Ten years ago I still believed in therapy.
I used to pay this psychiatrist a hundred euros
For each session, that always started late
And often got interrupted by phone calls.

What I got out of those sessions was false hope,
The notion that I was going forward in life
Because to listen to me for an hour, I paid someone
As much as I would make as a technician in four days.

I don’t know what the point of all that was;
There were no answers to anything,
No solutions or plans for my future.
I always felt like a guinea pig in some experiment.

After each session, I wanted to vomit.
I spent the day with a lump in my throat
While lying on my bed or walking around the block,
Looking at the clouds and sky above my head.
I’ve always hated talking about myself,
And especially sharing my secrets with others.
Talking with other people is exhausting.
It’s not like anyone has ever really cared.

But I guess I was desperate for help and support.
My cycles of depression made me lose opportunities,
And I’ve dealt with suicidal ideation since forever.
Many times I’ve fantasized about overdosing,
Throwing myself out of a window,
Shooting myself in the head,
And a myriad of other creative methods
Of getting rid of this life I’ve never enjoyed.

Anyway, talking never worked well enough,
So these professionals wanted to medicate me.
They said stuff like, “We’ll try this one drug,
And if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”

This one antidepressant, or whatever it was,
Made my skin break out in stretch marks,
And I suddenly found myself producing milk
Out of the breast tissue my body had developed.
Not many men can say, let alone admit,
That they know how their breast milk tastes.

(The taste reminded me of rotten meat
With some sourness and saltiness added.
Over the years, as I grew more unhinged,
My milk tasted better. I no longer disliked it.
It became a part of my diet.
I drank it straight from the teat with a straw,
Or with some milk powder mixed in for taste.
Now I was consuming myself to survive.
I could have become anemic
From all the blood I was losing in this way.
Yet it was the only sustenance I had available;
Without it I would have died within a week.)

None of that seemed right,
So they told me to get an MRI.
I enjoyed the cozy feeling
Of being trapped in that coffin
While this loud clanging noise
Echoed through every bone in my body.
It felt like what one might experience in space,
Except instead of zero gravity
It’s just magnetic forces
Pulling your brain around.

The next doctor I visited, maybe two weeks later,
Started talking about how he was going to treat it.
“Treat what?” I asked. Things got awkward quick;
Someone had failed to tell me beforehand
That they had found a tumor in my pituitary gland.

I thought maybe they could show me something else,
Something more important than my tumor.
A hole in my heart that wouldn’t close.
A tear in my eye that no doctor could remove.
Anything besides my macroadenoma.

The tumor is a lumpy thing that lives inside me,
Hiding behind my eyes where nobody can see it.
(Sometimes when I blink it gets dislodged and falls out.
I feel it at night as it makes its way down through my hair.)

A prolactinoma they call it,
A tiny pebble of flesh in that stupid gland
Located at the base of the brain,
And that according to some googling,
It monitors and regulates bodily functions
Through the hormones it produces:
The adrenocorticotropic hormone,
The growth hormone,
The luteinising hormone,
Prolactin,
And the thyroid stimulating hormone.

I don’t know what most of that means,
But because I was born with this tumor
And it wasn’t found for twenty five years,
I failed to produce enough testosterone
During the critical years of my development,
So I ended up with low bone density,
Headaches, migraines,
Loss of interest in sexual activities
(I believed myself to be asexual,
But now I’d fuck anything that moves),
Erectile dysfunction,
Possible infertility (not that it matters),
Enlarged breasts,
And far more sweat than necessary.

This tumor is a macroadenoma in one dimension,
Meaning that it could fuck up the optic nerve,
And to prevent it from growing further,
I have to keep taking medication for life.

My doc told me that some other guy with this tumor
Had decided to stop taking the drug,
And years later he went to the hospital
Because he experienced head-splitting headaches;
His tumor had kept growing uncontrollably.

(My doctor told me to stay away from doctors.
He advised me to stop going to the hospital.
The last thing he wanted to see was me again.
I found this to be an incredible relief;
I could get back to the safety and isolation I craved,
And it seemed like I had nothing more to lose anyway.)

Do you have any clue how much fun it is
To be known as the male kid with breasts?
Worse yet, this kind of tumor is known to cause
The infamous curse of the micropenis.
I suppose I must count myself lucky;
Mine just ended up small.
After gym class, about to hit the showers,
My dick was at times a source of ridicule,
Although life didn’t feel funny at all to me.

Sex has always been shameful and humiliating,
And a girlfriend used its size to justify
Cheating with some other guy and leaving me.
There’s no cure for having a small dick,
Neither for the mental scars of insults and mockery,
So I’ll likely stick with VR porn for the rest of my life.

Ironically, this tumor with which I was born,
Or that I developed shortly after,
Seems unrelated to the autism
(High-functioning, formerly Asperger’s)
That I was also born with or developed.
Add to that a screwed up family,
And plenty more terrible luck.

Stranger yet, this fucking macroadenoma
Put me under feminizing hormone therapy
Against my will, as if it were any of those doctors
That these days decides that a girl must become a boy
Because she likes wearing pants and playing with trucks,
To try to change the way you’re made
Into the thing that fits those bastards best.

There’s no magic potion, no quick fix
For the nonsense that we’ve been given,
Just a whole lot of hurt
And a million kinds of pain.

My brain failed to develop properly as a guy
But also failed to grow as a girl.
I’m left feeling like something is missing inside me,
Like I could never be normal in any way.

Whenever I get undressed, I avoid staring at myself;
I don’t identify with the body with which I was left.
When I stare, the reflected face seems strange:
It looks back at me with its own eyes,
The expression of a whole other self.
That doesn’t mean I should have been a girl;
I simply shouldn’t have been born
With a fucking tumor in my head
(Or better yet, not have been born at all).

My sexuality got fucked up as a result,
An obvious point if you’ve read my stuff.

In the end my heart’s not so easy to read,
It beats with such intensity it can’t be missed.
So what do you see? What does this brain look like?
And why did they cut my penis off with scissors
And sew my vagina shut while I was still alive?

(None of this has to do
With that marxist,
Society-ruining garbage
That cretins keep spewing out
From the infiltrated academia
And the compromised media;
You should all shove a cactus
Up your greasy bums.)

I’ve always felt comfortable
Writing female characters.
It would be nice to have a pussy,
Or at least a decently-sized dick.

Is it truly a wonder, then,
That ever since I was a little boy,
When faced with any problem,
The first solution that came to mind
Was to end my suffering and die?
I haven’t improved in that respect;
I’ve just grown jaded and exhausted,
Way past my expiration date,
And I’m waiting for my body
To finally get the memo
And say “fuck you” to me.

My head is spinning like an airplane on its last descent.
Nothing remains but static inside this fucking skull.

It’s been a long time since I last saw a shrink.
Instead, I write for self-expression and catharsis:
An art gallery where no one goes,
A museum without visitors.
I thought that writing would serve as therapy,
But what a joke that turned out to be.

My writing gives me pleasure and relief.
I guess that it’s a sort of masturbation.
If that’s so, then let me enjoy my self-pleasure;
Fuck off to read Shakespeare if that makes you happy.

They say that every man must come to terms with himself.
What about people like me? How are we supposed to do that?
My brain doesn’t know who I am. My body isn’t even mine.
My penis and testicles don’t seem to exist at all.

I’m not interested in reality;
I just want to live in my mind.
So when I sit in here with you today,
You are just a phantom in the dark.

Do people change? I haven’t changed much.
I’m afraid to look people in the face.
The whole world looks gloomy to me.
A deep sadness has settled into my heart.

The only reason why I haven’t killed myself yet
Is because there are things left to accomplish in life.
Just kidding; it’s because I’m a little bitch
With severe executive dysfunction issues.

I feel like I’ve been around forever.
Time just flies by. It feels so short.
Why did I even get out of bed today?
What should I be doing with my life?
To me there’s nothing special about living;
It is just the long, tiring way to die.

Anyway, fuck you all,
Especially you reading this,
If only ’cause
I got fucked first.