Roses and Blues

[Heliogabale (imported)]

Often in my youth I had felt that acrid feeling : envy, jealousy; and the soul-crushing awareness that it was all an unattainable illusion.

Little planes hanged down my light. Action figures were scattered on the floor. A blue tapestry with white circles covered my room. At night, it morphed into a deep oceanic blue, and the white circles were like the eyes of the demiurge over watching me grow in the storm. I remember christmas : miniature train tracks, toy work bench, small building vehicles, action figures, etc. I figured out early that something was off. It was certainly not the loving, if average and perfectible family with its quarrels and drama, no. Something was wrong with me and with the way grown-ups were treating me.

During afternoons when my father was working and my poor mother was vegetating on the couch, I crept furtively to my sister's room. There a pink tapestry covered the walls, a warm and soothing feeling possessed me and for an hour during the week, I was able to feel that things had finally fallen into place. I spent my time caring after her dolls; dressing them, combing their hair, taking them out with the male figure -the generic lover- and imagining what they were saying to each-other, what they were thinking. I played with miniature dolls' houses, with horse figures, with plastic earpieces, necklaces and bangles. After I had finished my little game, my dangerous habit, I put all the toys back to their initial positions with careful attention; headed to the door, took a glance in the hall, and minutely headed back to my room, the sound of television behind.

Some incidents occurred. I still crept in my sister's room and I had developed a habit of stealing little things from her. Animal stickers, fake jewels, some underwears and tops. When looking at myself dressed in the mirror as a girl was not enough, I resorted to stealing these objects, skilfully, always small things that I knew I could steal without being unmasked. I brought these objects in my moody, melancholic blue room where I hid them behind my bed or underneath piles of clothes. I looked at my loot, sometimes for whole afternoons, with a calm and resigned lust. They were so close and yet so far , and with each day passing, they just seemed to slowly fade away. Sometimes during lunches, my sister said that she could not find some clothes, even after searching everywhere. In these moments gnawing feelings of guilt and shame were wailing in my mind, and I sat there playing a perfect role while praying that the discussion would cease in the instant.

Things changed, slowly. My father made me join the soccer club but I dropped out of it after a month. I was a lonely kid at school, I felt different from the other children. I did not enjoy the company and games of boys. They were mostly fighting, challenging each other, running and playing sports. I could not join girls either, we were at this primitive age where boys and girls affirmed fiercely and violently their gender. Girls excommunicated boys and boys smugly ignored girls. I was left in the middle, aghast and depressed. I spent my days observing the never changing walls of the school, the ever changing groups of people, like a fluid driven by hidden forces and laws, melting together and separating, mixing or not, but it always formed this social matter, this crowd. Was I completely out of it? What was there here, if these forces did not apply to me?

I discovered what was to become my wrong habit around that age. When I was out with my parents, very frequently something would become uncomfortably stiff in my pants. A bulge would form and I would anxiously try to conceal it from the view of others. Something was happening with my body that I had no control over. It was like a spell, a fury inflicted me this hardened part, the distinctive mark of my wrongness.

It was also around that age that I linked this hardened thing with pleasure. Rubbing myself against my bed would provide with an instant gratification and it felt as if a sweet smoke spread its pink arabesques in my mind as I laid with my eyes half-shut, exhausted by the effort. The feeling was very close to what I felt when I was in my sister's room, but there was this distinctive moment of exhaustion always following it. With years passing, the pleasure that I derived from this devious habit kept increasing insolently and so did the exhaustion. Very soon the pleasure had reached such proportions that my entire free time became consumed and the following exhaustion left my mind in such a haze that I felt as if I would better let myself be consumed by death.

[To be continued]

[English is not my main language and I admit I am still rather clumsy and ignorant about it, sorry if the text is unreadable or shoddily written.]

[thesmallone (imported)]

It is beautifully written; you are one of the more soulful posters I've seen in my short time of lurking.

Thank you for sharing, and I do look forward to the rest...

[butterflyjack (imported)]

I second your emotion, smallone..It's lovely...Please continue Heliogabale...What is your favoured language? Your English is impeccable..Thank you Jackie