Weapons (no, not like that) 3/4
B
Today is a bad day to live in my skin. I sit at BAR X twiddling my thumbs and trying to cover myself as best as possible. I have been gaining weight steadily, my hips growing wider and causing the zippers to break off my favorite pairs of jeans. I eat the same lunch every day. I go to the gym (almost) everyday. All that has happened is that my clothes fit worse on my body. Everything is tight and uncomfortable and oh god, everyone can tell cant they? Who will care about me if I’m bigger? Who wants to see a female jazz drummer if no one wants to fuck her?
This bar used to mean a lot to me. It gave me so much when I began attending a year ago: gigs, connections, love. Now it is just a chore. It is a chore to stuff everyone into the same corner booth, crane my neck to see the band, make conversation with someone I don't have the energy nor the room in my heart to meet. My sister is here with her social friends. They laugh loudly and all I want is to hear the band. I haven’t felt so disconnected from other women since I was 12.
To survive this long as a woman in jazz you must assimilate and act like you belong, so I act like a man. I am cool, casual about things and unemotional. It’s about the music. Just listen to the changes. Yeah, man. To be an attractive woman that acts like a man must be irresistible to guys, I think to myself. a lot of the men here repulse me, honestly, but if even they don’t want me then I might as well not exist.
My sister wears a pink slip dress she bought from a thrift store three hours ago. She must have found it in the kid’s section, but it fits her perfectly. Her hair is white (she's been using her toner) and she puts glitter underneath her eyes so it looks like she's always crying. All of her friends are women and they love each other genuinely and when I see them interact I feel like a roach wearing girl-skin. All my friends are men and make weird comments about girls in our program. I betray my gender day after day, as I descend deeper into ridding myself of my femininity.
My best friend uses the fact that I am a woman to get us gigs. I guess I don't mind. A gig is a gig, right? He tells me that I have it easier than him: I won’t have to practice as hard because I can wear a low-necked shirt instead. He sits with us in this booth and I am angry at him for not paying attention to the music like I am. He is talking and laughing loudly with my sister and I want to rip his hair out one by one; you made me like this and now you abandon. I know deep down he is lying to me about sleeping with her but I do not have the energy to process this.
The next day a picture is posted to social media of every woman there except for me in the bathroom together, captioned “girls”. I am barely a woman to the people I care about most. I am only a woman in sex and when I cry, but I otherwise go undetected on their radars.
I am effective at assimilation. I feel so unflattered in everything I put on my body and so unimpressive with everything that comes out of my mouth. I load in drum kits only to be asked if I am the singer. I am ogled at and patronized by my male peers. I will never truly be able to tell if “good job” is because I did a good job or because they are picturing me on my knees. No one sees my little cries, not even my mom. This was always part of the game. Sometimes love feels wrong.