NNRM #5: I've Got a Time Bomb

by Sybil Lamb

It took me at least three heaving, ugly crying sessions and one nervous breakdown to finish this book.

I felt my own pain, and the author-Sybil’s and the character-Sybil’s, reflected and projected backwards and forward between the computer screen PDF and my eyes and my brain. I was caught in the blast radius of the repeated, uncontrolled demolition of a life, 10ish times in a row.

For a couple of nights this book was my best friend. She introduced herself to me with a slap in the face of prose. I didn’t even know books could do that. Sure, every book has its own voice, but none of them shriek and growl like this one does. She dragged me to karaoke, just so I could get drunk and listen to her sing.

She then took me to her favorite club, where all the other hot girls go. We got drunk and high and danced. She roofied me and groped me and dragged me to the alley to pull on my hair and bite my neck and claw my heart out of my chest.

I can’t remember the last time a book grabbed me by the throat and vomited into my mouth. I swallowed it all, so much slimy, burning rage going down down down pooling into my soul. I could feel it, wriggling, hatching, beginning to consume me. She leaned in until her lips were touching my ear and whispered, “this could be yours, if you want”.

Obviously, none of that happened. But all of it is real, even if it’s bullshit.

Being trans is bullshit. It’s just an endless stream of bullshit and you’re not allowed to complain about it because good little tranny faggots need to shut the fuck up or get they beat to death with pipes. The joke is that you’ll end up getting beaten to death either way, or killing yourself so it doesn’t matter.

I blew up my life to move to Georgia, then I blew up my life to move to New York then I blew up my dick so I could grow little pseudotitties and then I blew up my life again to move to Tokyo, and I’m sitting here on the cusp of blowing up my life again, wondering if any of those explosions have left me anything other than tired.

This is a book about being injured, and healing, and not-healing, and how to grow okay with the parts that don't heal. It's about being broken and putting yourself back together, but it’s all wrong, and things don't work like they're supposed to. And you just have to make do, because this is you now.

In 2025, when the entire world is one interminable hate crime, this book reminds me that there's a life outside eternal torment. It reserves a warm filthy space in the bottom of a dumpster just for me. For all of us broken things.

This novel is an 88% true semi-autobiographical punk-rock art piece that changed my life.

5/5

Ebook available on Sybil's site.