THE MONSTERS AMONGST US

My best friend, Ash, once said to me “what’s the point in creating art if you’re not gonna share it?”

And I think about this a lot. Over the years I've written so many things just for them to be lost and forgotten in the abyss of my folders. Eventually to be wiped completely from existence the day my mac finally dies, and with it all my work.

If I share my work though, maybe then it can outlive the lifespan that my mac permits it to have.

So on Friday, I performed my poetry in public for the first time !!

Admittedly, the audience aren't gonna remember word for word what I said, but even if they remember just a quote or a word or a phrase or even just a feeling they felt in response to a line they forgot the second I spoke it, that's enough.

I had a very chaotic and cursed shift in which we all just kept dropping the lasagne into the water, contaminating it and thereby making it unsellable. After repeated failed efforts, we amounted mountains of lasagna that we had no choice but to eat ourselves since it was not fit for customer consumption. A truly tragic morning indeed.

After my four hour shift was over I had a bit of a headache so I sat (napped) with lea whilst she did some work and eventually went home for a 20 minute nap before taking some electrolytes, a paracetamol and a shower to try and zap (yeet) that headache away

When I returned to my room I found a message from Olivia asking if I wanted to join her in the kitchen, so I donned my fishnet top and skirt and did my makeup next to her in the kitchen

On the train I saw one of the staff members from work and after a wholesome lil chat he left me with a kind and uplifting words to 'knock em dead fey !'

After a bus, train and tram ride I arrived in Fitzroy, one of Melbourne's many queer districts and home to Hares and Hyenas, an LGBTQ bookstore which doubles as a performance venue !! gay bookstore by day cabaret hub by night what more could I ask of a place tbh !!

Waiting outside was a fellow non binary who I saw at the last event there and they told me they liked my dress and that it was very cute !! and I got a lil flustered because they're a blue haired nb which is one of my three types (the others being bleached blonde boys and anyone who possesses a dark mysticism)

I said I don't think its a dress but thank you and they told me it looks v cold though, to which I replied 'oh I'm british honey Im used to it' and then internally chastised myself for using my britishness as a substitute for a personality which is one thing I vow never to do here (although aussie's just can't seem to get enough of us)

Another of my friends arrived and they told my they liked my eyes and I was like, 'I do have good eyes' (faking confidence really does work even if the boost is only momentary) and they were like, 'I meant your eye makeup but that too'

When the doors opened it was time to sign up for the open mic performance and I got very stuck because we had to write our stage name and three things about us, so I settled for:

• Fey
• Aspiring witch
• Very Fucking British 
• Probably thinking about food

I didn't actually write the 'very fucking british' but id be lying if i said the thought hadn't crossed my mind

I asked the blue haired person if I may join them on the seat on which they were seated (intentionally awkward phrasing to reflect my own awkwardness) and strewn in front of us were so many pillows that bore an uncanny similarity to pillows of my past. I picked up the rainbow defecation emoji pillow and, with a nostalgic squeeze spoke about how i used to have one of these :((

they asked what happened to it and I said I mean Ive still got it its just a little out of reach right now, being at home ,,,, just 10,000 miles out of reach ,,, 

ok let me just stop myself there that is STRIKE THREE I AM CANCELLING MYSELF for once again thinking that being a british exchange student is a substitute for a personality (but in my defence the aussies love it) 

My dear friend teddy opened the show with a maniacal laughter in which he welcomed us to 'SpooOooooken Word' followed by an spooky fun song about monsters written by their partner's partner and he was clad in this stunning transmasc foresty costume and damn I had no idea he could sing so good !!

There were so many incredible feature performers and I was just like ,,, heck ,,, can they not all be so talented pls its not fair !!! 

My friend Nicholas sang the most entrancing song about the scariest monster of all: the one inside us. He compared this particular type of monster to that of the dementors in Harry Potter or the spectres in His Dark Materials trilogy because these are entities which have an attachment to yourself and fighting them means also fighting a part of yourself.

And through his song it was just such a spellbinding encapsulation of monster theory and psychology and oh it was just so beautiful

My other friends Caleb and Artie did some hilarious comedic pieces that truly made me laugh more than I have done in a long time

There is nothing better than seeing your friends showcase their talent and I was just so proud to see them all being so queer and monstrous and funny !! 

After so many beautiful songs, poems, spoken word pieces and comedy sketches it was time for the costume prizes !! I was one of the nominees to my confusion and we were all given monstrous gifts because of it, mine being a photo of the creepiest gothic child who was most definitely a victim of infanticide shortly after being sketched

Next up was the open mic and as the sign ups were being pulled out of a hat I for real felt like katniss at the hunger games reaping 

After a few acts there was another interval and I caught up w my friend caleb at the bar who was cohosting. We had a very scandalous moment in which they told me they heard RUMOurs about me kissing a certain model from the photoshoot and I was just like ,,,, its true ,,, I confess and that I underestimated how fast news travels !!

Queer time truly operates at a much higher velocity than cishet time. Maybe because they claim the rights to time and everything that bows to it and we are forced to run before they catch us with their governance but idk just a theory x x 

Anyway I told them that I was getting super nervous each time a performer was summoned and coincidentally I was the first to be selected after the interval 

Whether this was just a small act of kindness from a friend that an anxiety tran will never forget, or just serendipity and the odds being in my favour I will never know (unless I ask them) but I feel like I already know the answer

When I was summoned I walked up to the microphone and said 'okay so I am not tall enough for this, anyway hello this is an extract from a wider collection of monster poetry I plan to write called 'The Runaway Witch Boy'. My trigger warnings are blood and ..... sadness??'

Then I stared at my phone screen and began my performance as a debutante poetess 

At the end of the first stanza I could not even make sense of my own words so literally just said 'I don't even know what the fuck I just wrote' and carried on and that elicited from the audience a combination of laughter and finger clicking 

An interesting quirk that I assume is specific to Australian culture (bc I haven't seen it elsewhere) is that, instead of cheering, they click their fingers in support ?? and I really like it because its a way of saying um,,,, heck YES in a very subtly sassy way that doesn't interrupt the speaker too much but in fact propels them on with support

just realising the extreme britishness of hip hip hooray I bet the words would baffle the very brains of these people

I read my witchy poem and it felt incredibly cathartic and empowering to share in a queer space comprised of many beautiful queer monsters 

Especially the gothic magic realism poem i read because it was an amalgamation of real life emotions and experiences that I interfused into a world of magic and mythology

It felt so good after I whispered my final lines into the mic and continued to avoid looking any member of the audience in the eye as they applauded and cheered but I just focused on shoving the microphone back into its holder and retreating back to the safety of my seat.

But before I could, I was stopped by teddy saying 'not so fast fey !! you still have to pick a prize' and he suggested I take one of his homemade succulents and I just, high on post-performance adrenaline, screamed NO WAY I CANT AFFORD SUCCULENTS THIS IS AMAZING THANK YO|U TED|DY<3333

I crowned in my hands the succulent implanted in a skull mug and showcased it to the audience. I can't decide if it was more Byronic or Yorick but eventually I returned to my seat and watched three final amazing performances

The blue haired enby performed a deeply evocative existential horror piece, there was a trans woman who spoke a wonderful polemic against the cishet scum where she theorised that when a trans woman is bitten by a werewolf she comes back as a she wolf. A hypothesis I will support until my dying day. She also brought to our attention that werewolves aren't so terrifying because if there's werewolves there must be werepups and werekittens !! A hypothesis which also has my unapologetic backing !!

The final open mic performer was perhaps the spookiest of all bc it required ,,, audience ,,, pARTICIPATION

but it was such a fun concept where we got to select the characters and their pronouns (blue haired nb and I were both very quick to claim they/them for the first character) and it was a slasher narrative that satirised the cishet optic 

Finally, Teddy closed the show with a wonderful rewriting of Monster Mash where he queered it up and made us sing 'dandy dance' instead and it was such an uplifting note on which to finish a wonderful night

Caleb kindly asked if I would like a lift home and I said yes please so whilst the performers were all at the back preparing to leave I took the chance to drag my nails softly across the shelves of books 

I saw a very special book, Exquisite Corpse, and cradled it like I was remembering the illicit dalliance we once had. i shared my love of it with the only person there, the bartender, and told them it was about necrophile cannibals !!! They said they weren't gonna lie but I was not selling it to them !!! I said yes !!! I can see why !!! but I stand by my words that it is Very Good !!!!!

Before going home, we took a detour to lord of the fries (an 100% vegan fast food chain that is pretty much heaven for all my late night carb cravings) and outside there was a beautiful collie !! i asked to meet her and she gave me her paw and I gave her many paw rubs and it was ,,,, PAWSOME

Inside lord of the fries me and my friend artie did the thing vegan autisms do best when faced with a whole menu of possibilities and let the indecisiveness strike !!! we shared all the chips but before that I heard the staff call out 'Summer' and hand over the order to a stunning brunette lady ,,, and was just like 'hello is your name summer ??' and she said 'yes' and I was just like 'aaaahhhh I love that name so much my dog is called summer and I named her and I miss her so much and aaaaaaa you have such a beautiful name thank you' and she seemed very happy about this encounter. 

I returned to artie and asked if they saw what just happened and said yes it was v adorable !! Artie and I sat next to each other and ate all the chips and it was just the perfect salty-carby ending to a wonderful night 

There was a sad moment though where a person asked us all for money but we are literally in the age of contactless where physical money is becoming increasingly nonexistent so i felt very bad because I assume he was without a home but ugh we wouldn't be in this situation if capitalism hadn't come and divided us like this

I had a lovely drive home where Irene and I bonded over romanticism, music and the haunting of hill house and they invited me over to their district for coffee sometime which Im excited for !! 

Caleb and Nicholas dropped me off at their accom and when I returned home serena called me and we had a lovely chat until about 1:30-2am when she let me go because I was literally drifting into the slep 

Also she told me to pls come and visit her in bordeaux over christmas for as long as I want so I am super hyped to maybe spend some of january there !!

that night I dreamed of Summer swimming in the flooded garden and awoke clutching my blanket with homesickness

But in just two months it will be her i get to clutch instead of just my bedsheets

I wonder how different she'll feel after all this time