on the slow accumulation of rage

i’m going to wear a button-down shirt for my interview at tisch. i’ll probably keep my earrings in, but they’ll be subtle ones, and i definitely won’t be wearing makeup, nor will i have painted nails

i’m not happy about this. i’d much rather go in in the cute little faux-denim number i have with eyeliner winged to incisive points and lips the color of candied cherries. but i’d rather rather get into the program. wearing what i want to might not lower my odds, but it very well might, in ways that male drag likely won’t. (i’m including subconscious impressions here — even if no one on the faculty is explicitly transmisogynistic (which like, lbr, doubtful), transmisogynistic conditioning runs deep, and a vague unconscious sense of “something just seems off about this applicant somehow” isn’t something i want to set off in the back of their minds)

i’m not happy about this, but i’m not going to make a big stink about it, either. this is my choice, my devil’s bargain. i’m willing to hide this part of myself from the world, to live a lie and take advantage of people’s false assumptions about my gender in order to get what i want. give me the tools i need (and here i mean both the nitty-gritty compositional chops and also the professional network and credentials) to make my artistic visions powerfully real, and i’ll pretend to be a happy little cog with no designs to rock this particular boat

for now.

in the back of my head, i’m keeping a tally. not, perhaps, an exceptionally explicit one, but a little box marked “microaggressions” where these things pile up. individually, these things are inconsequential, but, as calculus teaches us, enough infinitesimals can sum to a monstrous bill that will one day come due

people sometimes tell me i seem like a pretty chill person. i know it’s meant as a compliment, but i always find it a little strange to hear, a sign that the person saying it barely knows me at all. i am not chill, i just have very little energy. there is a sharp limit beyond which i become stressed and overwhelmed, and it is not a limit that i like to reach. so i will smile and i will nod and i will keep the piece and i will say “that’s fine” because i simply don’t have the energy to fight every fight that comes my way, but behind the scenes these sparks of irritation and resentment are flitting about, percolating, until they coalesce into a growing crystal of pure, unadulterated fury. when @understandthelights said that, of the seven deadly sins, i would be wrath, she was right on the mark

this is not to say that i go around yelling at everybody. my anger seldom manifests as outright aggression. many of you, to be fair, have probably seen me in this state: worked up, a bright and splashy flame darting in all directions. very few of you have seen me angry

my anger is cold, implacable, focused, the tight blue flame of a bunsen burner. duller, certainly, than the wanton yellow splash of general aggression, but concentrated, channeled, much less safe to dart your hand across. my anger is the coldest, politest smile you can imagine and the terrifying false cheerfulness behind “hi, sorry, but you actually can’t do that”. i don’t think anyone reading this has ever been on the receiving end of this smile. i sincerely hope none of you ever are

this is the flip side of the devil’s bargain: i have followed all of your rules. i have played my part flawlessly. now it’s time to call you to answer for every violation you have ever committed. it’s nothing personal — it’s your game, after all. it’s merely a matter of Justice

i was talking about this with @ambisexual-twat last fall (which is how long i’ve been trying to write this post whoops), and i definitely can’t dismiss his assessment that being Constantly Angry All The Time has its drawbacks. but, for me at least, anger is one tiny step away from determination, and that is how i have accomplished pretty well everything i am proud of in this life. i am slow to latch on to goals — i was toying with writing a musical more than a year and a half before filing the paperwork to start the process; last fall’s recital took over a year of mental preparation — but once i have something in my sights, i am ruthless in pursuit of it. this is what anger does for me

it also pushes me to live the life i want to. i’ve started wearing dresses and makeup out to concerts — even concerts that i’m reviewing — because i’m simply too angry to hide any longer. cisnormativity is bad and i am Mad About It, and at a certain point i’m mad enough to stop giving a fuck. this is who i am. your objections are uninteresting and not worthy of response. you will accept me because i will not give you any other options. i will not cower under your disapproving glares and sneers, i will meet them with a searing, consolidated fire that has been years in the kindling

i am not yet totally publicly out. there are still spaces where i’m keeping a straight face, or at least a cis one. this state of affairs will not last forever. at some point, i will decide i have had Enough, and that will be an end to closet doors. when that day comes, it will be driven by anger. it will be driven by rage

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