(by Nayyirah Waheed)
TW/CW: Disease/Death & Mental Health
I’ve realized that what kills me more than death is to become death itself, to host/carry a disease and to embody as a death device... I’ve realized that no one will save us when we’re categorized as a condition, as othered, as sub or less human. I’ve realized that I’ve been called both AIDs and Corona for just breathing as an East-Asian tranny on the streets. I’ve realized, that if this disease does fall upon me then there’s still a chance of being misgendered during and after death... I’ve realized that this colonial-capitalist system is a disease of itself working us to a slow death of delusion but I promise, that my death shall devour itself with the system and offer perhaps a humbling story of honouring our breath.
No sympathy for the sick: they ask why the rejected go reckless without questioning their own rejection and our ways of marginalization... Since when have we gotten so comfortable to label humans as statistics or percentages/chances of exposure/risk ? How did we become so justified in such apathy ? Why are we okay with prioritizing our own wellness over others ? How is it okay to fit moral hierarchies into matters of health and death, when we already know of the inequities/injustices embedded in our medical institutions ? Why have we gotten so good at cruelty ? Who are we to decide of the deserving and why do we assume ourselves to be deserving ? It's weird having suicidal-grey episodes spiralling while waiting for test results, only as if our society doesn't hold enough stigmas causing anxieties brewing within... Over the years of being a past sex worker, a survivor, as well as a sexually positive community member, I have really emphasized on the work of destigmatizing conversations/commonalities of sexual health and testing. Yet even with all that, it didn't stop the social pressures and stigmas against Covid-19 to get to me, especially when feeling mentally ill. Microaggressions of being stared or moved away from, first because I'm a tranny but now also because I'm (East)Asian... I couldn't help but feel unwanted and undeserving of space, which isn't new but now buried in flashbacks I still wonder of death. I wonder of those without insurance or assistance, I wonder of us erased in medical books, I wonder of those turned away and let go, of how the state fails us again and again with lives slipping through the cracks. I wonder of this breath for us all, even in death.
Though death will not save me from my own depression, nor will I let the world use this disease for their own. I ask if we were really concerned for each other if we're not impacted, I ask how are we really concerned if we're not at risk, and what will we do, to keep each other safe ? How can we stop the delusion that we keep ourselves safe individually when really we only rot in comfort individually... Panic is of privilege response and a distraction; what we need is preparation and action. The virus is real but what we think we know is not. It is inhumane to call for awareness when we're not aware of those already suffering without acknowledgment. What we need is not better ethics but empathy, and expect moral compassion to follow organically... May we grief ever so softly, gently, and gloriously thus may we die in power and rebirth in gold.
