torn up metal tee

I walk down to the marsh wearing a ratty old iron maiden shirt and shorts with a funky pattern that has faded to a blotchy mess of maroon-ish blobs.

I’m exhausted, it’s been trauma anniversaries and bleak news reports and struggling with insurance after being made to jump through excessive hoops to get my testosterone refilled. But that’s alright, it’s sorted for at least the next three months, a little pouch of pump bottles in the closet again. It’s the coolest it will be for the next few days, and I hope I’ll see a turtle or a few frogs or find another four-leaf clover for my collection.

The washing machine is broken, and I guess most the maintenance staff quit. I wore this shirt on my walk yesterday too, but that’s also fine.

It’s faded into dark blue and grey stripes on the design, the way the room looks with your glasses off at 2 or 3 am when you wake up to piss, wake up from a bad dream, wake up to the cat standing on your spouse’s head trying to meow softly so you don’t wake up- because when ‘dad’ wakes up to the cat meowing his arms snake out like the eyelash whisps of barnacles pulling their food close, trapping the beast to his chest without hardly waking.

When I used to try to feel or look or pass as a woman, it was very easy to dress myself right. Accessorizing is easy. Heart and cross bone hairclips. Shimmery lip gloss. Sparkle nail polish. Tight pants, cute shoes, and a brand new iron maiden x tokidoki collab shirt. Eddie reimagined in kawaii. The shirt still smelling faintly like grape bubblegum, how it did until about the 6th or 7th wash.

Dressing like a man, to feel like a man, to exude masculinity, well, it’s never felt inherently obvious to me. I don’t, or didn’t used to, put much thought into it beyond what I liked wearing and what fit my body alright. I wore a lot of unisex graphic tees, flannel overshirts and acid wash jeans. Same as I dressed before I transitioned, just without the extra accessories.

When I started buying plain tee shirts “for men”, I made my friend Davey stand in the parking lot with his arms at his sides, held up in a t, above his head, twirling in a little circle. Huh. I appraised that men’s shirts were all cut weird. All fit all of us a little wrong. We’d sit together near the loading dock and paint each other’s nails. He’d never had his painted before. He picked a shimmery deep purple, like his favorite band plus glitter chunks. I painted mine black, and poorly, making sure my nails looked stubby and chipped.

We talked about one of the first conversations we had had when I’d started working on his shift and we were still feeling each other out. He had commented on my ghost shirt, that he thought they were awful and commercial and not really metal, but had thought their first album was fun. I tersely told him that I used to listen to them a lot, and that I liked this t-shirt, and more or less left the conversation to go do something else.

Davey and I don’t look alike at all, but we also don’t look dissimilar. We’re both a little shorter than average (myself more so), with hair ranging from ‘I needed a trim and thought shaving my head sounded easier’ to unruly shoulder length in a somewhat predictable loop, with full beards, big glasses and bushy eyebrows. Practical ‘dad shoes’, a limited selection of pants, faded band shirts.

Davey didn’t understand why I had shut down the earlier conversation. He had wanted to compare music taste, to talk about influences between bands, to enthuse that we both appreciated different things about the same genre. He saw a window to get to bullshit with me about a shared interest to get to know each other better.

Whereas I had had “this conversation” a thousand times before, starting in my teens, and was pretty sure where it was going based off of past experience.

“Hey, Davey. Have you ever been mistaken for a woman who likes metal?”

When my ratty iron maiden shirt was brand new, almost a decade ago, it was bright pastels and cutesy. Clouds with frowny faces and a few chunky unicorns in the background. Eddie in kawaii. I laughed so hard when I saw it in the store and I had to get it, because I knew it was going to be a lot of fun, and it was almost immediately.

No one has asked me if I even listened to the band whose shirt I was wearing in about 5 years, coincidentally starting around the time…

But back then?

I loved this shirt. Men, who looked not the same but not dissimilar, would ask if I even listened to iron maiden. Told me my shirt was disrespectful. That it was too cutesy. That it wasn’t hardcore. That metal music wasn’t an aesthetic. That I was a poser. What’s your favorite iron maiden album, even? To most of which I’d cheerfully reply “wellllll, this shirt is officially licensed, so take that up with the band, I guess~~?”

I still don’t understand why that ruffled so many feathers, but it did.

Davey recently brought up that he still thinks about that conversation often. I hadn’t thought of it until he mentioned it. I was wearing a shirt for a band and album I know he doesn’t like, one I pulled out to wear next time I saw him after he’d mentioned loathing it. From the first concert my mom went to back in ‘83. We playfully argue about what counts as ‘heavy metal’ in the car, whoever makes our wives laugh louder is probably winning. My spouse settles the argument, declaring, “wellllll it wasn’t in the movie Heavy Metal… soooo~” to a cacophony of laughs that can only mean they stole the winning point.

It’s part of my go-to “man uniform” when I don’t want anyone to think about what is, was, will be in my pants. Ratty band shirt. Faded funky shorts. I used to decide in the mornings if I had the mental energy to even wear a band tee that day.

I’m so tired of thinking of what it means to be a man, how to know if I look, smell, sound, act like one. About what our lives are going to look like in the next few years. Unsure, if I lose access to my testosterone, how I am going to navigate the changes in my mood again. A couple years ago my T and vitamin D levels hit rock bottom at the same time, and I sat in the corner of the room weeping for days, unable to stop. I ponder that I think a lot of the people who used to be in my life would have rathered attend a woman’s funeral than a man’s wedding. I suspect this trip was planned more or less specifically to help me forget these things for a while.

My spouse shows me a picture they took of me while we were out. Walking jauntily back to the shore from the ocean. I cry because I have never seen a picture of myself candidly, genuinely happy before. Emerging from the ocean in a faded, torn-up, band shirt that no one I walked by said a goddamn thing about.

And I walk down to the marsh in my holey old tee shirt, because even if it feels like tomorrow might not have a place for me, I know today does.

post script-

I am meaning to start sharing more writing again, if you’re following me, you probably know I struggle with depression. If you’re struggling too, you might like listening to the short audio book I released last year, which I still think more people should listen to.

Coincidentally, I did the cover art for a thrash metal album that came out recently. Carnivoverlords by Thrashra (it’s also on youtube and spotify.) Check it out if you’re into that, Thrashra is a labor of love by people I love!