MARBLE MADNESS

When I was 12 I went to a friends house for new years eve and we ate cheeseballs and drank mountain dew and played marble madness all night.

It was amazing.

We left boy scouts together, climbed trees together, made new friends together, learned what friends were together.

Four years later I got a job and her sister was my supervisor.
I had such a crush on her sister.
Her mother would come in too and I learned how to take care of the mothers in life from my friend.

Many years later I am supposedly a man now but my marriage is falling apart and I dont know what to do.
For one glorious summer she takes me under her wing.
She listens to my pain.
Calls me out when I'm wrong.
Hugs me when I'm crying.
Laughs and makes me laugh even when it's all too much.
Like marbles running an incomprehensible maze the controller held by god knows who.
We kept ricocheting together up and down Mt. Monadnock every weekend. Months later after i saw the high heels in the trunk she came out to me as trans. She said I was one of the first people she told.
She said she was scared but knew she could tell me

I felt like I had been crowned

Few moments have ever made me feel so honoured.
Five years later I lost my mind and my partner pulled me off a train bridge both of us sobbing. I was hospitalised and things got a little better.
I thought back to my friends words when I told her of my previous suicidal episode ten years before.

She said if I left

She might too

that she was on the edge all the time and i knew exactly what she meant. So drying out in a hospital I decided to stick around.
I don't want anyone following me through the door when i check out.

But thats what marbles do.
Ricochet.
Find the door.
Escape the madness.

She escaped the maze

I want to follow her

I wont
but
Her name is ANDI KEELEY
SAY HER NAME
HER NAME IS ANDI KEELEY
SAY HER NAME
HER NAME IS ANDI KEELEY
SAY HER NAME

we will not rest until our society stops murdering trans women