A pounding in your bones

A day in the life of a boxing trans girl.

Eyes: eyes everywhere! They hiss your names ‘Taliva? What kind of s**t is that? go back to Hanrod. It suited you better. Piece of useless f*****g trash, just die. what freak wants to be a girl?’ no matter where you run they follow you and all of your memories of fighting and boxing has left you and they are getting closer you can feel vines on your legs, forcing you back into a male skin, ‘imagirlimagirlimagirl I AM FEMALE’ you scream as they crush you. You open your eyes to stare at it, only to see stars on a ceiling painted green.

You've shouted yourself out of a nightmare yet a-f*****g-gain, and pull yourself into a sitting position, running your fingers through your sweaty hair. That s****y feeling of dysphoria crawling under your skin had you muffling screams all f*****g night, and it’s killing you. That haunted feeling of wanting to claw your way out of your own skin, like something out of a f*****g Alien movie, only came around once in a while, but when it did, Shiva protect you from your worst enemy; your own damn self.

Forcing yourself out of bed at two am is always great on your psyche, regardless of work tomorrow or the fact this is the second night in a row that this has happened to you, although your jogging time has gotten better.

Quietly getting dressed, you look out through your window up at the waning moon and stars and hate yourself a little bit more for not being normal. After pulling on old running gear, you rummage through the cruddy little nightstand you had gotten at some yard-sale, to find the pack of cigarettes you bought like two weeks ago, even though as a boxer you know so much better than to waste your lungs on them. You just can’t drop this particular habit. Besides, before Layla moved in, you used to just go get in fights when the feeling got you; however you promised her that you would try to stop.

You make sure you keep your promises, no matter what, particularly to the woman who kept you from going permanently blind after a fixed fight. You asked her to be your private medic after that fiasco. So she moved in with you and started mothering you. 

Before leaving, you scribble a note to her and leave it on the coffee maker, telling her you’re out running again. You worry her a lot. And she knows you know, but damnit you worry yourself. It’s a strange disconnection with the way you think about yourself. Sometimes the depression and monster in your skin is content and fine and the very next day you f**k up and all you want to do is go to sleep and fast forward through the shittiness. 

Really the best time to go running is at night, through the old parks and broken down streets with half lit streetlights and stars over head and the faint gleam of the big city in the distance, when the only company you've got is the dim light, the cold and the girls just getting off the night work. It’s almost stupidly easy how fast you sink into that headspace that only comes with running.

It’s almost like swimming, or sinking underwater. It’s peaceful and calm and allows you to think without outside distractions. You can look at yourself without wanted to lop off your dick and pray for real breast instead of the plastic things you use now. 

You and your body have been at odds for as long as you can remember. It started with Mama leaving her saris out and then you being caught in them and her makeup, when you were still in India at age ten. At that point, Mama and Papa ended up sending you to live with grandpapa and grandmamma who lived in Finland, close enough to the Russian border that they actually spoke more Russian than Finnish.

You can remember believing that your parents had hated you, but looking back on it, you know, in your heart of hearts that they were doing it to protect you. But it was good for you. Living with у�™идеть (grandmamma) and прадед (grandpapa) was what you needed to kick your a*s into gear and made you look at who you were and make that choice: boy? or girl?  And they supported you, right then and there. When you made the call to mama and papa, they were proud of you and told you that you were loved, no matter what form Shiva had placed you in.

By the time you finally wind down you’re two blocks down from the diner you work in and the sky is turning red, and you’re regretting not grabbing a protein bar before leaving. Stomach grumbling you push open the doors and let the familiar sounds and smells settle your mind.

Bell ringing as you walk in, the hostess behind the register grins at you and moves behind into the kitchen to tell whichever of the four cooks are on duty to make you your regular morning run special. Sitting at the bar and looking around, you smile at the sight of familiar faces and the monster in your mind settles down some.

Karkat Vantas and Kanaya Maryam sit in the corner booth quietly arguing over the newest chapter to be written in their trashy romance novels. (well Kanaya does quietly. The day Karkat stays quiet for more than a minute is the day the world ends.) The cop in the corner with her red hair and glasses (and with vet girlfriend sleeping on her shoulder), talking more-or-less at a normal volume with her partner about something. Donuts you think, so their usual conversations.

In the other corner is the Aradia, brave adventurer saying goodbye to her heiress girlfriend and sharing some last minute pie. Damara is smoking in the back again, having just got off her shift, and waiting for her boyfriend Cronus to come get her. Before you can keep looking, the smell of sweet cigar smoke floods your senses and you look up to see Jay-Jay, grinning down at you, pancake laden plate in hand. 

Jay-Jay, the diner owner, gave you the job when you first moved into town. You had ended up in this s****y hole in the wall, with a little bit of blood left in your alcohol stream, with the last two cigarettes in your hand and all your s**t in a bag on your back, still aching from your last fight. Some big f****r nearly bashed your brains in with a lucky strike. (Granted, they don’t call you Lady Lightening for nothing; long story short, last you heard his nose was still fucked to bits.)

With one eye swollen shut and half drunk, you couldn’t even see a damn menu, let alone a person to ask for a large glass of water.

Luckily, before you even had to ask, someone set a glass of something cold down with a quiet thunk, and the chinking of ice in a plastic bag, to the left of your head. Within ten minutes of conversation, you had a free meal, a job and a place down in the art sector to live in, with two hundred rent a month, which beat sleeping on the street again by miles.

You really do love working where you do, it’s nice to have a home to come back to, and a job where even if you fly out for some s****y back water fight in LA, you know you’ll still have a place to work when you come back, a place to come home to.

Michael, Jay-Jay’s boy, has even roped Layla into recording your fights so they can play them when you get back. In the diner, surrounded by people who watch you f**k up and get your damn fool face beat to hell. Really, it’s all in all damn embarrassing. 

But, don’t get you wrong, hella f*****g embarrassing, but it’s nice to have people to come back to, good people who are always willing to have your back.

You weren’t fired when you told Jay-Jay you were a trans woman, Layla didn’t freak when you told her about the s****y days when all you can do is hide in the farthest corner under the bed. 

She doesn’t mind that some days you can barely get out of bed, choked to the brim, filled with dysphoria; when the depression eats at your bones and holds you down and tells you that you can’t make it, you disgusting broken creature.

In the end though, at the end of the day, you’re happier than you ever were in India and felt as at peace as when you did in Finland with grandpapa. Some days are harder than others, but when the weeks out and you’re staring at the ceiling, covered in stars, you don’t feel so small and left out and broken.

And when you come home to the cats that sneak in your windows and Layla arguing in Cajun-type French with her sisters on the phone and Doctor Who reruns on the TV, with the smell of burning popcorn in the air, you feel at peace, even though you are made out of mismatched parts, everything makes a little more sense.

Author's Note

please tell me how you like this! i'm always open to critiques.