've had a wonderful day at Cedar Rock High School today.' I sat up at the sound of Principle DeValt on the intercom at 3:17. 'We have a few short announcements for you today-' DeValt's voice was drowned out by the sound of notebooks being shut and book bags being zipped up. It was another boring day at 'Shitty Rock' and I was completely worn out by the stress of being in prison. Okay, not prison; but the room I was in had no windows leading anywhere. I began to wonder if I'd ever be released. I heard the distinctive click of the intercom turning off. No more intercom means no more class. Which means that I'm allowed to 'go to my bus'. I usually left the class at the same e the bus riders left because I wouldn't be able to stand being in class another ten minutes.
'Bye Mrs. Wright' I muttered to the Drama teacher as I opened the door to leave. When I got to James' car I set my stuff down and then leaned against it. James, being my one and only good friend since elementary school. He's the only person that ever actually saw me as a friend. As I sat and waited for James to leave the building with the other car riders I thought of all the good times we've had together. Spending the night at his house. Playing videogames, watching movies, and listening to music. He was basically my brother. Recently though he's been horribly reclusive. He hates going out to do things. On a day where we would usually go to the mall, he would drop me off at home and then he'd go home and listen to music. I saw him coming out of the building. Being nearly six and a half feet tall with unkempt chin length dark brown hair, James was easy to pick out of a crowd. When he got closer I could tell he was in one of his moods.
"Hey man." I said lamely.
"Hey." He answered back monotonously. He unlocked his car and I placed my guitar in the back seat and threw my back pack into the seat next to it. He got in the car and turned on the music. "Lets go." He said far less monotonous.
'Dude, what's up?'
'Nothing much. Kind of tired. I think I'm gonna go to bed when I get home.'
'What's been up with you lately? You seem a little… I don't know, depressed.'
'Don't worry about it: I'm fine.' But he didn't sound fine. He always had this aura of sadness around him at the end of the day. I got into the passenger seat of the old land rover while he changed the disks in the back.
'O.k.,' He said as he sat down, closed the door and reached for his seat belt all at one time, 'Let's listen to some Bob Marley.' I guess I had no choice.
No matter where you were, you could always count on James to always have good music at his finger tips. Some times he'd scare me though. Like for one thing he doesn't like ACDC. Who doesn't like ACDC? Oh well.
Speaking of James and music,James played guitar so much better than I did that I tortured my poor little fingers trying to beat him in skill and theory. Hell, he started playing when I taught him his first C chord. It was terrible - the C chord that is. He could hardly play a single note correctly. I still laugh to this day because I started playing guitar two years before he did, and he nearly mastered the skill within six short, uneventful years. He once told me the reason he started playing. I laughed so hard that I fell over. He said the most cliché thing you could possibly think of.
'I thought it would help me get girls and be cool.' He actually said that. I thought I was going to crap my pants from laughing so hard. Sadly, that's all past us now. That was the last day I saw James. February 6th, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. was the last I would ever see him. Another normal day at 'Shitty Rock' High School. Another boring evening at home. Blissfully unaware."
Chapter 2
"James was my best friend for ten years. My only friend. I don't know how, or why he left. I guess he just got tired. Tired of all the shit in his life. His mom and dad divorced. His mom evicted and barely scraping by on minimum wage while his dad lived the High life in a huge neighborhood with huge houses with a huge income and many other huge things that the wealthy desire and obtain and the poor couldn't even dream of.
James got his Land Rover for Christmas in 2007. The first time he drove to where his mom was living in the Land Rover was emotional and depressing. His mom burst out into tears because she wasn't able to get him anything for Christmas at all while his Dad got him a car and nearly doubled his CD collection. I know for a fact that his mother's current state of living was a reason for his depressed nature.
Yes, I can definitely say that James was simply tired of all the shit. The next day at school, I didn't see him anywhere. I just assumed he was sick. Little did I know that he just decided to leave. Leave the state, probably even the country. He just got tired and decided to pack up and leave. I don't know how he survived on his own, but he did one way or another. Looking at him now, I know he never got to wherever it was he was going.
The one thing that I always regret in my life is that I never had the chance to tell James about me. We never opened up to each other like old friends. Even though he was the only anchor I had to this world for quite some time, I don't think he ever realized it. I tried sharing my life with him several times but could almost never work up the courage to day something. The only times I could muster the bravado to express things that I don't express to anyone, little old Tom would be there.
The stumpy long haired red head always had a knack for destroying my confidence with his narrow mindedness. I don't think that James would have disowned me as a friend if I opened up to him like I wanted, but I know that Tom would do something stupid to dampen the emotion of anything I tried saying.
If I could have one wish in my life time, it wouldn't be to be born the way I wish I was born. If I could have one wish, I would wish that I had the courage to share my emotions with James. I never express my emotions publicly. If something upsets me to the point of tears, I don't cry until I'm alone. If I'm angry, I bottle it. My greatest flaw of all. If I'm ever angry at you, you'll never see me coming.
I'll never forget that day. The last thing I said to him, and his empty response.
'I hope you feel better tomorrow.'
'Yeah. Well. See yah.'
And if nothing else, I'll always remember his face as he turned back to look at me, before driving off and away from where I stood. It didn't register in my head as sadness. Puffy red eyes, pale white face, the corners of his mouth turned down- he turned back, waved, and I never saw him again.
And now I stand here again. , reminiscing and wishing for what might have been…"
"We are gathered here today in remembrance…"
Chapter 3
"… in remembrance of James Lietman. I don't have much else to say but good bye. I'll never have that chance or ability. It has been fifty-three years since I last spoke to James; Fifty-one years since I began to transition. I doubt that James would recognize me if he was alive to see me today. I doubt that any of you recognize me. I imagine that Ms. 'Lilz' Lietman had some trouble contacting me because of my name change and drastic change in appearance. My legal name is now Jade Thomas Emanuel Barker. Lilz, your brother was a great friend in my life.
Now, about me. Why am I the one giving the eulogy for such a friend? Who am I? Most of you may remember a heavy set, puffy haired teenager that annoyed the hell out of everyone around him. Many people believed he was just gay, and many people just hated him for being different. I don't understand why, but the people that hated him abused him during middle school towards the point of suicide. This heavy set, annoying , puffy haired boy no longer exists. Now I stand before you today, a mere shadow of that boy. Many of you may be shocked to discover what became of this boy. This weird drama kid who starved for acceptance. Only to find acceptance in the one friend he had ever known. A friend and a brother.
I guess it all comes down to this. Friendships are living things. They are born by something that can be either extremely significant or completely pointless depending on your point of view. After a friendship is born it grows and matures and the peak of it's existence is defined by one extremely significant moment. Standing up to your friends enemies. Being with your friend in a tight situation. Discovering something about yourself through a friend. These are multiple different peaks of a friendships existence. But soon the friendship grows old. It becomes harder and harder to find one of these peaks. Soon your friendship begins to wither, becoming brittle and stale. You drift apart from one another and seek out other things. Differences establish between the personalities of you and your friend. For instance, one friend likes acting and the other friend doesn't like theatre. Finally, the friendship dies. It is inevitable. Friendships are either ended violently by a fight, peacefully from drifting apart, or abruptly from one of the friends death.
The friendship between James and I outlived many people. Ten years in fact. I don't know anyone that has had a friendship live this long. I'm glad to say that our friendship ended peacefully, though not gracefully. If only you could see me now. James old friend, if you can hear me, where ever you are; Farewell old friend. May you rest in peace."
CURSED
Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a hidden village in the woods. All the people in the village knew this man's name to be Shelly, and everyone in the village knew the man's story. Some times Shelly would come out of his house to watch the sun begin to set; and in the last moments before the sun is gone Shelly would cry.
His home, aggressively and maliciously decorated by the neighborhood children who knew Shelly's past, still sits on the top of a hill at the edge of the woods overlooking the village. Today the dwelling is a reminder of what happens when ignorance gives way to hostility.
Thirty years ago, when Shelly was beginning to go through the change, Shelly noticed that he wasn't changing like the other children of the neighborhood. Shelly began to grow breasts and became more slender. Instead of growing muscles and a beard, his chest grew larger and voice grew more effeminate. It grew to the point so that the other little ones of the neighborhood started to belittle and ridicule him. His father even cast Shelly out of his own home, like the runt of a litter.
The village Elders of the time knew of these happenings, but decided that these problems would work themselves out. However, the problem persisted. When the eldest of the elders passed on and his successor came to power, Shelly had finally had his chance to plead a case before them, but being fifteen years passed the change, there was little hope that the problem would be resolved. The new leader brought many things into question to help determine why these things began to happen to Shelly. He discovered that the Birth Shaman had cursed Shelly's bloodline for the wicked transgressions of his diseased mother.
"...A wicked deed foretold, and carved unto your crest,
May your daughters always suffer your beauty and your breast.
Those men which you have led to their premature demise
Shall rise and haunt your daughters with reddened hateful eyes..."
But Shelly's mother didn't give birth to a daughter and died during labor with Shelly. So this could hardly explain what was happening to him. The New Elder pondered this part of the curse over several times. A light dawned in the Elders mind. Shelly's curse was to be a woman. The curse placed upon him caused him to suffer his mothers beauty. The elder sprang from his seat. The elder rushed out and up the path to Shelly's home.
Along the way the Elder passed two figures, one bald and the other with scraggly grey hair. Both appeared to be withering away. The bald man looked into the elders eyes. Eyes locked; emeralds staring into a deep sea of blood. The other figure, appeared to be a woman, slave to the man. A chain connected to an iron collar and cuffs. The two figures continued on their path towards the burial lands, the man dragging the woman across the earthen stone pathway. The elder shook himself and continued for the last length of the path.
The Elder began to notice a dead silence surrounding him and the home. The sound of birds and woodland creatures had ceased. Not even the wind whistled while passing through the trees. The Elder stepped inside and called out for Shelly without answer. Shelly was no where to be found. While searching for Shelly the elder came upon a locked room. The elder pried the door away.
The sight before the Elder was one that he would never forget. It was the room of a young, modern woman; many things in the room foreign. The former Elder Leader. being the last of the original village elders, would have been the only one able to explain all of the things in the room. A silver handheld mirror, a larger silvered wall length mirror, a woodened wardrobe containing party dresses and a wedding dress; and the most mysterious thing that could possibly be in the room, an unlabled bottle of purple pills.
On the bed was an indentation of a body, as if someone had lain there but had merely disappeared. There were no traces of a person rising and stepping out of the bed. The red sheets of the bed were all in place save for the one five foot long depression in the bedding. The elder got closer to look under the bed, he grabbed the red bed skirt and recoiled. The bed skirt was red with nearly dried blood. The rest of the bedding was red linen, but the bed skirt was darker and left a line of red wear it made contact with the floor. Under the bed was a clean knife, placed as if it was ready for someone laying on the bed to reach down and grab it. The Elder, suddenly overcome with a strong fear for the foreign room, stood and briskly left the house.
And there the home has stood for forty-five years, serving as a reminder to the Third Council of the Elders of the mistakes made by the First and Second. And to this day, no one knows what became of Shelly. All that remains of him are the sounds of his womanly voice crying out in the night, coming from a locked room which seems to betray time. And still no animal dares to go near the site for fear of being swallowed by silence, engulfed in the deep gloom of the house.