Today we’ve got the fourth short story from my upcoming LGBT+ short story/advice collection, Everything Under The Rainbow! You can find out more about it on my Upcoming Releases page – just click here! It Itches In The Dark covers the problem of gender dysphoria, specifically for trans males around their chests. As a trans man who struggles with chest-related gender dysphoria myself, it was a bit of a tough write, but definitely worth it. Read on to find out how Cyrus deals with his gender dysphoria keeping him awake in It Itches In The Dark!
It Itches In The Dark
12 AM. The alarm clock leers at me in glaring red. Harsh, rigid numbers look down at me without any pity. You want to sleep? They ask. You’re tired? Too bad. They don’t care about my 9 AM college classes or the homework I need to do at some point before tomorrow. Tomorrow, or today?
I hate being up this late. It’s too confusing.
Darkness hangs over everything in my tiny box room, the shadows haunting every nook and cranny. Monsters, I used to call them, when I was small and… well, when I was small and different. That thought brings everything full circle.
There are ants underneath my skin, gnawing at my chest. The chest covered in two lumps which I don’t want or need.
Get rid of them. Some voice inside me thinks it’s being original, as if I haven’t had this itch for years. It takes every bit of willpower inside me to keep my fingernails secure in two balled fists. They want nothing more than to be let loose on that saggy flesh. They want to cut. Tear. Scratch.
These things don’t belong on me. They’re not mine. I don’t know where they came from. Puberty hit and dysphoria decided to follow it, barely giving me a chance to keep up. One minute I started bleeding every month, the next I had breasts. Boys don’t bleed every month. Boys don’t have breasts.
Well, I guess they do. I do, at least.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in deeply.
My name is Cyrus. My name is Cyrus. My name is Cyrus.
It’s a chant my therapist taught me, the only useful thing she’s ever done. The name kicks whatever part of me is sad about having female features and reminds me that I’m a boy on the inside. Not really the inside, I guess, but the inside-inside. The place that counts.
My next step is a tip from the internet, which has been a blessing compared to Jill. Jill sits on a comfy chair and scribbles down notes in her terrible handwriting, nodding and humming and ‘oh that’s so sad’-ing for an hour every month. The internet, on the other hand, has memes. Oh, and tips for dealing with gender dysphoria, but mainly memes.
Relaxing one fist into an open palm, I bring it up to the centre of my collarbone. Then, down. The fingers drift, exploring the flat space between the two bags of fat I hate. As long as the hand doesn’t go left or right, I can almost kid myself into thinking that the waiting list for top surgery has suddenly disappeared and I’ve already been under the knife. Or scalpel. I don’t really understand that phrase.
The peace doesn’t last. I have to clench the fist again to stop my fingernails getting anywhere near my breasts. Down it goes, until both my hands are firmly at my sides and I’m staring up at a ceiling which may or may not be covered in childhood shadow monsters. It isn’t, I don’t think, but you never know.
Dysphoria feels like a monster inside of my chest, scratching to get out. Or is that my ‘boy-self’, if there is such a thing? Thinking about an actual person being trapped inside of my actual body is a bit frightening. I can see it now, in some sort of horror TV show. It’ll escape through the mouth, but not before it reaches out of those jaws with long, spider-like hands, the fingers twisting and scratching. Ugh. I need to sleep before I turn into that monster.
Or am I already the monster? I’ve forgotten already.
12.04 AM. I can’t believe it’s only been four minutes. I’m not complaining–realising that five hours have slipped through your fingers after bingeing a good TV show is terrifying. But still, only four minutes?
Wait, never mind.
12.05 AM.
It’s been five minutes. I’m not going back to sleep any time soon, but I also can’t stand just lying here and doing nothing. The suffocating darkness really isn’t helping either. I could bother someone and text them, or call them, but everyone should be asleep, considering everyone has college tomorrow. I also have college tomorrow.
But there’s no point waking them up too, anyway.
Rolling out of bed, I end up in a tangled heap of arms, legs and duvet on the thankfully-carpeted floor. Cheap carpet, but it’s better than nothing.
I yawn. I kick away the duvet. I roll around a bit more, just for good measure, then get up and feel dizzy for no reason. Except maybe the rolling around, but I’m too tired to make rational connections between events that just happened. No, I’ve got a new purpose in life.
Go to sleep.
Go to the bathroom.
It’s not a grand purpose, but it’ll do. The door handle is cold on my fingers, but I’m past caring. My door opens with a whine, begging for some grease or oil or whatever you put on noisy hinges. It’ll have to wait. A dark corridor is greeting me, pulling me into a cold draft and reminding me that I’m completely naked.
I hope Mum doesn’t suddenly wake up and need to visit the toilet.
Reaching out with one hand, I find the wall and use it to guide my tired eyes towards the bathroom. I firmly believe that I’m completely useless after 9 PM. I turn into some sort of zombie, falling into everything with water leaking out of my eyes for absolutely no reason. Wires become traps. Pets become enemies. Parents become NPCs I can’t be bothered talking to.
It’s fine. Mum and Paul know I love them–I say it enough before 9 PM to make up for my midnight brain-death.
Attempting not to create any loud noises, I make my way into the dark bathroom. It’s almost as big as my room, which is probably pretty good for the bathroom but not great for me. Close the door, find the lights. Lights on. I’m blinded for a few seconds.
A few seconds turn into a minute. Yeah, I’m really bad at functioning after-dark. Really, really bad. Eventually, some sort of reflection starts staring at me, and it takes me half a minute to figure out that it’s me. Once I figure it out, I frown. It’s not me.
I don’t mean that it’s some sort of ghostly figure from a horror movie in the mirror, just that my physical appearance drastically mismatches with how I ‘see’ myself. There’s a stronger jawline in my head, broader shoulders and a prominent Adam’s apple. Stubble. An average-sized penis.
A flat chest.
Instead of all that, I get… this. Feminine. A stomach that sticks out a bit. Two fatty bits of rubbish where a flat chest should be. A remarkable absence of any male genitalia. Noodle arms and barely-existent shoulders. Purple bags under eyes with long eyelashes and a small nose. I don’t know why I’m bothered about the nose–I don’t think I am, to be honest. Everything just muddles together and slaps my brain with word mush.
Bad. Bad body. Body not male. Get rid. Scratch. Scratch it now. Do it. Why did you have to be born this way?
Sure, I can get rid of it all. I can change it. After years and years of waiting lists and referrals and who-knows-what-else–bureaucratic nonsense which means I haven’t even got hormones yet because I was referred too late for the children’s gender service but too early for the adult one.
Years. It makes my eyes water properly when I think about it for too long. I’ve been screaming for help, but everyone just shoves you away and makes you someone else’s problem.
How many more times do I have to say ‘I’m a boy’ for someone to actually do something?
This is where staying up late gets me. Stood in a bathroom, freezing and crying silently. They’re the weird tears, the ones that run down your face and make your eyes look ugly, even though the tears themselves look quite neat and orderly. They taste salty. Then they mix with nose-mucus and taste like snot.
Itch. Itch. Itch. I’ve never wanted to do anything more than I want to itch right now. I know I can’t. It’ll just make the skin an angry red colour and leave my fingernails with disgusting little bits of skin stuck in them. It won’t solve anything. I physically won’t be able to bring myself to scratch my breasts off–even the idea sounds ridiculous.
But it doesn’t stop the itching. It doesn’t stop the ants racing around beneath the lumps I detest. Nothing can stop it. Nothing I can do, anyway. I can hide them under blankets and a binder and baggy t-shirts and hoodies, but that doesn’t stop me feeling. I can’t fool my brain into thinking they’ve gone away.
Something inside of me tells me to leave the bathroom, so I do. No real reason, I just feel like it. Or some bit of me feels like it. Whatever it is, I’m back in the cold corridor, feeling my way to my room. Goosebumps dance around on my arms and legs, popping up and down like the rats by the river going in and out of their little holes. That distracts the itching, for a few seconds. The image of the rats plays in my head: a dark evening, skinny tails, bead-eyes, up and down.
A distraction. I need a proper distraction.
New goal.
Go to sleep.
Go to the bathroom.
Distract yourself.
What’s distracting? My phone, but I’ll never get to sleep staring at that electronic screen. If I stare long enough, I can sometimes see the individual pixels. I don’t know if that’s cool or worrying. Another option might be turning a light on and reading, or doing that homework I really need to do. My brain and eyes protest at the mere thought.
Something which doesn’t stress my eyes, or me, out. Right. Back at my bedroom door, I pull it open and nearly slip on the duvet which is still on the floor. I throw it back on the bed. For a moment, I consider following it, but then I spot a tiny bit of light creeping through the curtains. There are no street-lights directly outside the window. So…
Swaying over on unsteady feet, I hold onto the curtain for a moment before drawing it back. A quiet cul-de-sac stares up at me. Parked cars sit still, gathering a little frost. But my eyes look up, past everything sleeping on the ground.
The moon smiles at me. It glows, semi-covered by misty cloud.
There’s my distraction. Nothing else matters when you look at the moon, right? It’s like some sort of magical entity, existing in the sky for no real reason other than to comfort the lonely people who look up at it. Some god or goddess, maybe. Or a wheel of cheese suspended in the sky. I don’t care what it is–I just want to get lost in it.
It could be a tissue paper circle from a primary school kid’s art project, cut around a plastic cup with safety scissors, and I would still love it.
There’s nothing else that stares at you with such unwavering–
Itch.
No. As I was saying, there’s–
Scratch.
The moon sighs.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch. Itch.
Grabbing the curtain, I fling it back across the rail, hiding the outside world. A growl nearly leaves my throat. I just want one night. One night! One night when I can sleep, or look at the moon, or do whatever I want to do. Why can’t I have one night?
Itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch—
I give up. Completely defeated, I flop onto my bed with balled fists, the alarm clock sneering at me. 12.11 AM. Time really chooses when to slow down. Detentions and waiting rooms and bad dysphoria nights.
I am Cyrus. I am Cyrus. I am Cyrus.
The words don’t leave my lips, but a tear dribbles down and wets them.
Author’s Note – This is a draft of a to-be-published work. The content may be altered or changed prior to publishing. This is not indicative of the exact content of the published work.
OSKAR LEONARD
Oskar Leonard 