our lady of sorrows #1

“Patron Saint of Healing”, Rowan, he/it, @chestcavityheart on tumblr

“i am not afraid”, @mychemicallimbalance on tumblr

“the pilgrimage” Claude Russo, they/them, @critterdaddy on tumblr

To: Gerard Way

OrHowIcametotermswithmygenderidentity

I open my scars and I see your name

When I look in the mirror I feel no shame

And I owe it to you.

I put on my best sunday dress

Don't I look pretty walking down this mess?

I spent years in self hatred

Counting down my blessings and my sins

(mostly sins)

In you I found something sacred

Like an angel that just got its wings

And I am not alone.

It's been years since I saw your face

Your voice is like an old friend's embrace

I look at you on stage

I remember why I am full of rage

I am still here. I am still breathing.

You look at me. I look at you.

And I feel understood

on tumblr

“I mean, I still haven’t found a love that looks like me”- Lip Manegio, We’veAllSeenHelena

It starts with Tumblr, as it so often does. No, scratch that– it starts with a baby assigned female at birth and born into a world that shunned gender nonconformity, especially in Asians. It starts even further back than that– with immigrant parents from China who traveled to a new country chasing a new American Dream but holding on to traditional values. It starts with people deciding that queerness was something to be feared and hidden away.

Wherever you start this story, it ends the same way. With a 15 year old searching for the knives. With a 16 year old eating birthday cake in the hospital. With a 17 year old almost drowning in a river. With an 18 year old sure this can't go on.

So here's a familiar story, stop me if you've heard this one before. A little girl with unrestricted access to the internet joins Tumblr and that's the start of her doom, right? On Tumblr she is accosted with unfamiliar and strange ideas– gay people? People “trans-ing their genders?” Mental illness? Depression? So, yeah. That's how she learns about all that stuff, at the tender age of 12 (she lied about her age to join the site), having lived her entire life not knowing those were things. Or, well, knowing, at the peripheral of her mind, that those were things, but not things to be discussed in the open.

At 14 she discovers My Chemical Romance.

They had broken up years ago. But here were people who flaunted their gender nonconformity, who spat in the face of what others considered normal. When this girl looked at Gerard Way, she felt a familiarity that took root under her skin and exposed the foundations as it pushed its way through. He was superhuman. A supernova.

So she starts a sideblog.

"Gerard Way is my girlfriend," she joked. Yes, she knew Gerard Way was not a girl. But by now the girl knew she was not a heterosexual. She wanted, and she wanted badly. She'd trade places with Gerard Way in an instance. She looked for a love that looked like hers on the TV, in movies, in magazines, and found it instead in fanfictions and fandom.

The blog gained popularity. And someone dm’d her.

"Hey," they said, "I think you would like this band."

@bubbleteagrunge / comeonmessmeupontumblr

She’sNotDead,TheyOnlyLookThatWay(continued)

She fell in love within three days. Here was someone who was gender nonconforming, like she was. A similar obsession like hers to Mikey Way. Latine with two lesbian moms. The complete opposite of her but like a mirror image.

The feeling set her on fire. We'll have a big bloody wedding, she fantasized, we'll run away together and Frank Iero will be there.

When her internet crush told her they liked her back, she was over the moon. She felt like she was floating. She was superhuman. A supernova.

She decided to tell her parents.

Rejection. "You're confused."

How could they say this when she was thinking clearer than she ever had in her life?

So this story has an end, and it ends with a 15 year old searching for the knives. But it only ends if you choose to end it there, because the night actually ended with an ambulance ride and an extended stay. The internet crush told her they should just stay friends, and that connection fizzled up and vanished as they so often do. But when the girl looked at Gerard Way she wanted so desperately but realized she still hadn't found a love that looked like hers.

She vowed to never reach rock bottom again, but a few months later she was back to an extended stay. This time they had a label to slap onto it. "Bipolar disorder." An accurate title that misleads everyone. Bipolar disorder isn't a mood swing that explodes then tempers down when you've gotten what you've wanted. Bipolar disorder is highs that take you to the top of the universe then drop you further than you've ever been with no way to climb back out.

She looked in the mirror, or just the unbreakable glass panels of the bolted shut hospital window, and didn't see herself. They were not a girl.

I was something else entirely.

There's a poetic quality to being transgender. You weren't given what you yearned for, you won it through blood and sweat and tears. You wore the shrouds of shame for years, not even recognizing yourself in the mirror, looking for something like you in others but not even able to find it in yourself.

So the story ends with a new gender and a new identity, and a new story starts. It ends with discovery and starts with it too. I write this on my way to a My Chemical Romance concert, dressed in the campiest outfit I could find, having waited to see this band since 2019 when they announced they were back together and hoping and wishing for a comeback since I first heard Welcome to The Black Parade at 14 years old. I am 19 years old. Still discovering, still rocking out, still telling my story.

She’sNotDead,TheyOnlyLookThatWay(continued)

She fell in love within three days. Here was someone who was gender nonconforming, like she was. A similar obsession like hers to Mikey Way. Latine with two lesbian moms. The complete opposite of her but like a mirror image.

The feeling set her on fire. We'll have a big bloody wedding, she fantasized, we'll run away together and Frank Iero will be there.

When her internet crush told her they liked her back, she was over the moon. She felt like she was floating. She was superhuman. A supernova.

She decided to tell her parents.

Rejection. "You're confused."

How could they say this when she was thinking clearer than she ever had in her life?

So this story has an end, and it ends with a 15 year old searching for the knives. But it only ends if you choose to end it there, because the night actually ended with an ambulance ride and an extended stay. The internet crush told her they should just stay friends, and that connection fizzled up and vanished as they so often do. But when the girl looked at Gerard Way she wanted so desperately but realized she still hadn't found a love that looked like hers.

She vowed to never reach rock bottom again, but a few months later she was back to an extended stay. This time they had a label to slap onto it. "Bipolar disorder." An accurate title that misleads everyone. Bipolar disorder isn't a mood swing that explodes then tempers down when you've gotten what you've wanted. Bipolar disorder is highs that take you to the top of the universe then drop you further than you've ever been with no way to climb back out.

She looked in the mirror, or just the unbreakable glass panels of the bolted shut hospital window, and didn't see herself. They were not a girl.

I was something else entirely.

There's a poetic quality to being transgender. You weren't given what you yearned for, you won it through blood and sweat and tears. You wore the shrouds of shame for years, not even recognizing yourself in the mirror, looking for something like you in others but not even able to find it in yourself.

So the story ends with a new gender and a new identity, and a new story starts. It ends with discovery and starts with it too. I write this on my way to a My Chemical Romance concert, dressed in the campiest outfit I could find, having waited to see this band since 2019 when they announced they were back together and hoping and wishing for a comeback since I first heard Welcome to The Black Parade at 14 years old. I am 19 years old. Still discovering, still rocking out, still telling my story.

jay markar (he/him) mg549 on tumblr mg549 on twitter mercreatureguy549 on instagram

shae

wednesday, september 28

it's 10:25pm in brooklyn and an hour earlier in houston, where my chemical romance is performing tonight. i'm hunched over my laptop, five tabs open of potential livestreamers to ensure i don't miss a thing. the crowd erupts in tinny screams as the lights fall, the static swells. gerard way, wearing a frumpy blue dress and cardigan, walks onstage and kneels to scrawl a message on the bass drum in dripping paint marker: FEELINGGOOD. my heart seizes up in a rush of secondhand gender euphoria. i've been on the verge of tears all day and this is threatening to push me over the edge, but i've never been much of a crier and exogenic testosterone has made real tears all the more rare. my friends and i are losing our shit in the group chat. this is trans joy.

sunday, september 25

it's 2am in brooklyn and i'm curled in bed, hazily scrolling through social media feeds, trying halfheartedly to sleep. i get a text from Z_, one of the artists i book for family-friendly drag performances at schools and libraries and city parks, someone i've looked up to as a performer for years now. she sends me screenshots of her dms with a journalist who’s saying that a group of far-right conspiracists are planning on showing up to protest one of our events at a library in queens on tuesday.

i don't sleep that night.

later that day, i get a text from N_, a queer punk in their 40s who works for the same organization. their drag is a little rough around the edges but in the most beautiful way and they are one of the kindest and toughest people i know. they've been gaybashed by the proud boys three times.

Wehadprotestorstoday anditwasadoozy!!!!Gotviolent.M_andIareokbuttherewasahuge clashbetweenattendantsandprotestors

Theprotestorsweretryingtoattackme.Theadultsintheaudiencelockedarmsandcreateda wallaroundmesoIcouldfinishmylastbook,thentheyescortedmetomycar.

they send me video. i lie and say i watched it. i can't. they ask if i can organize an active shooter training. i say i think that's a good idea.

i spend the rest of the day sending frantic emails to librarians and city officials and the local anarchist groups who have saved our asses before. i ask the anarchists not to come armed, because we have to be very careful with our public image. i don't want to think about what would happen if one of the protestors brings a gun. i feel nauseous as i weigh the decision of whether or not to invite increased police presence at our most vulnerable events. between the pigs and the angry mob, who is more of a threat to my friends and comrades on the frontline, many of whom are black and brown, all of whom are trans or gender-nonconforming? none of this should be in my hands, in any of ours.

wednesday, september 21

i’m in newark to see my chemical romance live for the third time this month. my friend got nosebleed seats at the last minute, and we took the train out to jersey together, but i’m by myself in the pit. i’m wearing a full face of femme drag makeup and letting my new facial hair peek through, darkened with mascara. i feel beautiful, and i’m reminded by the kind strangers around me that people respond differently to that beauty when they interpret me as having a masculine body. sometimes, like tonight, the difference is a positive one.

gerard comes onstage in a glittering gold suit jacket and drawn-on pencil stache. his movements are jerky, campy, butch-but-not-really. theringofkeys-style flash of mirrored recognition is immediate. the band closes out the night with a cover of the sid vicious version of mywaywith all the homophobic lines cut out or reworked, a number we would have booked for my old drag house’s all-king show back in the day. despite my corset and dehydration and achy knees and the crush of the crowd, i haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time.

tuesday, september 27

i ask N_ for an update on the library event: Chaos.Wehadpoliceescortedustoourcar.Snuckoutthesideentrancetoavoidthemoboutside Theytriedtobreachsecurityduringthereadingbutsecuritystoppedthemandlockedalldoors inside

monday, september 26

i learn that the people currently targeting my organization are a group of anti-vax conspiracists who traveled up here from texas.

saturday, september 24 hours before Z_ texted me, a mob of nazis stormed an all-ages drag event at a church in texas. many of them were carrying guns. (the saturday after, a neonazi would show up at a museum on the upper east side of manhattan because he didn't like that i was inside reading books to toddlers. i don't know if he was armed.)

wednesday, september 28 on my laptop screen, through the choppy live feed from houston, gerard pauses in between songs and says "i thought about wearing a dress in texas before..." they gesture for the spotlight on them to switch off, and the audience quiets down. "but that's another story for another time," they continue, and pause again. as ray and frank and mikey play the opening chords of s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w, gerard screams into the mic, half mocking, half threatening:"betterrun!handsup!"

1. i'veleftoutsomedetailsforprivacypurposes,buteverythingi've writtenhereistrue.ifyoufeellikefiguringoutthenameofthe organizationirun,youprobablycan,andyou'llprobablyfindmy nameintheprocess.that'sfine,it'snotasecret,ijustdon'twantthis particularpublicationtocomeupwhenpeoplelookuptheorg.

2. thisisn’tabouttexas.i'veneverbeentotexas.ifeelvery privilegedtoliveinaliberalstatewheretheoddsoflosingmycivil rightsasaqueerpersonarerelativelylow.neverzero,butlow. (correction: returning to this note a few weeks after writing it, it turns out there’s a not-insignificant chance of new york electing a far-right governor a few days from now.) atthesametime,iknow betterthantowriteoffanentirestateasviolentbigots.houstonhas avibrantdragscenetorivalnewyork's,andruralsouthernqueer cultureisquietlythrivingasitalwayshas.attimeslikethese,itis hardtofeelanymeaningfuldifferencebetweentheliberalnortheast andtheconservativesouth.whatdifferencedoafewlinesofpolicy makewhenweallhavetofearphysicalviolenceforthecrimeof existinginthepresenceofchildren,ofexistingatall?

ara, they/them cartilagexfluid on tumblr

(any pronouns)

on instagram

IfYouEverFeltWrong

Her smile made me blush. I didn’t know why. I knew it was wrong though, and I would watch her from the corner of my eye as my stomach did somersaults. I was twelve. At the same time, I started listening to My Chemical Romance. The music shook my brains enough the bad feelings stopped, even if it was just for the length of a record.

The shame eats at me. Less, now, five years removed from seventh grade and the overtures of queerness (a word I still shy away from). Back then, I found a short clip on YouTube. It was grainy and shaky, like every meaningful video of MCR is destined to be. In it, Gerard announced his support for the queer community. The audience cheered and clapped.

I had the privilege of seeing them live this October. I went alone, my first concert by myself. Musicians talk a lot about trying to make stadiums feel like they’re basement concerts, intimate. This was not intimate. There were 20,000 other people in there with me. Among them were a friend from school, the millennial emos sitting next to me who talked to me and danced with me and hugged me at the end, the middle-aged guys remembering their youth, and of course, the band. We sang together, the songs I sang alone in my room and listened to on the bus and danced along to as I cooked dinner, the songs that have seen me grow up. I think we were loud enough to shake the rafters, to raise the dead.

The truth is, I’m still scared. I’m not really out to anyone but my friends (after an unsuccessful attempt to come out to my parents). I dress to not draw attention, I try to hide the strangeness. But I know who I am now, and I know there’s a future where I will be proud.

I hope the next time the chorus comes around you join in and sing, unashamed and unafraid.

rowan (he/they)

twitter: @ghostofboobs insta: @rowanbee_art tumblr: @somethingnastyinthewoodshed

There’s a saying in the community that I’ve come to love: “Gerard Way trans’d my gender”. It’s not inaccurate. It’s tongue in cheek. It’s evocative and funny. It’s half true for me.

I came out as non-binary in 2019, after years of feeling like a failure of a woman, but not anywhere close to a man. Neither femininity nor masculinity looked or felt right to me, but there were so few examples of gender nonconforming individuals that looked like me (Taiwanese) or sounded like me (Asian American but DIDN’T grow up in the United States). Pushing the boundaries of gender looked like something meant for people in the mainstream.

I can’t say that Gerard Way actually trans’d my gender, but their own journey with who they are showed me that the limits imposed on who you are are possible to transcend. Word choice intentional.

I first found MCR through Ouran High School Host Club. Stay with me here. It was an Anime Music Video (AMV) set to WelcometotheBlackParadeand credit to this now-forgotten creator, the way the mv was edited to the song was incredibly compelling to teenage-me. And as any teenager with youtube access in the 2000s, I looked up the music video for WTTBPand thought “oh. Alright.” I didn’t know how to process the white hair, but the uniforms did it for me, and I moved on to the next MCR music video suggested, Helena, and from there, “oh”.

I admit I didn’t understand at the time why people considered the long black hair and pale complexion look Gerard sported at the time to be “girly” –somehow, I had processed it as “guys can look this way too?” and I wanted to be like that. I believed I could be – I stayed indoors most of the time enough to not be tanned (incredible considering I lived in the tropical climate of southern Taiwan), and I had long black hair. But as puberty progressed and I kept aging along with it, I subconsciously processed that I wouldn’t look like how I wanted. I had to make do with what I looked like. It took a minor breakdown in front of a mirror in high school for me to vow to myself that I would put in the work to love the way I looked (Asian, not hyper feminine, not androgynous, not masculine) and anything else could come after.

Essay(continued)

Anything else arrived in 2019 when I started giving “they/them” pronouns a try. When I actively looked into what nonbinary meant. When I read through blogs and posts by other trans people. When I did my own search for trans people in Taiwan and that specific community. Then MCR reunited and COVID hit.

Between watching the world collapse on itself, finding what it means to live in this world now, and what it will take to want to be alive in the world now…I know that watching Gerard Way live his life to the fullest, being loved by the people in their life, and being able to fully express himself or experiment in the ways that they want, directly inspires and encourages me that who I am is up to me, and that I can have a hand in my own creation too.

CynthiaChang(they/she)

GalateaWouldLikeAWord

Her feet are cold on the plinth

Galatea stands before a mirror

An image made from someone’s vision

Gifted by the gods to Pygmalion

Nothing is set in stone

She wants to be more

Her flesh once slept in stone

Now she looks for herself in the dirt

Sinks her feet into the ground

To build herself from the earth

Nothing is set in stone

She knows she can be more

I don’t need a chisel

Just my hands in the garden

You left behind footpaths of inspiration

But I don’t need to follow

Nothing is set in stone

Nothing is set in stone

Being both transgender and gay makes for interesting societal expectations put on me. When you are trans, greater cis society expects you to perform masculinity to perfection. Any less and they will call you a silly girl vying for people’s attention. But the gay man in me finds finds traditional and conventional masculnity uttelry boring, sanatized, and undesierable.

I did not always hold this opinion, though. When I first discovered that I was transgender around the age of fourteen and started the process of switching my clothes from feminine to masculine ones, I mostly looked to advertisements and random men in public for reference on how I should dress. The end result was me desperately attempting to appear like a generic teenage boy by purchasing many graphic t-shirts, cargo shorts, and jeans from places such as American Eagle and Target. Most of these garments were not necessarily bought in the spirit of dressing in a new and exciting way that I loved, but because I agonized over whether I passed or not. Dressing like this did not even help me pass as a boy that much and, in fact, made my dysphoria much worse because I felt like I was being judged at all times by every set of eyes that fell on me.

When I was fifteen I frequently began listening to emo music. It was not my first exposure to the genre, as I had tried to get into the music in earlier years but did not take a liking to it. Now, though, it spoke to me on some level. The emotional lyrics and guitar-driven songs were a far cry from what I was listening to before- mostly alt pop picked out for me by an algorithm in the form of a Pandora station. Before, I almost had an aversion to the genre- the men’s long hair, tight, black clothes, and eyeliner offended me in a way. “Why would a man ever want to dress like that?” I asked. “I’m already working hard enough just to be seen as one!”

I realized that I was gay once became more familiar with myself as a man. Because of all the weird gender things happening inside my head, thinking of myself as anyone’s girlfriend was inconceivable, but when I figured out that I was a man, thinking about other men became much more appealing. Now, my previous revulsion to the men in the music I was listening to turned into attraction. Their tight black clothes that I once scoffed at became sexy and the dark makeup I used to find cringey looked immaculate. One of these men, in particular, was Gerard Way.

During this period of reintroducing myself to emo music My Chemical Romance was quickly becoming my favorite band and I found Gerard Way very easy to connect with. His rich storytelling and lyrics about being othered spoke to me on a very personal level, but most of all I loved his stage outfits. His makeup that made him look like he just crawled from the grave and gothic costumes were something I had never really seen before and they quickly grabbed my imagination. It was all very angrdogynous and distinctly queer and something I had never seen a man do before.

Although I knew I was not going to get any red-and-black suits or bat belt-buckles any time soon, I could do the next best thing and dress like the people who listened to them. The very first black band t-shirt I ever got had Green Day’s American Idiot on it, and that one piece of clothing spurred an entire wardrobe change. All of my random t-shirts got traded out for band tees, I exclusively wore black skinny jeans, and my only shoes were converse and combat boots. Gone were the days of my plain and uninspired outfits. I was finally starting to feel good about how I dressed.

With this change in wardrobe I noticed that my levels of dysphoria went down and my overall body image improved. I started to wear jewelry, got a pair of women’s jeans, and began to occasionally paint my nails and wear eyeliner, things I would have never done when I first came out, for it would have caused me too much distress when I looked in a mirror and only saw a girl doing girly things. This also helped me feel more in-touch with my sexuality since I had always felt bad for not being masculine enough, but knowing that I was just an androgynous gay man made me embrace that.

Therefore, I really have to thank Gerard Way for showing me that there is more than one way to be a man. Both he and I may be ridiculed for not being “man enough” but that is something I can live with if the ideal of a man is not something I aspire to in the first place. And now, seeing them wearing dresses on stage in a genuine way and not just as a joke, as is so often done, it makes me feel even more proud that this is the person who has shaped my style. He is someone who lives triumphantly in their own unique way and I aspire to have the level of individuality that they hold one day.

ANOTEFORGERARDWAY

forced to wait at windows shoved into colorless dreams they say this place lets you down easy, but she's needing more to keep him out shoved behind metal shutters forced to leave him there she knows his name. she'll know him soon. and when she does, he won't be forced to wait at windows or shoved into colorless dreams.

i hate the silence i hate the dress i hate the funeral. it's only natural to cry and i want to fucking scream. i want to tear my skin off. i want them to know that i'm aboy. i'm a boy in a dress at a funeral and my name is romeoand idon'tknowwhoyouthinkyou'retalkingto when you call me otherwise. yes it's selfish and yes it's repulsive and yes it'sallme, sweetheart. tonight belongs to me. or it would. if this dress wasn't my mother's (there's a metaphor in that) and if i wasn't reminding myself that since she wanted a baby girl so bad she should've raised one and that tomorrow we'll do it again. that without a sound, i'll wish him away.

@selfishlywonderfulontumblr

Borrowed money and a plastic bag thanking me for the venom. Here, everyone knows they’re the way to my heart. Here, everyone is as sick as I am, demanding representation at a freakshow. My transness is a lesion that I can't get rid of. The process of accepting its permanence has made me painfully aware of my place within the world, or, at the very least, what others think of it. But this is the last thing I'm thinking about in this packed arena of people who are screaming as though they are mourning themselves. Here, he is projected to my spilling eyes on a screen, and yet they cannot see me. I see him in a perverted sort of way, while everyone else's eyelids are closed, and I know they don't want to be seen, because being seen, for us, has always been synonymous with disgust, rejection. He witnesses himself on the autopsy table daily. It's rule number one: do not be afraid to spit in the public's eye when it is focused on your queerness. It is one of many lessons I have learned from him.

(Repulsivenessisaformofrebellion. Nevermakeoneselfpoliticallypalatable. Doinghorrendousthingsdoesnotmakeyoumoremasculine. Peopleotherthanwomencanbefeminists. Revengeisapartofthehealingprocess. Acceptyourfilthynatureasastrength. Beingunpopularisaliberatingexperience.)

Camera flashlights and spotlights causing us to squint, amplifiers roaring, and a physical divide that exists not only for logistical reasons but also for the performer's personal boundaries. There is so much between us, and yet nothing at all, and I know I lived through scissor-slashes, angry numbness, and wishful funeral planning, to get to this moment. I think I am beginning to understand people who love The Beatles. If someone doesn't like these lyrics that I wail with them in broken harmony, I don't think I'll ever agree with that person on anything. It impacts everything I do. Crying masses, trembling rafters, I'm devoted to this experience, the only form of resilience I believe in. I shall scratch at my throat until the vibrations that come out of it are not ugly. As their couplets of destructive healing reveal to me what I won't allow myself to accept, Whatgivesmetheideathatmydeathwillbeanydifferentthantheothers?

Weallgetshotintheend. I, maybe for the first time, experience peace. My tranquil state feels raw, bittersweet. I am only truly alive when I am on fire. They are a fleeting moment, he is a dazzling light. I'm held for a brief moment before vanishing into their palms. He puts his soft, gentle hands within and rips out my fucking innards. It’s better like this, better to remain cursory. We’ve never met, and it's for the best. I'd rather be condemned for being a bitch, standoffish, quite literally any other characteristic than for overstaying my welcome.

@trans-ylvaniaontumblr @trans_ylvania.jpgoninstagram

MYJOEYRAMONE!(continued)

By morning, my makeup is gone and my windpipe is out of commission, even though I looked handsome the previous night under the strobe. I have realized that I am no longer an atheist, that I have the potential to believe that they are god; only truly real when we need them. He is a lesson learned, a building block, a river we drown in. They are a mirror; comeon,cutyourselfup,rearrangeyourface, makeacollage,findyourselfinme.Eatmeup,sellmeout,trymyskinon,silencethelambs.Sendme backwhereIbelong.YoucanrelaxknowingthatIwill.Iwillbemadeandcravedeternally. I'll get better, then I'll forget. I'll crave it once more, but I'll be long gone before then. A little respite from a month of misery.

(Worthit?Ihopenot.) Time engulfs me completely. I am something he needs and nothing he wants. His posture, their graceful silhouette, and the way his shoulders hug his narrow neck all exude confidence, euphoria. He gives us envy with his very presence, obliviously taunting us,youareinthesameuniverseasme,andyetyouare notme.Youcanblowoutyourvocalchordsallyoulike,butyouwillhaveneversungthesong.Our longing, our aching jealousy that rots in our chests with every beat of our hearts, has a deep ugliness to it. Our envy is sin, and, projected at any other, would splash our faces across the latest episode of ForensicFiles. And yet, we do not hate them, simply because he exists. They exist, they exist, and that is enough. He performs the magic, trick after trick, while we keep pleading with them to tell us the secret. He carries our true selves, our true gender for us until we are ready for it. Gender, our own heaven and hell. We will one day be ready. One day, I will look up and see my life resembling my recurring dream that I've had almost every night ever since I turned the last page of I Am Jazz in second grade, only to flip right back to the first with wonder. I will become a graveyard, or perhaps a shrine, of all my past yearning. And when I find them, when we are both already sick of the questions I beg of him that keep them trapped in amber,

MYJOEYRAMONE!(continued)

he will tell me that they provided the soundtrack to my revolution, but the first brick in the revolution was thrown by me. I will insist that this is not true, I will wake up before I plead that there’s not enough within me, that there is no way I could have done this by myself.

Could I have mutilated myself into Frankenstien’s monster? To be several mutually incompatible men and boys, persons and people: an art school fag; orange and green; a boy who in many ways has not fully formed, who still tends to put hearts on his “i’s”; a reviver of absolutely hideous shorts, bringing back the 80s? The grunge star Kurt Cobain, background twinks I focus on more than the actual plots of whatever trashy reality TV I’ve succumbed to, and, of course, Gerard Way, none of whom resemble each other, Jesus Christ being crucified, pathetic fictional men drenched in blood, who don’t exist? How sick must I truly be if I can see myself vividly as if I were a point guard, a plague doctor, and a ferret, a monster, a venus flytrap, Schrodinger's catboy, a cloud, a greasy movie theater employee with a stripy shirt and acne, and just a physical embodiment of a Hawaiian shirt? Sometimes I feel that I might as well be 75 years old with wrinkled top surgery scars; sometimes I feel that I’m really six, before all these complex feelings bubbled to the surface. I am all these people and more.

The term "Gerard Way" is a living methodology in dynamic equivalence that one can use to describe both oneself and others. Thus, this metonymic conveyance might be seen as a bastardized form of the childhood game of telephone, while it still retains some of the original elements in each whisper.

Me and Gerard Way. I drag us around like a corpse. Fake it till you make it, I’m just a kid in a sheet. I know that it will hurt but I do it anyway. So much of identity is constructed on suffering: my past is flesh that no longer makes sense, I invest too much scarce hope in intangible things. Why am I so desperate for something that will destroy me? Can you cultivate peace and beauty from violence? If two lovers splattered in plasma made me a monster of love, does it really matter? When we look at our own personal and spiritual growth, do we care how it was cultivated? That the present is built on destruction, on not showering for days, on greasy hair, rotten teeth, and cocaine?