We are scholars of hatred. Staying up for nights and ruining days with my eyes and ears glued to my favourite podcast. An activity that is supported by my media overlords who spoonfeed me venom with which to entertain myself. I think it really is analogous to a kind of trans Sufism. Seen purely stereotypically, Sufis practice self-harm to purify their bodies and become closer to God. I practice self-harm to purify myself and become closer to God. It was a philosophical embarrassment to think of us as systems of thinking and doing. Doing is a thinking, and thinking is a doing. We do what we think, and we think what we do. In fact, the above three sentences make no sense. Nobody would reasonably repeat the same verb in even numbers this way. Behaviour belies thought. Another nonsensical sentence. We are similar, because we do similarly, and because we think similarly. One last. If my transness can survive being assaulted this much, then it is real. Then I am not roping the world along to my narcissistic charade. Then I am not lying to my mother and father. Lies do not survive scrutiny. We shine lights into people’s eyes to persuade them to tell the truth. The sun shines on us, bathing us in light. We see with light, light brings us knowledge. Light is scrutiny, hot scrutiny, God’s scrutiny. We burn ants with sunlight. Of course we would, we want to know what’d happen. An ant is no match for our command of the uncovering magic. The ant’s carapace fails and smokes, becoming an open window for our attentive tentacles. Letting the sunlight in. We are all ants under the light of God. And God is just a hyperstition, conjured into being by our collective warpal pull. The Gygaxians didn’t chew the Deep Ones when they ate them. And even The Racist knew that we and them are one and the same. The venom is delivered as a spray. Searing hot, it mimics the spray wielded by farm animals and vigilant women. But only to a small extent. The human-skunk hybridization machine relies on capsaicin to trick our poor neurons into feeling a white-hot branding pain, but neglects to turn us into labelled chattel. The venom is no mere imitator. As we become treated, we immaterialize our still-existing impulses. I am clean enough to tattoo my forearms with confidence. The parts of us that remain informational have become less sightly as a result, however. So, I cough ash and soot into the abyss between minds. Physical self-harm literally purifies the mind. In fact, one of the chief reasons for which teenagers practice it with such prolificity is to take advantage of pain’s unique ability to distract. A brand gathers up any thoughts weak enough to sizzle under its heat and forms them into a dark mark on the skin, expressing their collective pain all at once. It is a purging of the mind unto the body. Psychiatry encourages us to avoid this, and instead attempt to place our scars within. A heart never heals, only turns to leather. My podcasts have replaced my trusty lighter and butterknife. Outside of this change, my habits remain the same. One additional small change may be that the fire has been untethered from the limits of a bic lighter. What stays solid and unscratched is the habitual burning of impurity. A burning away, in this case, of anything that burns. A witch, an arm, and a psyche walk into a steakhouse. Not the kind you eat, the kind that is driven into the ground and surrounded by dried wood. The burning brings me closer to God. He is all knowing, all understanding, all forgiving. And most importantly, never wrong. By the definition of "right". If I can understand the people who understand me the least, I have passed a test of sorts, a test that gauges the size of the infinite distance that separates me from His understanding. If I can know the things they know, and if I can forgive them for what they do to me and my people, then I've practiced, channeled, taken into myself, a godliness. I gladly open the mind’s legs to be colonized by Him. But God’s light burns no different from inside out. The subscriptions tab is my day-night cycle. Some pray five times, some three, some one. I have evolved beyond primitive sun-based methods of time management. I gain my time by following the spaces between the replacements of my IV bag. Between the pings in my pocket. I practice my ritual with fervour. Such fervour, that the word does not accurately describe it when unadorned. Our favourite adjective for fervour is “religious”. But as an orgasm leaves an afterglow, the glow from God carbonizes. He earns his male pronouns by injecting his venom and disappearing immediately afterwards. The vocalization and heavy breathing are followed by the ever-present silence of the Lord. But if the sounds were from me, and the Lord is always silent, who guides my practice? What is it exactly that I am bringing myself closer to? If what is left after the burn is God, then what God there is left inside me must be very small. Does God burn away too?