Tag Archives: Personal

A Short Treatise on Women Who Happen To Love Women Who Happen To Be With Men, For Women Who Love Women

July 29, 2025 By in Compulsory Heterosexuality, Desire, Involuntary Celibacy, Logic, Loneliness, Love, Men, Mental Health, Registry, Response, Sapphics, Treatise, WLW, Women Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

You can kiss a hundred boys in bars / Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling (Well, I told you so)

– Chappell Roan, “Good Luck Babe!” (2024)

And I am the idiot with the painted face / In the corner, taking up space / But when he walks in, I am loved, I am loved

– Mitski, “Me and My Husband” (2018)

Have you loved a woman? Have you just been loving women and people who are bi, queer, trans, non-binary, genderfluid pan, etc.? Have most if not all of them have illustrious (and likely painful) dating histories of largely, men? And has that gotten you down and desolate?

If your answer to all these questions above are “yes”, then perhaps reading this little bullet point essay might have you not feel too alone in all this. Yours truly basically fits the bill for all the question yours truly has posed above. I was recently reminded (thanks Rosie-rose!) of the legendary document titled “Am I a Lesbian?” written by Tumblr extraordinaire Angeli Luz, and re-reading it led me to think of the origins of the term ‘incel’, coined by a queer Canadian woman named Alena on her blog in 1997, to describe and make space for women who suffer from loneliness, given difficulty finding romantic and sexual partners.

Thinking of both made me realize that, perhaps there a connection between the two. Both came from different parts of the blogosphere and periods of internet history, but compulsory heterosexuality as we understand it in reality, can be a source of body-breaking pain, hysteria, and yes, loneliness for those involved. I have thought of my own experiences with loneliness (you know what? I will link the first thing that came to my mind typing that phrase). I never really had a long-term partner of any sort. I could never flutter to a partner to break up later and then flutter to another partner. Loneliness has been a staple in my personal life, like how bread and rice and noodles and other delicious carbohydrates have been, albeit loneliness is crushing, and not as tasty. I have been attracted to, and loved many women and peoples in my life. But I would be bare-faced lying to say it has not been an immense struggle. For some reason, some of us are placed in this universe to fall constantly for women who happen to just be with a man (or men) at the critical hour of falling and getting down bad.

And it is not as if they are not interested in women. Above I have posed the questions in the context of bisexual and queer and pansexual people who can be cis women, trans women, and non-binary peoples (to be clear, I am referring to non-binary people who still regard themselves to be somewhat as, and present as women in various ways to the outside world). But again, these women and peoples happen to be near-constantly dating men and/or wanting to date men, even if it may not necessarily make them happy. For those of us who are somehow attracted to this archetype of people, the knock-on effect of that is the difficulty in even being accepted as a potential love interest or partner. And time does not seem to be in our favor either when our romantic and/or sexual interest(s) flitter quickly from one man to the next. This is to say, there is some descriptive truth to the Chappell Roan lyrics I copypasta’ed above.

I have said enough to articulate my thesis. The rest of this piece shall be a listicle of experiences, as I attempt to take a leaf from Angeli Luz. I want to be absolutely clear that I have no intention to disparage women, especially bisexual and pansexual women, for having genuine desires for men, and that is not welcome in this short treatise. If you might resonate with the experiences and logics I have presented below, it will also help me feel a little less lonely and alienated in my frustrations, yearnings, and desolation. So here goes:

  • First and foremost, whenever you approach other women who have dated men to talk about this issue, many might attempt to rationalize to you something along the lines of “men are easy” or “men are convenient” (to date, to get together with). Men are apparently easier in the sense that many of them who date lack any emotional capacities for relating to people in general, and any woman that gets together with such a man immediately shifts into a clearly defined relational role where they (simply, or not) have to take care of this person, and that is straightforward for women. On the converse, if it is a relationship with another woman, they will tell you that the stakes in being with a woman are much higher. Some have said it is like looking in a mirror at yourself, contending with all the internal and external violence and complexities of living as a woman. Some feel like they are not deserving of women who might equally contain a massive amount of emotional interiority. All that makes dating another woman increasingly complicated and far more nuanced, and thus, less convenient in a way. And as a person that does not quite understand what it means to be attracted to men like that, it confuses you because the choice seems so clear even when the argument is presented as so
  • You may have wondered quite often what is it like for your desired interest(s) to want a man, even if in questionable taste
  • You may have attempted to, along your desired interest(s), and along with the men-wanting collective consciousness and body of women in society, to try your best to find some archetype of man to like, even if you have no real interest or desire in men
  • You may have tried at times to recall the instances in which you may have had romantic or sexual encounters with men, violent or tender, just to try to (re-)insert yourself into the shoes of your desired interest(s), in figuring out what makes their desire for men so seemingly thick
  • You may have tried to emphasize or adopt what society and/or your desired interest(s) regard as attractive or desirable masculine qualities
  • In one of the worst case scenarios of your coping and wrangling, you have wondered and entertained the fantasy of transitioning into a man, such that perhaps your desired interest(s) could have more interest in you as an actual potential romantic and/or sexual partner
    • The trans woman variant of this is far worse: you have entertained the fantasy of detransitioning into a so-called man, just so that perhaps in that warped logic, your desired interest(s) could have more interest in you as an actual potential romantic and/or sexual partner
  • Sometimes when you talk about this issue with others, many might suggest to you to refocus your desires into a different dating pool, the most dominant option being cis lesbians who actually are primarily interested in women. You may have replied that you have not had much luck with cis lesbians, or that you are just not attracted to cis lesbians for some reason, or that cis lesbians are not attracted to you
    • This may be more commonly the case for trans women, whose circles might be predominantly other trans people and queer and non-binary people, or perhaps straight and/or gay men, or a mix. There is the real issue of trans-averse or trans-hating cis lesbians, and also the issue of a cis lesbian culture that is not something that trans women might be able to relate to or feel at home in
  • You may have noticed how frequent your desired interest(s) waxes lyrical about women and the strengths and all the good things about women, while also noticing their history of dating almost, if not all, of cis heterosexual men
  • You may also have noticed how when your desired interest(s) speaks about their boyfriend or current male partner, in contrast to the waxing lyrical about women, that they do not have anything, or much to say of the strengths and good things about their boyfriend or current male partner. They will state largely and a matter-of-factly, that yes, they have a boyfriend
    • Or perhaps, they might do the strange heterosexual thing where they will lambast the flaws of their partner while trying to also fawn over them in some manner. Maybe
  • Again, you may have noticed how quickly your desired interest(s) moves from dating one man to another, before you can even raise with them the possibility of dating seriously
  • You may have wrangled with feeling like you are being unfair to your love interest(s) in thinking of any or all of the points here with regards to them. The line of logic goes like this: if they do in fact desire men in some manner as bisexual or pansexual etc. people, therefore I do not have any right or standing to be frustrated about this
  • You may have noticed how your desired interest(s) has been propositioned or asked out by other women, but almost if not none of it ever materializes into reality. If you do manage to ask them about this, they might have said how shy, or signal how terrified or apprehensive they were at that prospect, even if it sounded like they actually really wanted to get into it. The Mitski lyrics above are probably… relevant…
  • You may have noticed that your desired interest(s) tends to go for men who are “softer” or more feminine than their other societal counterparts. Which is to say, they tend to go for men who exhibit greater emotional capacities and care akin to the average woman, in our present period of history and of our society. Or they might tend to go for “men” who may actually be egg-ish trans women
  • You have tried to examine the boyfriend or male partner of your desired interest(s), and have wondered whether you might be lacking in any of his apparent qualities, or you might ponder upon what qualities (or lack thereof) he has that attracted your desired interest towards him at all
  • You may have tried to place yourself in the position of the men-wanting collective consciousness and body of other women in society, to try and place yourself in the shoes of your desired interest(s), in order to figure out and emphatize with them how this man is objectively desirable and/or attractive
    • Which also implies giving your desired interest(s) the benefit without doubt (and in consequence, the male partner) that you agree that this man has desirable qualities, even if you genuinely are not drawn to it yourself, or have actual attraction towards those qualities. You raise the bar for men momentarily in this context
  • I quote directly from “Am I A Lesbian?”: “You think you have to learn how to love men.” So you do try your best to start, in whatever desperate manner, to explore relationships with men, even if you might not be so drawn to them, even if you might not actually want them or their romantic and/or sexual company. The logic being: if your desired interest(s) can want to be with men, perhaps there is something about men that makes them truly attractive or thick in an objective manner, and you are boo-boo-the-fool for not partaking in this men-wanting collective consciousness and body of women in society. Or perhaps that you feel that something is wrong with you
  • This is where I reach the fatal (delusion! coping!) logic that bridges the themes in Alena and Angeli Luz: maybe you are becoming some kind of involuntary celibate in your struggle with loving women who happen to be with men. You may fall into a strange and near-fatal compulsory heterosexual mode in response to the possible compulsory heterosexual behavior of your desired interest(s), and you may begin to firmly believe that you are cursed to fall for women who happen to be with men, and you feel forced into a position where you have to explore relationships with men only in response to that apparent curse, and you may also feel like an absolute failure of a lesbian/sapphic/dyke. You may have even renounced being lesbian and gay due to that struggle and seeming impossibility to be with your desired interest(s)

I think that is about it for now. Again, these points are non-exhaustive, and you may relate to any one or a few of them. These point could be highly subjective and not relatable either. If anything, I find the importance of some of these experiences of mine have to be expressed into a public forum, where there will always be the possibility of another having experienced along similar or parallel lines of logics and copes and desires. Or even then, for another to have the agency to pick and choose what resonates and what does not.

I wish all of you having read this far all the peace, love, care, and the utmost safety this universe can offer.

03/11/2024

November 3, 2024 By in Children, Desire, Life, Love, Rain, Registry, Sun, Time, Water Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

looking down, what do i tell the child in front of me?

the child that looks at me, fears my height, sees the gulf in time that separates us?

that i am just like you, in every way. in being enchanted by dust specks whirling in a small storm, illuminated by the morning rays through a gap in space. or the spectral quality of glittering dew drops in the emerging sun, after a bout of long rain. or the manner in which fingers tumble and smooth across the grilles of a wooden gate, inviting a plethora of textures to be surprised by.

but how to describe the scars. the discovery of love, desire, sex, intimacy, care, work, and violence – that these are things that render loneliness. that you don’t need to want everything in the world to want so much. a good kiss, a warm hug, a hand that makes one feels at home… all of a sudden one is thrust into a world and time in history where these things are scarce. they are given with strings attached, written on an accounting score. they are purchase. when people who want to love are also people who have been violated, who have been damaged in the name of exchange or towards a deity that revels in exploitation, the capacity to hurt another is a specter that lingers and creeps, always raring to make a gotcha, an unwelcome entrance. you can be blamed for wanting too much. you can be made a fool for giving so much love. each time you look back, hurt encompasses as the fog of a warzone, difficult to see past. once again you’re alone. you started with being enchanted by dust through sunlight in a gap, and now you have found yourself alone, starved of magic, missing skin and saliva and taste and receding warmth. you have missed the things that matter in this world. you are belated. you are too late. you miss the steps. you miss the boat. you miss this. you miss them. you are late. you are still too late.

what can you tell the child in front of you? what happened to you?

28/10/2024

October 28, 2024 By in Alternatives, Death, Desire, Forests, Love, Music, Registry, Time, Timelines, Universe Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The divine has placed us / In a small world

– Bilal, “Reminisce” (2001)

oh, but of course i have thought of you. seen you in past, present, and future. in our befores and afters. seen you sideways in time and seen your side view. i remember your sideview often. those occasions where the universe lets me skip past the temporal-spatial quandries of the present, i saw your sideview before i would have seen it later.

C has said how, in many contingencies with anyone else i have ever known, i knew you in past lives. of course it was not our first time. although compared to others, our relations were newer. which is to say, less baggage, and some very faint inklings of back then.

when i know you sideways, i know what could have been. knowing how we would have spent more time where we were younger. me, still shy, but attempting to be direct. what your next tattoo would have been, i would never have expected still. i make certain decisions to be more courageous, to deal with certain demons from my past, all so that they will never get to hurt you. all this sideways knowledge.

somewhere in the deep past is still something about you i have yet to remember. maybe it is something plain and whimsical. i like the sound of the word whimsical. i think about how it would sound like when you play it with your tongue. perhaps the tinkling that comes with your own enunciation is what i will eventually recall. that timbre that soothes me so deep. it has a forest feeling to it. and the forests and jungles are sites of low intensity warfare across communities, peoples, and tribes — arborescence and fauna and slime alike. i hear your timbre ringing through the forest, reaching into time like a swift blade, heavy like claymore. medieval longings in misty proportions, dark as the emergent bog.

later i will see you. in many laters i continue to see you. in many laters the happiness i have wished for you, each incantation varying from tic to guttural stops to syntactical choice to what vocabulary to invoke, manifests sideways across the continuum of the real. each time you receive bountiful harvests, i delight upon my work, all my assistance, and sit back in relief. whatever they call it — possible worlds, universes, timelines — to see how in so many of them, you are cared for and given space, in each contingency in each chance in each phase transition… it leaves my heart molten, unguent, aglow.

now, i show you my red lips. sideways i show them to you too. if you recall anything about me, shall it be this across lives and deaths.

12/09/2023

September 12, 2023 By in Disease, Dreams, Registry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

(cw: death, murder, rape, sui)

I had two pieces of black organza salvaged from a sympathy bouquet for Brianna Ghey in February. I didn’t know her personally of course. But whenever I grieve over her or think of her, it always feels like it could have been any of us. Trans lives have tended towards shortness. Whenever a trans sibling’s birthday passes (very recently, C’s did), it is a sobering achievement on its own. It marks another year of survival for one of us. The ways we leave can be brutal, violent: murder, incarceration, rape, suicide. This past month, every single day I have wanted to end it all. My dreams have intensified and have emotionally exhausted me. I have been so tired, and so very lonely.

I felt that the way we mourned for those who we have lost can be extended into back into daily life. This was why I ended up with two pieces of organza in my storage. I was figuring out a life and practice for them beyond the mourning period. Today I discovered a place for one of the pieces. My room is positioned well. On some nights, I have witnessed the Moon on her serene rise through my window. High upon the ledge of my window I have installed a clear acrylic case. I have stuffed the case with the organza, where my rocks can lie snug. When needed, the Moon will keep them company. It’s a precarious arrangement, but I try my best to make things comfortable.

If failure smells, it has become my odor. If heartbreak stinks, I have been wearing it like parfum. I can barely stay awake during the day or night. While I am awake I have been stuffing myself with food. I want to give up.

10/07/2023

July 11, 2023 By in Registry Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Let us write about girlhood. Or at least allow me write about girlhood. I ask for patience. I ask for space. I ask because some of the things I wish to write can be unbearable to read.

*

It has not gotten easier living as a girl, woman, whatever. Maybe I need to break this down slowly. Do not get me wrong – it is wonderful to be feminine. I love being feminine. I know femininity is no longer something that is tied to girlhood or womanhood. For me it makes me feel like a natural woman (Aretha Franklin, you will always be a Lady Soul). For others it is not, but nonetheless a space that can be comfortable. But when men perceive femininity, it tends to be tied back to heterosexual desire. Not just sexual desire, but the desire to maintain the family structure. The settling down. The having children. The hugs and kisses amid a matrix of sexual difference. It is sexual difference that gives me the heebie jeebies. Sometimes it does not matter how you feel about femininity on your own – that agency feels robbed by how men perceive it emanating from you. Maybe it is less of a problem if one desires men in the first place. It feels like a great issue when one has minute, or almost completely lacking desire for men.

*

On femininity, another parallel thread: female friendships. Girls look at other girls. Femme girls look at other femme girls. Between femme girls, the feeling of liking to look at what is feminine is mutual. This is a pleasant arrangement. What could go wrong with this?

*

About five years ago, I finally found a space where I could present myself in a manner that was comfortable. I could finally incorporate being feminine on a daily basis. That was my official entrance into girlhood, where previously it was burgeoning and fetal (this is not to say it was minor – I have already experienced sexual harassment in earlier years). Others girls and femmes began to compliment me. I always returned the gesture. I always meant everything I returned. I desire to be femme (and even more femme), but others forget that I also tend to desire those that are femme.

*

Bb is a present lover of mine. Bb left girlhood. Bb tells me that girlhood is really like what happens in Mean Girls. That is why they left it. There are social hierarchies built upon popularity, looks, status, class. Bb got so tired of that shit. I am tired of that shit but not tired enough. I am literally just a girl. Guess where I obtained the previous line from.

*

It was in the past year that I was suddenly flooded with archetypes of girls: The It Girl, The Sad Girl, The Depressed Girl, The Mentally Ill Girl, The Cool Girl, The Girlboss, The [insert adjective] [insert adjective] [insert adjective] Goth GF, The Sanrio Girl, The Girlygirl, and so on. It was a multiplicity of girls. Perhaps that is a liberatory thing. It was a proliferation of identities. For those who know me, I never thought of (alternative) identities, stereotypes, archetypes as liberatory. It was like boxing yourself again while society already tries to box you. In mathematics, specifically linear algebra, an identity matrix is a matrix that remains the same even when you multiply it with other matrices. A matrix is bounded by square brackets that look like this: [ ]. Sexual difference is a matrix precisely because Men must be from Mars, Women must be from Venus.

*

A friend called Ym told me today how girlhood cycles back to how men perceive women at some point. Ym and Bb probably have different outlooks on girlhood, but I get the sense that neither wish to partake in it as intensely as I have been submerged into so. I have wondered for months if I should try to desire men. When men see me in the club or the dancefloor they want me to grind their hardening members. And I do. I have not kissed any men since 2018.

*

I asked Bb why people liked to call me an “Angel” as a compliment. I do not see myself as an Angel. I know for a fact that I am a flawed person with a history that is not pleasant. Even as I try my best to be healthier and to learn to be more caring. It was a compliment that felt loaded with ethical baggage. It was something that I have been called by multiple people with lovely intentions. Bb felt that such a term meant very little. It was not a compliment that has much meaningful content. It was one of the many favorite words of girls that sparkled and fluttered like confetti but not much else. I found that hard to believe. It almost felt like people were not being honest to me. I am familiar with the word “Angel” as it was used by an ex-friend who was very friendly in the beginning, but who became frustrated with my person and broke off eventually. It is a word that is tinged with that history of falling out with other girls. It is word used where in their eyes later, I would have fallen from Heaven. I know that was an overly dramatic metaphor and allegory. I know I am nowhere near as beloved as Lucifer. I am human and being human is messy and discomforting. Perhaps even for Sianne Ngai, it is feeling ugly in the most vulgar manner of it.

*

I wish to be a City Pop Girl. City Pop is a genre saturated with funky melancholic songs sung by women. The usual lyrical theme is that the woman singing knows how beautiful she is, but she is so, so romantically alone in an indifferent, cold metropolis. The (fairly niche) Idol Yukika Teramoto is one of such singers. It has been two years and I have not gotten over how pretty she is. I wanted to be pretty like that. In the past year I worked towards being pretty like that. I like how classic the makeup of City Pop singers past and present was:

  • A clean powdered look.
  • Optional blush, and next to no bronzing and highlighting.
  • Brows are neatly trimmed and require almost no drawing.
  • Minimal eyeliner. This is a sophisticated high femme look, but it is not hyperfeminine.
  • Lifted eyelashes with minimal mascara.
  • Next to no eye shadow.
  • Bright, or deep, or pinkish red lipstick.

It also meant I was not really following trends of any sort. That can be an uncomfortable position to be. Part of girlhood is having a finger on the latest trends. Part of that can mean social competition. I just wanted to look like a pretty girl that was comfortable in my own skin. Where I could sit in a Café and feel the sun on my dress and feel peace.

*

If I saw a girl or another femme that is pretty, I would occasionally feel romance creeping up towards me. This does not preclude knowing a person better with time. The issue might be romance itself, however. My personal history is that I have always gone overboard with it in unhealthy ways. Recently I have been learning to love in generality, eschewing the categories of platonic, sexual, romantic, and letting desire expand without additional perceptions. It is starting to feel like a better way to love. But as a girl how expansive can I practically be? Should I still be open to men at least, just to try? How far can my love go…

*

A part of me wishes that if a girl or femme tells me I am pretty or beautiful, it means that they want me. But in practice that does not entail anything until they tell me they do want me. If I tell a girl or femme that they are pretty or beautiful, I always mean it. And I always mean it in a way that has the potential of desire, of falling in love. It feels weird to type that out to the world. I am uneasy that I mean things this way. That I cannot be completely friendly about this. It feels almost like a masculine thing to say. I find it difficult to separate my desire for femmes from pure aesthetic appreciation for femmes. If girlhood tends to construe such compliments as purely social, purely platonic, then any desire on my end gets washed out. Any desire on my end feels dirty and unwanted.

*

Once I tried an Emo look. Seeing that, another friend known as Gb told me that I could try to pull off a TradGoth look. In some ways this feels much better than a compliment. A comment like this opened up possibilities I had not thought of or was afraid to entertain. It was an opening. Perhaps the way to see this is to see it as styles, not archetypes to follow, or trends to follow. You do not have to embody the It Girl or whatever. They are mere styles, like how femininity and masculinity are styles. Embodying an identity or archetype is probably where relating to something can become unhealthy. Can feel like being boxed in. Styles are fun. Styles are not essential. Styles are a manner of experimentation. Styles can bring comfort. I might be getting somewhere with this.

*

These days I spend a minute or two shaping my lips to redness. When I am done, life feels more bearable and worthwhile. I will regard it as a bonus if other girls, femmes, and men understand why I practice painting my lips.

30/06/2023

June 30, 2023 By in Registry Tags: , Leave a comment

I haven’t written a blog post in a while. Since 2019, I took to Twitter to microblog. I think the scrutiny and algorithmic dangers that Twitter brings has taken a toll on me. Outsider perceptions of me have taken a massive toll on me. Long after the Golden Age of blogging in the 2000s, I shall try blogging again. I do pay for this domain after all.

How many spaces I have left to be fully authentic and serious – two things that ground me – I don’t know. Writing here is an attempt to rediscover what is personal.

The Lune of 2023 was very different from the Lune of 2018 that started this blog. The five years in between have simultaneously felt like thirty years and a half-forgotten series of short vignettes. They are half-forgotten because of years of accumulated trauma. I have fallen for just three people in those years. I have nearly perished multiple times in those five years. The Lune of 2018 would go on to build vast networks across writing spaces, LGBTQIA+ spaces, and civil society spaces in Singapore, and will proceed to lose more than half those networks by this time of writing.

The Lune of 2018 would never have imagined she would lose a trans sister she loved. She is still there, outside Peaches Club, in her wig that was straight from a 90s on 60s film, celebrating her trans sister’s win at the first ever drag competition in Singapore. She is there smiling and laughing, slightly drunk, making conversation with older drag queens, looking in awe at how gorgeous her sister is. Her sister wore blue that night. It was her signature color. She would book a Grab and return home feeling dizzy, loved.

The Lune of 2019 is the Lune of business. She is there in her room in the University Town, furiously typing, knowing her place. She thinks of protecting and securing the rights of other trans and non-binary students in her university. In the process she cries. In the process she finds inspiration from a younger student, just 17, protesting outside the ExxonMobil headquarters. She divines her future arrest by the police. She starts calling herself an anarchist. She starts calling herself a lesbian. She is so sure of both things. She goes onto Twitter thinking it would be just her, microblogging her life and retweeting her favorite things.

The Lune of 2020 is the forgotten Lune. The start-of-COVID Lune. The Lune that realizes how neither the State nor institution are her friends. They will never be her friends. But who Lune is in 2020, that has been erased by trauma. One thing that is clear: she wakes up one afternoon, and found her own LGBTQIA+ community group in her College infiltrated by Christian conservatives. They have created a moral panic out of a student-run educational seminar on bondage practitioners. She begins to burn out.

The Lune of 2021 is the Lune of struggle. She is still there with her handcuffs. She is there inside the Cantonment Police Complex holding cell, staring at the ceiling, the disproportionately large emptiness of the space. Inside she recites the first part of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. The one with Marie sledding down the mountains. The part with reading and going south in winter. She is preparing to recite it in a creative writing class taught by the local poet Boey Kim Cheng. When she does so, someone cries at the performance. She goes on her first ever date that year, after a long summer of depression and burnout. She is still there by the river, on another hot afternoon, yearning. From then on she learns teenagehood once more. Painfully.

The Lune of 2022 is a shell. She is still there in her room, where someone she trusts is about to betray her. She dissociates and dissociates. The Lune of migraines. The Lune of heightened anxieties. The Lune that broke. The Lune that has deep gashes. The Lune that is poorly. She is there standing at Archway Station trying to connect the new and the newer. She keeps failing to do so. She lives in another’s fantasy where she falls onto the tracks and dies due to her weakness. She tries to live with dignity. She stops calling herself a lesbian.

The Lune of 2023. There’s nothing much to say. The Lune of botched girlhood. The Lune of the long road. It is not clear if that road leads to ruination. I have stopped smiling. I’ve forgotten how to smile without wincing. I remember how I smiled in 2018. In 2021. That smile, and its authenticity will not come back for years to come. Joy became something increasingly difficult to grasp as the years go. Nina Simone sings in “I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl” (1967):

I want a little sugar in my bowl
I want a little sweetness down in my soul
I could stand some lovin’, oh so bad
Feel so funny, I feel so sad

There is a long road.