Desire in a Syringe

When a form of medical treatment brings us right into the middle of what we’re trying to avoid, what unwanted doors will open?

I had a nightmare the other night. There were no monsters chasing me down darkened halls, no predatory animals waiting to pounce me at any moment, no chores that never seem to end. Those are not nightmares to me, dark as they may be but just dreams. Nightmares for me are those that involve desire — not merely sexual feelings, but rather a desire for anything, money, power, lust etc.

I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to be free of desires. When I have them, I get addicted to the biochemical rushes they provide, whether it is trying to find the perfect pizza, music or nostalgic knicknacks from a long-forgotten childhood. I once told a friend that “eBay is better than porn”, and to me, it is (eBay is based off of reality, after all).

I identify as asexual — specifically a grey-romantic, or demisexual. In really simple words, I have no desire for sex, and very little need for romantic entangelment. I am attracted by words and actions, and not the flesh that holds our skeletons inside. Sex was never one of my driving forces. In high school, my friends talked about their conquests while I was more focused on getting out of the tri-town area and seeing the world. Sure, I have had sex. I even enjoyed it. But it was never part of who I am, despite my perverted sense of humor.

My closest relationships, be they romantic or platonic, tend to be with those I have met online, over shared bonds of music or culture. These online flirtations are enough to keep me satiated, even if they never become sexual — just people I can talk with, flirt with, then shut myself off from, returning to my mind and writing stories, some of which will never see the light of day.

It has been over a decade since I had someone I was able to call a girlfriend, and she called me something else (she ended up having a fiance — the less said about that, the better).

Sometimes it is a lonely life, but for about 360 days a year, I am fine, content to be free and not have anyone or anything. I miss close friendships most of all, but I have no idea how to make those happen as an adult in this day and age — hell, I was never good at it in the first place. Another skill I should have learned in my infancy, ignored for books and flippancy.

Then come those few days a year, usually around the fall when my birthday looms near, like a vast predatory bird, waiting to feast upon my misery and decay.At those times, all I want is someone to hold by a fire, watching embers float off to their infinite endings. I know it will not come to pass, despite the pressure and self-hatred that looms over me until the day of my birth ends and I return to normal.

Things have begun to change in this past year.

In January, I got some blood work done. I was feeling run-down, broken, lost, and unmotivated to even shower on days where I did not have to leave my rented room. The results told me something unexpected: my testosterone levels were far, far too low for a male of my age. At some point my body decided it did not need to produce the chemical hormone that makes me a man.

For those of you who do not know me, this was a shock. I am known for having a beard and a deep bass-baritone voice, and, well, I am covered in hair.

So I began to take testosterone shots. With them came side effects. The off weeks of the hormone cycle left me in states of crippling depression’ and the acne, holy shit the acne.

Worst of all is the anger. Simple things like a computer freezing, a printer jamming or someone going too slow for my lead foot would send me into blind, white hot rages of anger and the desire to do violence. I punched a wall a couple weeks ago and still my knuckle hurts. I didn’t even dent the fucker, but still I hurt.

And now this, the nightmares and desires of the flesh that I do not typically crave.

Then there is the recurring dream I have had since starting the shots.

In the dream, I am in love with someone I am not supposed to have feelings for. Her voice is not musical, she is awkward in her laughter, yet still I am drawn to her. Her eyes are not on the same level but I enjoy staring into them. She is short, hair hair unkempt, and she has the lines around her mouth of a nicotine addict.

Yet she is forbidden, not because of any taboo, but the limits we have put on ourselves.

In the dream, I am attracted to someone, and it is killing me.

I do not know if she knows, nor do I care: I cannot and will not act on it.

I have talked to dream-friends and about my reasonings.

She has a boyfriend.

They respond with “so?”

She is not interested.

They respond with “why not?”

I give them the answers.

They tell me that revolutions are just arbitrary.

They are not to me. And are not to her.

So I sit there, and be happy for her, and melt with every laugh, and I pretend not to be jealous of her boyfriend (I am happy that she has someone), and try not to get jealous of her other admirers, real and imagined (those ones hurt most of all).

Our encounters, as brief as they are, fill me up enough to make me feel young and ignore that the date is coming up where I mourn my existence every year.

In the briefest of moments I am alive and I am not so sure of myself.

As the dream comes to its conclusion, we of course fall in love. Like a bad Hollywood movie things just happen, all too fast. The dream changes each time, minor changes: sometimes we are on a picnic, or in a park. She has a twin on occasion. We grow up with one another or first meet by chance.

It is always different and yet, always the same.

Then the dream ends as the sun rises above and reality sets in.

I enjoy being free of basic reproductive needs. I do not want children of my own. Yet when I am with her in my dreams, I want to fall into an ocean of silken sheets and hot showers; to lose myself in her crooked teeth-filled smile and flaws.

I must close my eyes and mind for a bit and purge unneeded emotions and desires, and yet because of her I am writing again, I am trying to explore finding my humanity again, and to stop being the proverbial wallflower.

I began to ask whether it was worth it, the anger, the desire…the zits. I started the medicine in a hope that it would get me motivated, to lose weight, to find a new career, to feel alive again. All I found was a nightmare that had taken over me.

That was two weeks ago, I quit the hormones, I have seen a few changes, for one the damnable pox of skin blemishes has quieted down some, but so has the growth of hair upon my face.

But some parts remain, almost as if by taking the testosterone unleashed some sort of Jungian shadow from my being. I am feeling less connected to the universe and my beloved silence and can feel my flesh again, and I sit here pondering if I will ever be the same again, if I will ever be me.

Or is this new being emerging from a cocoon a new me, one who is a stranger to myself and others, like a British Science Fiction Doctor regenerating?

And now I must face another nightmare: that it may be time for me to evolve, change because the old me is perishing.

The thing about nightmares, is that they are no different from our dreams. Both are just random replays of memories and thoughts, merged together and split apart. Different pieces of these different puzzles can be assembled and reassembled to create something new and abstract.

The question for me has always been whether I belong, whether there is someone out there who can accept me and the limitations put upon my by nature, nurture and choice.

Or can I return to my cocoon of beautiful silence and ignore the world around me until I peacefully die free of the choices of others?

For now I can only dream.