I begged my mother to let me dye my canvas overalls a disgusting olive color, it was the year she had her laptop stolen. Before that, she would sit in the corner of our 250 square foot apartment to be close to the phone cord. I would sit in the bathtub and watch her make tea a few feet away. I had a tiny green chair I’d sit in, listening to Sinead on a gigantic pair of headphones over my elf ears. I asked her to call me ‘Tom’. Prior to 9/11, I never used the internet except to look at XXX DBZ gifs of Piccolo, and only when she was out running errands.

The first time I got fucked by a girl, she was wearing a grass-stained thermal shirt and a headband but I was in my underwear. Her parents were downstairs making dinner and her brother was in the bathroom a few feet away.

The sloping ceiling of the attic she slept in was covered in a fabric, and as my eyes misted up, I prayed to disassociate. I’m not angry, I just don’t know what to say. My prayer was answered, and I didn’t find myself again until a year later, vomiting in the street somewhere near where Marsha threw the first molotov at the cops. I kept drinking once I saw the puke run clear.

Isabelle Nastasia is a has-been pedagogue, and an editor at Mask Magazine. https://twitter.com/izzynastasia