Local alien initiates first contact

by Al Yen

Who am I?

All my life I felt like a house with a simple spell on its windows: anyone looking from the outside will see what their image of the inside is, based on their subjective impression from the facade, which depends on the weather, landscape, circumstance, my mood, etc. I happen to be quite good at picking up on people’s images of me, so I used to pull off the interior accordingly if I needed to wear this particular skin for my survival, or simply felt like trying it on. Trying out being some version of myself. A version from someone’s eyes. A role.

At the end of the day though, tired of boxing myself up, I used to be most comfortable behind the closed doors, with all furniture away, just empty floors on which I could dance in a dream-like state, visiting other spaces, times, and people, and creatures. What stories I dreamt most often of defined any given period of my life. I believe a dreamer is who I am under my skin.

The scariest time was when I stopped dreaming at all, and the inner spaces of my house felt like a dumpster. Decrepitude and decay, and stale air of a space that had been sealed for too long, neglected. Broken toys. Muddy windows. No way to tell if it’s night or day. Only grayness, dark corners, and cold-breathing cracks in the walls.
But my story is not about that.

I realized I’d been reborn as someone new when I saw myself in my lover’s eyes. They were the mirror to my soul. Jules has always looked at me as if asking, What plane of yourself would you like to show me today? Who do you want to be right now? I can be skinless around him. I can be whoever I want. Isn’t it the ultimate freedom?

He wraps himself around me to embrace, protect and nurture. So I grow into him, and we grow together, becoming something new, something different. Currently, we are Al Yen and Jules Hazard. Someday we might cease to exist as these two as well and become someone else. I would be so happy to meet my future lover when the time comes! And as for now,

He endearingly says I’m a pine tree in his heart. And, honestly, that’s the only thing I ever wanna be.

(My ultimate gender :D)

Who am I apart from the dreamer, lover, and glorious tree? Now, at this point of my ever new life? So that it’s more interesting for me to write, I’ll do it in the format of those queries we used to make up ourselves in just plain or rather fancy notebooks as kids and exchange with my girl classmates.

A poem and/or line that best vibes with you:

These are the finishing lines of my poem “urge for the dark.”
As for the whole poem, that’d be another one of mine, “punk & fashion.”

What would you like others to know about you first thing?
I am a part of our story, mine and his, one for two. I want us to only be remembered together.

What do you do?
I am a poet in love. Poetry is our way of life. Love is our way to life. In practicing them, we create art.

What is your perfect world?
The only world I want and agree to live in is the one where there’s more kindness and love and freedom.

What do you adore in people?
Harmless weirdness and quirkiness.

A random take:
Dreams of the future (or past? or present?) are AU’s about yourself and it’s awesome. Totally some spacetime to be creative about! Live it out in your mind w i l d.
Dream wild.

A weird fact about you:
I don’t particularly like cheese. I mean, I don’t mind it on my sandwich if it’s a rather pricey kind (an expensive bitch here y’all) but otherwise, I’d never feel enthusiastic about, say, a cheese-only pizza. I’d eat it but if the choice were mine, I’d never order it. It took Jules aback when I confessed my treachery some time ago. All this time I had been pretending to like cheese and then just dropped this news on the person who thought he knew me. Also, he couldn’t believe anyone could be indifferent to cheese, and this is why I consider this fact weird.

Labels, identities, additional data, or whatever your soul calls for:

• I’m in my late twenties
• demi-gay (a sitcom How I met my lover and realized I wasn’t ace/aro), genderqueer, he/him
• neurodivergent capricious brain
• a loving adoptive co-parent of a monstrous cat
• a proud punk (reclaiming the insult)
• pro-fem

What do you hope for?

I’m done with despairs of real life. I want hope. I want happy endings. For ourselves and all the souls out there, I hope that we all reach our happy endings, unlearn lovelessness, and thus get reborn as someone new — less hurting, and free.

( — my gay representation agenda as a writer, too)

It’s so nice to meet you! We’re glad to have you here, please, make yourself at home on our planet ; )

With love,

        Al Yen, your local dreamer