Joyce, Joyce

I think one of the most carefree things is when you just observe people on a balcony, there’s a reason why people end up watching soaps with posher people or with people like the rest of us who merely hit rock bottom and manage to hold their safe zone there because solely the world doesn’t manage to accept everyone and the world seems just as fucked up as some religion ideology with no possible explanation on why exactly it’s happening.

You don’t even know who’s gay and who’s not and who should you flick to some other gender just because you’re attracted to men at the moment and it’s more of a Melinda and Melinda moment when you don’t know who is telling your story as you head up the stairs to the said balcony, just up, to simply go to that full table and end up kissing each girl on the cheek as a greeting, their eyes just as lost as when you were pondering from downstairs on the bench.

I get offered a cigarette as my name is merely introduced by the one girl who seems to recognize me, I should be here since I am here, so no questions get asked as I get a cigarette before another male shows up with a jug of juice.

The thing about love is that you don’t know when it comes and that you can fall in love any minute even if you don’t know the person, it’s not even that it’s scary or wrong or that it doesn’t make sense, it’s just that you know what’s that feeling under your nails and crawling under your skin

I look away from the man who joins us with the jug,

Maybe he is a fragment of my imagination, because today I’m attracted to men and good things just don’t happen to me

Or maybe he resembles those who I wish I had because it’s more of a revealing who your most scared wish belongs to, who puts your soul in turmoil because you just want them

So

So fucking badly

Depression lulls me but it’s like a shake, where I can’t tear my eyes off him and the girls with the talks seem to be even a bit too distracting, his bright chestnut hair a contrast with the ombre hair the girls have. I try to look away onto the street so that I don’t see him again, making myself more comfortable in the wooden bench besides the girl who speaks a bit too loudly that I glance back at the bloke. 

I think the point of religion is that you can close your eyes at the right moment to Jesus standing behind you, when you think he’s judging you for gay sex. Is surely something I could say as I keep looking at him, as religion creeps on and people discussing the stores closing and that we would be left without food if we don’t hurry. 

“I fall in love too harshly, my mind infatuated and all I’ve ever want to do is dance with said partner, which unravels my mind. Loneliness makes me build words with agony.” The blonde girl says with the hair and I’m sure we’ve all reached the ages where nine to five doesn’t matter and time becomes a concept we hold out of anxiety. I keep looking at the shorter man. I’ve been far too tall for my assigned gender and today all my clothes feel tight.

I wonder how much of the hope we’re given is false? His eyes are too bright. 

Love means nothing of the rest until it’s poured in the mouth by the wanted.

He’s just like on the cards and it excites me and the women seem bleak when the lights are off, gender and sexuality far too much of a switch as he looks at me, confused and once the juice is done, they seem to stand up. And when is it that we can drink from each other’s hands and eat from each other’s mouths? 

“Maybe you should leave him, then. It’s not like anyone changes.” The man says with the hazel eyes and the whole scene is like an introduction, I feel as if I am the shapeshifting viewer myself, wondering if I will enjoy this comedy or tragedy. 

“That’s a point, Joyce.” And she motions with the empty juice glass to the man. I widen my eyes. 

“I’m Joyce, as well.” Joyce now looks at me in confusion, having the same name sometimes causes a ruckus but when you’re in a country where the name originates it all makes sense and we both just shrug it off, just as if we were two dads, causing confusion to the children and drama to the scene. 

I’m the fifth, I should be the one who is left without a partner as the space was squished on the bench with Joyce’s hazel eyes locked on mine as if he were a Jack of clubs. I’m the one who should get kicked out and it’s not like Joyce is my döppelganger, he just looks back at me and all the people around us could do a wish, but I’m the only one here who knows it so I keep it quiet and I just wonder if juice is replaced with alcohol, but instead all stand up and all are offered for a walk down to Södermalm and then back to bed and all to be scattered like cards again and maybe even fortune told on a full moon and my anxiety rises as he puts on his leather jacket, his hair neatly combed to the side and mine a mess, a party crasher to those who politely can never refuse. 

The nostalgia of being on the same streets dawn on me and Joyce sticks to the blonde, as she complains and complains of the same man, that love is no longer something she embraces and we’ve all lost our ages, half of people, actually more, I’m the only with a job with Joyce as the girl are either stuck deeply in second degrees or others just thinking to move elsewhere with war upon the lips, the media covers everything up the point that when you see blood on your own hands you don’t wash it off even, you don’t know what it is, the explosions and the love, all is fabricated and so is the Stefan the blonde girl speaks of?

Agnes, Agnes was her name as she whispers to Joyce who just nods. How we all land jobs and apartments, how we share rooms becomes impossible and CV handing up to Rosersberg is what we all do, all becomes blurred and our generation like blood erased and tears never seen and dismissed as the rain which never fell. 

And I wouldn’t be surprised is Florence Rey became a thing, only I think there would be no one to kiss, because we all depart and don’t speak and the anarchist youth would never deliver roses to prison. 

Agnes eyes both of us.

“The only fucking apartment is in Moseback. They fucking want it for 10000 kroner. It’s insane, it’s that or prostitutes and coke addicts in the surroundings.” She sighs, nudging Joyce who is busy observing the windows of H&M and American Apparel, it never changes and I just glance back at them as the other two girls with dip dye hair hold arms and I presume their sexuality before they even open their mouths. I don’t even know where we all came from and I know both dip dye share an apartment in Märsta, which is rather huge. And I need to be moving out of the one I have at the moment whose photos were too big for what there actually was.

I don’t ask Joyce where he lives, as he just sighs, but he says he just inherited something in Alsvjö which seems a bit too nice, I note and he just shrugs, he just inherited the money and bought it, a region which seemed too neutral and with a Coop far too small. I open my mouth to ask if he’s willing to share and he just shrugs, since I’ll be paying the bills and he doesn’t get to wait for sales. 

-

I started writing this story ages ago back in my phone drafts, there's this area above Södermalm where there's a church and a bunch of people have picnics there (and me and Callie did once after we bought the ELO 7" actually) and I saw like on top of the houses this veranda-esque thing (I have a photo somewhere on my phone) and I kept imagining what if someone headed up and joined it like in Melinda & Melinda, which is an amazing movie by Woody Allen. The plot always amused me and I just had the idea of taking a character to head in and intrude that party and soon enough I started typing on my phone like mad and it's been a while since I've written fiction.

Also sometimes I get sad at myself that I don't have enough trans characters in my stories and that's why I've made the main character genderfluid and I just decided that well, yeah. Also Joyce is one of my favourite names and just like I had "chosen" if you must Jamie for myself, Joyce was one of mine and Callie's choice to call our children a gender neutral name and in general I've used the name before oddly enough in an old story of mine where both characters are called Joyce and it was written from two points and I just decided to use it, because it's funny when two people hold the same name and with me being rusty with fiction and the Joyce story was never published, I stole it off there and the title is also from Melinda & Melinda kind of. Anyway, everyone shamelessly takes things.

I enjoy writing about Stockholm and I guess now being in the countryside it makes it even stronger to miss it, so I've been quite sad to describe places I love dearly like where I had seen the girls on said veranda or roof. And it's really weird because Stockholm was chosen because well, there was nothing else and it was funny because it became my home but in general I really enjoy Sweden and I really like the countryside and I actually get a kick from biking 24 km a day in total and it's been helping my depression and I've been binge writing and I should really force myself to post more and more, because I'm losing track of what I have posted and what I actually haven't.

I'm sorry and yeah, my depression takes it toll and I'll be dropping medicine tomorrow so we'll see how the fuck will that work and yeah, depression is always a crouched subject and please tell me if you enjoy the stories as it means a lot to me and will make more than my day.

I guess the story has a Kerouac feel, I think, you still build the characters around those who you love and the name thing was a joke as well, but I wanted a Joyce and a Joyce. 

Agnes' speech was originally Joyce (MC)'s thoughts but then it was edited, I only edit until it's posted and barely, like a line or so and yeah. 

I like mentioning regions and with the whole housing situation is so bad, that while I was at the barber's a few days ago the barber even complained and we're like what a few counties away? So you end up living everywhere and sharing and everything, it's really impossible and the landlords go from amazing to the worse scum and you can never leave a bad review and then you sit being all, shit, I think they did that and that and it's all just guesses and I've been checking like anyone how do the classmates do an it made me sad to see that people who I knew still try their luck in the UK and get refused at fucking Tesco.

Of all people I've ever known I know three and all have links and everyone else has tragic stories which I'd rather not speak and in general it scares me how our generation is left with all the wars emerging and Stockholm's housing seems to be a reflection and I guess because I've seen too much I just have my eyes wider open and I don't like speaking of it much even if it seeps onto my stories. So we're an odd generation and I don't feel twenty and my gray hair is now dyed. It's all very odd. I never expected that when I'd grow up I would have everyone who I knew out of education or jobless or perspective of jobless and love becomes nearly nonexistent. I'm poly, so I'm in this odd half-single state and I've dmitted to myself that I'm taken with the thought and cards of the other person, so yeah. But everyone else, I just see this shattering everywhere and it confuses me and that's why I write.

I am depressed and my depression pulls me down and I'm far from the only one and I always say this but I see nothing noble in me surviving, because we all are.

And when we just came we'd give CVs everywhere and Rosersberg is just one of those classic examples and I like giving regions, telling like yeah, I lived there, I lived in a bunch of different regions and apartments and I like writing about that, I like telling what I've seen and as self-obsessed as it is many many years ago I got told "oh, your style is like neo-beat generation" and I like that, because I just spit out everything and yeah, I'm gay and yeah.

While I was writing Close (The Kills fanfiction) I was studying Florence Ray which Jamie used to be obsessed with and he even sent her roses to prison and the more I think of what she did, the more it starts to flirt with making sense because we're just left to fuck knows what and everything is erased and writing Close I had to get into that anarchist mindset to make Jamie do what he did, so this is a shootout to it here, really. 

And yeah, someone wanted an apartment for 10 000 kroner in Moseback, I mean, yeah, cool region, but fucking hell. So yeah, countryside is our choice until everything is decided and it's insane everything is insane but it's calmer, I just hope my head stays the same with my depression squeezing the living out of me. 

I also found it funny that we were renting an apartment and the landlord was like "oh, we also stayed in Märsta when we came" and it's a lovely region, again, just find an apartment anywhere XD 

Alsvjö to me is mostly the pendeltåg station to IKEA unless taking tube and I surely have something set there as well and I like that region. And we also stayed in a hotel there with a small Coop nearby.

I dunno, I enjoy adding locations and start checking everyday, I'll have an update everyday because I've got like fuck knows how many stories done and updated xD

So please tell me if you enjoyed it and yes, it's fiction

Thank you

<3

Jamie