VOICE: The body you inhabit is undeniably a prison. The muscles and fat you previously spent decades carefully shaping have revolted against you, warping into hard, sharp masses of flesh. Your jaw sprouts white hairs, dots of light that are impossible to ignore with your skin tone, and your chest bears the same garden. The voice you speak with threatens to drop once again.

VOICE:  It should come as no surprise that you hate this body. Even when it was in a manageable shape, you felt disconnected from it. Like it was just something ‘you’ were in, as opposed to being a real part of ‘you’. You craved the chance to exit your pitiful form, but actually acquiring the ability to do that has resulted in nothing but misery. Wonderful job, Mammon. We are all very proud of you.

YOU: “What is this? Is this my subconscious running through everything I hate about myself? Are we going to have a little episode on my relationship with my mother next?” 

SELF-CRITIQUE: The veins of your hands bulge as you grip the sink’s porcelain edge. This episode of rage against yourself has resulted in you looking even more masculine. You regress into that of a virulent male, and everyone can see it. Feel lucky that this bathroom hides you from the world, and that nobody can see how pathetic you are in this moment.

YOU: “Whatever. I need to shave. How much time do I have before Aapo returns?”

SELF-CRITIQUE: Unknown. It could be anywhere between five hours and five days.

YOU: “Great. Thank you, great and nightly subconscious. Very helpful.” (Roll your eyes and start shaving.)

SELF-CRITIQUE: Before anything else can be done, you must gather the proper instruments for this task. Within this bathroom, you keep a bag hidden behind the sink’s pipes. It’s not the most stable area, but the cramped nature of the spot ensures that Aapo will never find it. You keep one hand on the sinks brim while you reach down to grab it, placing it on the counter after.

YOU: “What’s inside?”

SELF-CRITIQUE: You really don’t need me to tell you this. You see the contents every day, both when you wake up and before you sleep. Even if your other eye was removed, you would be able to locate and identify everything in this bag.

YOU: “I’m just trying to keep up a dialogue here to entertain myself. Play along.”

SELF-CRITIQUE: Sure, sure. Within the bag, there is a single-bladed razor, honey scented shaving soap, a bottle of aftershave without any distinct fragrance, a small bowl and brush set, and two towels. All the essentials.

SELF-CRITIQUE: When you broke your leg, you convinced Aapo that it would be a good idea to keep a metal stool in the bathroom, something you could use so that you would not place further strain on the limb while bathing. It was used a grand total of zero times for this purpose. You are a woman of baths, not showers. It was simply a convenient lie to get the piece into the bathroom without question, and now it sees use. You bring it out from its corner. A cold sensation meets your rear the moment you sit down. The unfortunate part of having to shave both your face and chest is that you have to be at least half-naked, and at that point, you might as well commit.

YOU: “Why are you making this sound worse than it is? I’m wearing underwear.”

SELF-CRITIQUE: A thong is not underwear. We both know this.

SELF-CRITIQUE: Nothing stands in the way between you and the razor now. Everything is picked out of the bag, laid upon the first towel. The door is locked. Blinds are shut. The lanterns are fueled. A singular candle (Spiced Cinnamon & Heartwarming Vanilla, according to the label) sits nearby.

YOU: (Get on with it and actually start shaving.)

SELF-CRITIQUE: Pipes creak with the twist of a knob, a noise not too dissimilar to something that you might make while sleeping, and your ears pin back against your head. Water splashes against the bristles of the brush. It does not take long for a lather to be stirred up, and you paint your face once again. This is only the third time you’ve had to perform this action this week, but you are already sick of it. You are always sick of it. When your likeness gets to a state that would cause small children to compare you to Saintle Klaws, you turn the faucet off.

SELF-CRITIQUE: You wish that your razor had some cool story behind it. You wish that it was a heirloom from your father, something passed down to each generation, but it’s not. It’s just an instrument of necessity, something to stave off a visible source of your self-loathing for a little bit. Cold metal meets your right cheek, just below the point sideburns would develop. One of the first things that entered your mind after losing your eye was ‘God, I hope shaving doesn’t get harder’, and your muscle memory has aided in making that wish come true. It’s a process as simple as breathing. Down the cheek, across part of the jaw, across the upper lip, up from the chin’s bump, then across it, finally finishing with the neck. Keep going with the grain, use as few strokes as possible. Rinse it all down the drain. Before any other cleanup, apply the aftershave. You need your skin taut, hydrated, and getting it on as fast as possible is essential.

YOU: “How’s the chest looking?”

SELF-CRITIQUE: It could be worse. Despite everything you’ve heard about wolfmen, you’ve not gained an excessively hairy chest. It’s more than you had before, sure, but it’s always manageable. If you’re delusional enough, you can even pretend that the average woman would have this much.

YOU: “I’m not delusional. I know they don’t. That’s the entire reason why I do this.”

SELF-CRITIQUE: Thinking like that forms a lump in your throat. A little wad of uncomfortable emotions, things you’d rather ignore even if you can’t. Swallowing in front of the mirror just increases your already heightened awareness, and it’s hard not to see what looks back at you. Your jaw is angular. The ridge of your brow is pronounced. A sharp nose sits between two deep-sunken eyes. You are luckier than most, but you still possess a visible laryngeal prominence. You’ve tried to escape your body. You’ve tried to become a dog so that you don’t see the man in the mirror, but it hasn’t worked. It only made it worse.

YOU: “What does it matter, what I see? Those that know me say that I am a woman. Aapo likes my looks. I shouldn’t have any issues.”

SELF-CRITIQUE: You shouldn’t, but you do. You preach to everyone about ‘trust’ and ‘believing in what people say’, but you can never bring yourself to follow that same philosophy. They’re all just sparing your feelings. Nobody wants to deal with the insane freak that thinks of herself as a woman. It’s better to just ignore and indulge her.

YOU: “No.”

SELF-CRITIQUE: No?

SURVIVAL: No. You cannot live while thinking like that. You cannot exist in a state of misery forever. You have to believe in the words of others. You have to respect yourself, and love yourself. Nothing else matters. There is absolutely no other way to live. And, you must live.

SELF-CRITIQUE: Do you deserve to live, given all that you’ve done? Does something as wretched as you deserve to stick around?

SURVIVAL: Yes. You do. You are the only Mammon that will ever grace this planet. There are people here that love you, and you love them. In order to truly love the world, you must love yourself.

YOU: (Clean up and get out of the bathroom. You’ve got better things to do.)