"And just like that, the tides changed, but then you realize that the pain stays. Running away only works if you aren't running from your own shadows..."
- N. A. F. (2018)
(Art by Rana Mehanny @_rourri 2021)
TW: mentions of suicide ideations/attempts,
domestic/sexual violence, and survival sex work
So now I remember, of how it feels to write words as if they were your last... And here I write this story, with choked neck and bruised limbs: "If I could write a story about this girl, I would start with an apology. I’d tell her your mom didn’t know better. Or maybe she did and instead chose fear. I’d remind her that perhaps true liberation comes from realizing there is none. I’d say rest because you need it. Eat because at least for now it makes you feel whole. Decide that existing in your bed for two to three days at a time is necessary. I’d say, there’s too many love letters that tell us to get up when the going gets tougher than the tough we thought we’d ever have to bear. It’s better in illusion. Nobody talks about the moment self-care is no longer self-care because you don’t care" (N. A. F. 2018).
And I tried to die, so many times. I know the world must be exhausted, of a femme still breathing but can't seem to choose life somehow. I still don't know why people want me alive, especially when I've not been shown to deserve their love no matter how much I've begged for empathy... I remember how me and my brother were put in an orphanage for a weekend, because we were "bad" and needed to be humbled. Now I know that it wasn't us, but my parents trying to navigate their own violences. I remember being about 8 years old, and we had to run miles in the morning before temple prayers for Buddha and then breakfast. I remember the adults and staffs driving behind and whipping those running too slow with bamboo sticks. I remembered resenting my brother for slowing himself down, to yell at me and push me to run faster; I remembered crying and running, asking the sky why we have to endure abuse, to learn how to be better with each other... I remembered being scared of the dark, peeing myself in the lower bunk bed at night, and praying to the femme Buddha picture I had, crying myself to sleep, in silence...
I have been trying to communicate my needs and the lack of care in my own house since December. It came in clarity that all of us had different needs to be and heal, yet I felt like I was begging for understanding while trying to keep up with cleaning schedules, living expectations, and hosting friends or guests when we weren't even speaking at all... I confronted situations and initiated conversations, asking for simple check-ins before asking each other to clean, especially when I was bleeding in the washroom after feeling suicidal for days, and perhaps not have my roommate/friend walk away filming and laughing when I had a breakdown in public. I didn't know what to believe anymore, when it feels like no one wants to be soft anymore... And still, it's my fault, for triggering/traumatizing my housemates with self-harm and suicide attempts. Even though now I knew how it got there, of how the silence suffocated and no one seemed to care enough so that we isolated furthermore, of how the socializing only projects and distracts from a house that's not a home anymore. It's been hard for me to remember details of the last month, with blurry visions, body aches, and days becoming one; it is with my deepest apologies and shame that my loved ones had to witness such ugliness within...
"And you tried to change, didn't you ?
closed your mouth more,
tried to be softer, prettier,
less volatile, less awake...
[but] you can't make homes out of human beings,
somebody should have already told you that...
[Remember:] you are terrifying, and strange,
and beautiful - something not everyone,
knows how to love."
- Warsan Shire
And I remember telling one of my roommates that I didn't think I would make it to April, when therapy started, I spiralled in psychosis alone in my room. Then to catch COVID-19 from my own house, but was told that they weren't ready to see me and that sometimes people still call the cops on each other within our own communities. I felt scared, I was sick and feeling displaced and punished, with everyone talking to each other but me. The punishment for an Asian girl at risk to herself, is to be a risk to others during a pandemic. It was an unfortunate and cruel retriggering of anti-Asian racism/xenophobia when I really just needed my bed and friends, when I secretly wished I tested positive right away so we could all stay home and take care of each other... However, people have already considered and contacted crisis centers without discussion nor my consent, and when I finally tested positive, the removal from community was still mine to experience. As with this GoFundMe, where maybe we have mistaken "healing" for a solution-oriented practice, and I know now that we traded in softness when we had to try so hard to access resources for each other. Thus I came to understand also, that if for months I have been asking to be heard, then of course no one will listen to or believe me when I'm at my worst. I came to that realization when the ambulance/911 was called, after I finally came back home from sleeping/recovering in an AirBnB room that had bars outside its window. I realized that people have been so scared, that I've scared them so much that they prioritized their fears of losing a life in front of them, instead of cultivating a space that I can feel safer and survive in... I realized that when I still came home to silence and tried to lock myself in a room again, when no one knew how to talk to me or check on me so they removed my door lock instead, when people in uniforms were still called to my door at the end, I realized how much we've messed up. As I've been there too, both the one who had wellness check called on, and the one who called while surviving domestic violence and self-harm as a child. As if the first lesson taught to me on abolition and transformative justice wasn't grief, how we grieve in fear for not having enough resources to practice our ideals, thus shame...
I remember meeting the 2-Spirit elder, Blu Waters in Tkaronto, and they said to me without needing any of my words or stories: "Your heart is too heavy, you must walk to the waters and let it down". So I try to, every time I that I want to die, I wish to return to water...
To have the risk, of police or wellness check show up at my house, not only is violently triggering for me personally, but I don't know how to forgive myself either, of the anti-Black violence we risked while having a Black trans roommate. I have tried so hard but still failed, in contributing to a peaceful home that we all deserve. And I am truly sorry, to everyone that I have scared or pushed away in times of wars within, I'm sorry... "The forces of my past attacked me and I had to face my long-denied mental illnesses. I didn't want to, but I had to. I was sinking with my unhappiness and I was not okay. I needed those around me to understand, but no one could. I needed those around me to know how to love and care for me, but it was too difficult. So I went into war alone, with myself. The war not only affected me, but those around me as well. [and] I apologize..." - Blog: Blossom (April 18th 2017). After having community members show up to mediate with the paramedics and ensuring that the cops won't come after, I was told that my roommates will be there for me and check on me, but everyone was tired, and I couldn't bear with the silences that followed such events. I'm really sorry that I ran away, and was found drunk in the woods the next day and brought to a community centre. I know I may have wasted too much resources, and affected people's wellbeing/plans. I'm sorry, but I needed to give myself time to process, crashing on couches while still recovering from COVID-19 and waiting to be negative; I wanted to wait until the moon was full and I prayed to go home in grace...
I remember staying at the community centre, and spending time with a fabulous Taurus elder/friend who helped held it down, I remember being on shrooms and asking if I'm truly spiritual or that I'm just crazy. They said: "bitch, it's the same"...
After testing negative, I met up with an older femme/friend, who's also a Taurus and reached out to do a reading for me on a Virgo moon. Before the cards, she read my astrology chart and spoke of how events from 7 years ago were haunting me in patterns of an identity crisis... I remember when I was 15/16, questioning and coming to terms with my gender expressions and socio-political values, I knew I had to confront violences within my own home and with my past traumas. Thus I included a quote from my old blog above from 5 years ago. I remember when I started challenging group mentalities, and dynamics I didn't feel okay with the world being okay with. From youthful stubbornness and hurt I was asking for change in co-existing environments that I can not control, as everyone is on a realization/healing journey each to their own... And the first card drawn was the seven of pentacles reversed, meaning no harvest from seeds planted, with limited success or rewards. Then the third card was death, no surprise there, so we asked the cards how I can go home, and so many cards were drawn but after 2 hours, I remember the cards of the star (healing), the tower (breaking foundation, change and chaos), and the empress reversed (creative block and dependance)... Too many truths to work through and process, thus I overstayed on another dear Taurus' couch past the full moon's fill, and the couch felt it too.
I remember saying that home is wherever water flows,
but now I must remind myself, that the rivers I cry can not be...
Still without communication, I went back home for the 3rd time after weeks of trying. I was not expecting any check-ins or conversations anymore, as I took my time and people need theirs too. Yet I didn't know of the tensions and frustrations built-up for me, and while trying to hide I unfortunately triggered emotions the next morning which caused triggering slammed doors and I left walking to the waters again... I walked and visited a Palestinian friend of mine and asked for wisdom on hope/complicity, when all feels like war. After I went walking again in the snow, but stopped and couldn't stop crying somewhere on Dundas with messages from home that I still can't shake off. I really tried, and gave my all. I've shared the leaving of my family into stories and house items to gift, I've shared my mutual-aid resources for people to take until I have none, and I want nothing else in reciprocity but an acknowledgement that I have tried, even if I often mistake loving as giving... I reached out for a friend, but still wasn't able to sleep, eat, or make myself go home after 5am. So I kept walking, walking, and walking until I finally reached home but I couldn't bear to stay in silence. And I'm really sorry for running away again, but "no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark" (Warsan Shire); I didn't know how to stay alive in that room anymore. I should never let others' emotions define me, yet it's been hard when my emotions consume me. And if only my love for our home overcame shame that sunrise...
So I walked and walked until I ran out of tears or thoughts, until sunrise and I waited for a train to go anywhere but nowhere… I found myself lost everywhere, crying in parks and walking until I felt something again. I feared my body not making it since I've not been sleeping again. Manic insomnia consumed my mind, and commotions at 24 hour timmies kept me awake to keep company with the moon. Until I found myself dissociated and impulsive at a motel inn, the one me and my family lived in for almost 2 months when we first immigrated and landed here… I found myself breaking down after checking in, as I’m finally remembering the violence it took to change - to come here. I know how families break to be here, with migrants parting seas and pushing borders/boundaries, how painfully glorious we came to love and learn to be loved... The 4 of us in a room, where conflicts birthed with forced change, and consent blurred, perhaps I came back not only to grieve but study how we survived.
Still yet, I spiral. Walking daily to visit the places I've loved and grieved, I sit in a distance watching our old house for hours, sex-working to survive in a motel room with only an hour of hot water each day... What snapped me out of dissociation to write this, is first the harm reduction vans that came, because apparently this is one of the busier motels with a lot of things going on. And I remember I said I wanted to retire to sleep in a van in a park and help redistribute overdose kits, condoms, menstrual products...etc. Secondly, I thought that accepting one of the motel owners and the garbage boy as clients would get me a discount staying here but I was wrong, now they're just weird. Lastly, running into 2-Spirit elders and Indigenous queers in a park was helpful... As last night I was just suicidal over my parents having to be landlords overseas to pay off the house, the night was so dark I thought I should've paid with my life. And still, I don't know why I'm alive. Perhaps there's no answer to why life is, but we get to curiously live out the how. And I hate how much of a cliche I've become, I only hope that if I don't get killed by the hands of men in a motel room, that I can still be of good use for community. It feels as though my mind and heart can no longer contribute, so perhaps I let my body be of use. Yet I'm scared, with travelling men coming and going, cis white men bringing handcuffs without consent, and the cops showing up in the parking lot every other day. As if I haven't already made up my mind that I'm raped the third time in this life, I must leave. I hope that I can still love, even as I rot, even as my body aches every waking moment. Even if I've become too filthy and unlovable, I hope that one day I can be forgiven for all that I've done, while trying to love/be loved. I really did try, and I'm sorry that it's not been enough...
"When the men come;
to my daughter I will say,
set yourself on fire."
- Warsan Shire
Thank You all for everything, truly, thank you to those have cared, who have worried, who have loved, who have cried... Thank you to the friend who found me in the woods, thank you to the friend that stayed at my house and made my bed waiting for me to return. Thank you to the community members who have given their time and efforts, thank you to the people who have reached out, thank you to my roommates for all that they are. Thank you, but I don't know if I have any more worthy stories left. I know it's been painful, because this isn't a love story but a manic story on love. And perhaps it's laughable to some that I still say I love, but I'm trying my softest to keep breathing in the name of love... And I'm so sorry for not writing a better ending; if my world ends tomorrow I will come back as a cherry blossom tree my next lifetime... I think the west and white supremacy either infantilizes or villainies suicide, but I'm still coping with being alive after feeling so undeserving of a safe home to be. So I embrace this pain, I will honour my hurt, and then maybe I can bury it here and put my grief to rest, before I get buried myself... The Buddha sat under a tree for 49 days until he awakened to enlightenment, and when demanded evidence of his heart he said, "the Earth is my witness".
Below attached is a play/dance/musical that I co-wrote, co-directed, and choreographed back in high school about 6/7 years ago. It's titled 'Flowers In The Shade' and it was contextually based on one of my painful realizations/transformations back then. I wanted to include this to honour my life as an artist and a lover to this world. I apologize for the hurt I've caused, and I offer this story because of its softer endings...
"Dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining.
I wanted to disappear - so I opened the door to a stranger's car. He was divorced. He was sobbing into his hands (hands that tasted like rust). The pink breast-cancer ribbon on his key chain swayed in the ignition. Don't we touch each other just to prove we are still here ? I was still here once. The moon, distant and flickering, trapped itself in beads of sweat on my neck. I let the fog spill through the cracked window and cover my fangs. When I left, the Buick kept sitting there, a dumb bull in pasture, its eyes searing my shadow onto the side of suburban houses. At home, I threw myself on the bed like a torch and watched the flames gnaw through my mother's house until the sky appeared, bloodshot and massive. How I wanted to be that sky - to hold every flight and fall at once...
In the shower, sweating under cold water, I scrubbed and scrubbed."
- Ocean Vuong