Suicidal in Solitude: How To Be Alone

 

(by Nayyirah Waheed)

TW: mental health, grey-suicidality, and mentions of trauma-specific memories...etc.

    6 days after the Full Moon in Virgo I left the city for a break, desperate for rest and a peace of mind I prepare to return after 6 nights for the New Moon in Pisces. Feeling suicidal in solitude I tried escaping, but no where to run from my own mind I thought a change of scenery would save me; I tried dreaming but fell restless with the moon still changing... I tried crying my loneliness away as I confront my lack of loveliness - how to be alone when my head and my heart tire and tear each other apart.

"even if you are a small forest surviving off of moon alone,

your light is extraordinary." - reminder by Nayyirah Waheed

    Fishes swimming in circular conjunctions as I search for balance in the dark, the yin and yangs of memories I remember and feel at the intersections of trauma, growth, and grief... I remember wanting and planning to die at 18 and how it is community work that helped stop me. Ever since, I've been feeling grey-suicidal while often having anxiety/panic attacks or depressive episodes about visualizing death of loved ones and myself. My mind has always had a good imagination as the moon influences my creatives, but when it comes to the deaths of both myself and those I care for - I find myself more and more dissociating from life as death becomes dreams... Thus I ask how to be alone when I dissociate from my own breath ?

"tonight, under the moon:

choose you." - Nayyirah Waheed

    No matter how lonely and no matter the loss, I choose myself. I still wonder of love and if anyone would love a sad girl searching for softness like this, but I realize that I must be the world's teacher and peer to keep loving by example, despite such grief. How to be alone is exploring what beauty comes when embracing solitude. Thus no matter the breath, we are full - unlearning how to be alone through refilling ourselves... If only I could feel satisfied of worth by being instead of becoming while reminding myself to embody love. In life I've learned to grieve but through love I'm ready to heal. I still cry myself to sleep dancing with sunsets' dying rays of gold, and I still stay up with the moon whispering in stardust... Maybe the peace of being alone is the pace of becoming - slowing down a breath for a break thus becoming alone in growth and grace. I don't know how to be alone in solitude because I have allowed shame to consume space, and I come to practice embracing solitude as forgiving myself in full humanity. I need to forgive myself for hurting even in ways I thought I had healed, I must forgive myself for the ways that my body, soul, and mind feel... Thus how to be alone while suicidal in solitude, is to become softer.

    6 days/nights for a break from the city, with lessons of flighting from crisis is me becoming crisis itself after the family home triggers my fights within. So under the moon I meditate - in hopes for higher vibrations of emotional stability and maturity. Thus living grief and loving solitude we ask how to be alone, even when we are free to take another breath, despite it all. 

Love & Grief: How To Be Single

 

(by Nayyirah Waheed)

    Passing the Full Moon in Virgo I loved in freedom. Drowning in tears I bathed in my own blood for rebirth, like daughters of the moon I grieve in love as I give birth to myself once more. Belly-button bleeding with femininity transcending a mother and newborn in one - holding a breath and waiting to cry. I give thanks to honour the grandmother moon, as "love is moontime teaching" (Billy-Ray Belcourt).

"I'm trying to remember you and

let you go at the same time."

- the mourn by Nayyirah Waheed

    How does one grieve over love ? Especially in such isolations during the pandemic... I was supposed to let go last Spring but since quarantine and city lockdowns I found myself holding on, still reaching out and texting back, afraid of loneliness when it already feels like my depression is killing me slowly. Throughout 2020, we went through another year of what it seems of us versus the world, which is a clear red flag of co-independence that I've trying to change in connection from romance to friendship. Yet sometimes, what's meant to end will change its course accordingly, unbothered by my own logical timeline of closure attempts... Let's not pretend that softness survives in concrete wastelands like these, as its not the substance of my love changed but the softness of my love disappointed. I become angry but so helpless to witness a loved one being chased by anti-Black violence and capitalism to the point of no peace - in spirals of social paranoia/distrust/isolation and mental/emotional restlessness. It's extra difficult when I believe in, work with, and have survived through anti-capitalist ideals of community grassroots and mutual-aid practices/politics/poetics... I ask again and again of how to breathe softer so we don't break yet the truth is, some can not afford to breathe deep, or to rest without stress and plan without panic. So how does one love through grief ? How does one really let go when becoming so good at understanding/empathizing ? How does one still believe in the healing of love ?

Him: "sometimes I feel like being a Black man in Canada,

you gotta be a superhero you know ? you have to dodge all the bullets, 

even the invisible ones, and those are the worst ones too 

- they get into your head and makes you think its you.,,"

    Loving has taught me so much, maybe too much that it feels heavy in the heart but I have to believe that its worth the grief to love better, even at times when I forget how to dream with tears flooding my bedsheets. I try to ease my heartache by looking to the Black/Indigenous/trans women/femmes that have came and loved before, as grieving/loving masculinity and healing/rehabilitating colonial-patriarchal violences have been such transcendent teachings of us femmes surviving/navigating relations... Thus I must not give up on love, and I shall prepare and work harder to love ever softer. I need to un/relearn more, and to contribute this energy back into my community efforts. As I've learnt that my love is not a haven for the hurt but can be such raw materials to build and cultivate safer spaces. Perhaps the most honourable and humbling lesson of love is to know its shifting power of being everything and nothing at the same times... When I say I love him but his stomach growls back in answer. When I can't love or pray someone out of police custody, when I can't convince him to stop working and sleep more, when I can't love him out of debts or the demons in his head... How does one keep loving without crying myself out of breath ?

Him: "one day you're gonna find someone soft and relaxed,

not pressured like an animal towards their goals..."

    Sometimes we don't even know of our own softness/magic. As I remembered one night he asked why I say that I'm searching for softness when it's already in me, I come to understand bell hook's notions of "soul-murder" being similar to the violent disconnections from our softness within. I hope he can slow down and listen to the softer voices - a sound I wish to continue amplify so we no longer come to conversations with ourselves in desperation of worth or validation. I wish him a break to breathe without rushing air or swallowing regrets... I hope him well, and over the Full Moon first I hold him in memories of gratitude. He is my first love and by far one of the greatest lessons of my life, one that will continue in my life in different ways/forms. He has taught me to be loved and I only wish that I have shared my softness enough and well. I love him, and I know that I will always love him til the ends of space/time as he has embodied a safe space for me also. He doesn't know how special and capable of love he is with the possibilities/seeds of love and change already in him just waiting for him to water/grow... We have loved, and that’s the most beautiful thing a human can ever do. It breaks my heart and shatters my heart at times when I won’t be able to save him from systematic violence, when I don’t know how to help other than easing stresses by some contributions here and there, and I just hope that someday he can really dream and imagine beyond survival... I believe that we can return in the future with deeper loving relations but for our growing pains now I'm thankful for being so loved and held softly through. Thank you my love, for holding space for my moon even if I'm filled with sadness and when I feel less than full.

    Thus how to be single is learning to breathe when heartbreak. Perhaps soul shattering but beautiful in ways we fall, deep, then finally back to ourselves. As empty and lonely I feel, I am hopeful as I have been loved and I will continue to love, fuller... How to be single is a lesson in-between love poems; How to love and grief is to embrace myself fully once again holding the moon. 

Full Moon Fatigues: How To Be Human

(by Nayyirah Waheed)

    Under the Full Moon in Virgo I meditate on humanity, I pray for softness, and I dream of community... Every time I go out on walks I feel as if I'm learning how to walk again - unlearning stillness and relearning a breath in motion: I look to the trees for teachings on how to be human, I listen to the wind and how the moon whispers as we come to the waters for life while wandering in love - I replant and water my seeds in wishes of blossoming again.

"sometimes the night wakes in the middle of me,

and I can do nothing but

become the moon." - Nayyirah Waheed

    How to be human as how to be myself when I love hating myself, when I amplify others humanities through empathy but dehumanize my own self ? How to be human when I have yet to embrace all that makes me human ? How to be myself in full when humanities are stripped away from the people who live/feel/look like me ? How to be human, when being tires and becoming hurts ? I look to the sky's changing colours as encouragement, I look to the trees changing seasons for lessons of letting go then to the waters for returning back... Home, is of the waves and wherever they flow; Home becomes not the where or what but the how and who we are... How to be human and to be home, to be at home, to be a house they call home but in a house becoming human, while being swallowed and becoming still, I still ask of how to be human... 

"even if you are a small forest surviving off of moon alone,

your light is extraordinary." - reminder by Nayyirah Waheed

    I give thanks to the grandmother moon, as we are full no matter the phase. I honour the full moon in hopes of community reflection and compassion. I witness love as moon ceremony and wish for softness across skies and seas. I have faith in the light but I dare to lean into the shadows, to reseed and reroot intimately within. I explore the depths of my humanity in hopes of humility despite uncertainty, as being human becomes a breath to a word, then finally a feeling we can hold... How to be human is to be love and loved, deep, to be held by yourself and those that came before, to be human is to hold those after you and beyond.

New Year New Moon

TW/CW: future-fatigues, mental health,

eating disorder, and grey-suicidality 

    Sometimes, i don't know how to feel alive: I try holding on to the moments of love, yet still I forget how to feel a breath... Days blending with purpose blurring - tears brewing on sheets with body aching in my sleep. Exhausted; suicidal unrest in house arrest, i try walking to the waters to stay alive... to remember that at last and least there's still the moon, no matter if my heart is far from full: the moon reminds us that we are whole...

"That's all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. 

I don't know whether good times are coming back again... 

But I know that won't matter if we don't survive these times."

- Octavia E. Butler

    Future-fatigue is a term I've been using a lot in my writings both academically and poetically, as in times like these I still search for the softness within to reimagine and dream. Such worldly violences and instabilities urge for re-imagination and organization, first with rest and recovery of course but where do we begin ? It is time that we move forward while re-examining the ways we exploit and claim justice and healing without actually committing. I believe that it must start with brutal reflections thus reseeding empathies in our humanities. And if only I could believe that I'll be here to witness it all too, but I'm tired, and my hope within has been so burnt out that I can not believe in anything but this moment of a breath. I don't know how to believe in a freedom that I often can not feel; I can only dream that those beyond will bask in the glory that my mothers and sisters before had birthed... Thus this breath is for all of those after. Perhaps not living for myself is just another dance with my imposter syndromes, as it still contributes to the self-loathing narratives of not feeling/being enough, thus again neglecting my own needs of survival justice and healing... This pandemic has really forced my psyche into shadow work, into ruthless reflections and analysis of myself as well as my relations with the world. I miss the sun, as at times I feel so intensely and internally that I don't know how to feel light anymore. I couldn't help but wonder of ways to love the moon without being the moon...

    I cry and try to write, trying to feel alive. Yet it's different now than before when I wanted to die, where I was grieving again and again. Now I feel more numb but anxious, maybe more hopeful, but still unsure, like walking through a tunnel I feel as if I'm close to something but I don't know what is. It feels like a moment of decisions, of planning and preparing, even if I'm uncertain of what for. I've been reading more, which on one hand fills me with resonance and empathy, especially when I'm reading other trans Black, Indigenous, and people of colour's words through survival and healing, but on the other hand I feel overwhelmed with thoughts/triggers and often discouraged to write my own words/stories/response down. Perhaps my story isn't needed/wanted when there's already so many out there, and maybe I'm not needed/wanted to be a storyteller... Yet I must try to remind myself that there must be a space for all of us, and that hierarchal or exclusive ideals/structures are violent legacies of the colonial-patriarchy and capitalism in which interrupts/disrupts our social-empathies to rise up together as a community/collective. I am a storyteller through softness, and no matter if I drown or breathe, may my words be the evidence of my growth, my fight, and my love... 

    There are days when I cannot eat, and nights where I cannot sleep. It's times like these that I feel like I am indeed alive but not living. My thoughts start consuming me as I lose appetite and sleep; force-feeding myself and smoking til I pass out, I have impulses of deleting traces and data to just disappear, to erase all my writings and offerings for the public, to just finally sleep and start over. That's it. Maybe I'm not trying to actively die anymore - I'm trying to start over. I want to feel better, I want to love better, I want us to breathe better, and softer... Thus I meditate and pray for us to breathe softer and softer so we don't break. As newness requires softer practices with harder commitments, perhaps it all begins like planting a seed. Even in 2021 I still am a flower asking why I deserve to bloom, and when unanswered by the world now I must search for purpose within. First by seeding then watering, softly waiting through each phase of rebirth and regrowth as we re/unlearn again through circumstances that call for greater love and care for each other. 

Growth & Grief

    Sometimes I dream of a death-like sleep, an escape, a safe hideaway to be without dissection, without needing to prove my existence or worth, without care or contributions to be deserving of my next breath... Sometimes I become so exhausted I only wish to disappear, forever, to forgive myself of all the ways I've failed at love, at teaching life thus barely surviving, at grace and compassion as it seems not enough, as it feels not enough to be offering my heart... Sometimes, I feel not enough.

"You are allowed to heal toward a future version of yourself 

without hating who you are right now. 

You have the option to love yourself to new levels."

- Rachel Elizabeth Cargle

    And then I remember of how a therapist once told me at 16 that it's okay to let go in order to grow, to thank the people who's no longer in your journey towards healing, to wish them well and forgive myself too. As at the end of the day I hold no guilt or regrets for the ways I had loved and shared, even if misunderstood and antagonized, my love and care remains sacred and true to its time - I must believe that, I must remind myself that, in order to stay alive I must believe that my love, compassion, and patience worth something, that no time was wasted, that all is honoured and deserving even through torturing heartbreak/betrayal... Thus grief, as it seems a reoccurring thesis/lesson of this year when we've been grieving all year in midst of such violent calls for transformation, for restorative and reparative justice. I've been crying from the Blue Full Moon to the Beaver Full Moon - surviving threats, weaponized politics and twisted words, I struggle to mourn in peace while social medias drained with compassion-fatigued dramas and an audience-filled spectacality. No mediation or explanation needed as my last conversations were simply a call for consideration, a realization for boundaries and self-preservation - as sharing my feelings in vulnerability and truth still stands no conflict in my mind but an unfortunate subject to public projections and assumptions. I only pray/hope for the healing of all, meditating for growth through grief as I attempt to find softness again in cruelty and hurt... 

"Grief can be a garden of compassion.

If you can keep your heart open through everything, 

your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom."

- Rumi

    Virgo in mutable Earth - characterized and rooted in changeability: I remembered losing friends/allies and being villianized in high school after coming out, still I look back in truth of queer/transphobic/ableist layers within mistreatments and misunderstandings but also I come to understand/realize one's need/relief through calling-out instead of calling-in. I was so hurt and desperate to call out the injustices to my feelings/identity/being that I didn't know how to call-in through grace/softness. And maybe if I had called into reflections instead of outing behaviours with socio-political theories of violence/hierarchies that people would have responded with less denial and defensiveness. Yet I must forgive myself for the ways I thought I needed to fight in defence when already exhausted from daily discriminations and micro-aggressions. I understand the need to fight, but over the years I've become too tired, thus mostly in flight. And when later awakened to published comments of my body as a candidate/competition for some university-student-elections drama, I come to learn again the balance between silence and vocalizing a stance through both being villianized/victimized so publicly and powerlessly to my control... I come to realize from all these internet incidences of slandering, call-outs, and misunderstandings/accusations/questions of who I am and how I live, that I have to stand soft in my character/essence and believe in the ways I have loved. Thus I know as a writer/poet/speaker that it is not the words of others or even myself that gets the honour of being remembered, but the ways we have made others feel and the spaces/stories we have shared in vulnerability/truth. I begin to understand through healing of how love/care without boundaries are self-destructive and unproductive to the healing of others/myself, as I'm also not responsible for how others react to my boundaries especially when my softness had already been extended, exhausted, and exploited - I must remind myself that my feelings and needs are honourable before pleasing/responding to others' traumas and forgiving for the ways their projections hurt me... From trees wilting that I learn to grief in grace and peace, waiting for new greens and blossoms in the love of growth/rebirth.

"I think it is healing behaviour

to look at something so broken and

see the possibility and wholeness in it."

- Adrienne Maree Brown 

    Sometimes I grief for the love never returned, for the love I served on silver platters but stepped on like street puddles, and for the love I desperately felt/gave for hopes of healing. Sometimes I still doubt my purpose of being here - a wilting flower asking why she deserves to blossom... And perhaps the remedy is to understand that my love is not the answer nor solution, that its been an honour and enough to contribute and care for our collective traumas/pains, that it has been and will be enough through softness and truth. As even though we are dying too we still dance, wilting in grace as we continue to plant the seeds of rebirth thus harvesting for the ingredients to our future...

On Feelings & Judgement/Justice (TDOR 2020)

    I am an emotional being and I must honour that - as softness brings strength and as we've survived by becoming soft so we don't break...

    Being a person/femme of feelings for healing is often not understood with dominant societal performative behaviours/attitudes of niceness and "wokeness" displayed/emerging/practiced. However, I am not interested nor invested in niceness but kindness, as being "nice" interpersonally and socio-politically has proven itself to be more of a submissive people-pleasing trait for survival, as well as a navigation of conflict avoidance without mutual accountabilities. All my life I have been shamed/misunderstood for my ocean of emotions, for diving into sensuality, and for my strive of justice through empathy. Many would say I'm less of an intellectual or logical thinker/decision-maker when I'm so emotionally driven but I whole heartedly disagree, as my feelings are indeed research for a clearer and more compassionate judgement of collective considerations. I don't aim to feel for myself but to feel for the world: for the trees, for the clouds and the sky, for the flowers and rain, for those feeling never enough and those searching to feel whole.

    I am firm, in the reminders of softness that we are full no matter the phase. Yet through hyper-awareness and constant reflections for change I come to understand, that it is cruel to force feelings upon those who are not ready - as who am I to unpack traumas when all I can offer is a soft/safe space for a revolution we still have to dream of... Sometimes, I don't know how to preach healing when the pains of living become greater than our desires for medicine and my humble words of support/solidarity. How does a tired/sad one prove and explain to a colonial-capitalistic society that softness is worth it ? How can I convince a starving Black queer man that mutual-aid is enough, how do I promise a homeless trans refugee that it gets better ? What can I do but to be there - to cry and starve but rejoice for the ways we survive together, only to grief of the abundance that we deserve... As feeling it all does not bring justice but sets a foundation for transformative justice, for collective healing with the empathy of no one being left behind. I've come to realized that when I center/honour my feelings, boundaries, and emotional capacities while embodying the future I dream of, I find myself breathing beyond survival but within an abundance of grace and worth by community. Thus the justices we seek around us and socio-politically need to be led by the justices we demand internally/interpersonally...

    Especially after trans day of remembrance/resistance/resilience while surviving a year full of grief in solitude (quarantine/lockdown), the urgency of self-preservation and care is crucial in honouring our feelings no matter the weight/ways of process. It is (un/re)learning to be soft with ourselves that we can offer the same for others, and it is affirming our diverse and complexed emotions that we honour our humanities as divine and deserving. When we must demand for our roses while alive and pray to rest/sleep in peace, where we grow our own flowers tired of waiting - there becomes a softness goldenly brewed and patiently breaking.

    I write poems just to feel alive: waiting on cheques via mail wasting on delivered meals while waking up to cold fries for lunch and crying for dinner. I lie anxiously between bedsheets and blankets lying to myself of how a body can sustain without food, I scream into pillows with how a mind suffocates. I try to work without becoming cold, I stay soft so I can stay alive as I meditate for another breath...

bodies and earth as one:
i dare to dream of freedom - of feelings
to believe in a liberation through softness
i dare to dream of abolishing the police and state
to rejoice in community in reparations and justice
i dare to dream of
remembering as resistance
in healing and sustaining our resilience

Why I Love Hating Myself

          sometimes i think that feeling suicidal is a blessing and a reminder for my ego, that i am nothing. yet sometimes i blame myself for feeling depression, as it is selfish to center myself even through sadness. a cynical part of me dares to ask, that maybe if the world would be more loving/caring when we just hated ourselves a little more... a balance of feeling nothing, and everything: i remind myself that humility is not of thinking oneself as lesser, but to just think of oneself less often. but then i am sad, and angry - mad at the world for escaping themselves, mad at the world for abandoning me, mad at myself for abandoning yet never escaping me. i want to cut myself as much as i want to set fires to city halls; i want to strangle myself as much as i want to hang nooses on colonial statues. i want to burn my skin as much as i wish to assassinate billionaires and police officers; i want to slap both me and those around close - as even though we are dying too, we still douse and drown in our own complicities and shames. what is so wrong with hating yourself ? what is wrong with truth, with deep introspection and reflection for accountability past/present/beyond ? what is so wrong, about confronting/confessing of all the ways we rot and hide ? is that not how we find freedom ? is that not why we fight for liberation ? there is something deeply disturbing for the ways we survive and function; deeply rooted in the oppression of our humanities, we might have even become fearful of our own reflections thus i wonder if we will ever find peace... i love hating myself, and my loneliness keeps me going. i hate myself, thus i embrace/seek/work for change, as change does not wait but collaborate... i hate the world, because i love the world. and i dare to hate myself deeper, to love the world better.

fall apart.

please

just, fall apart.

open your mouth.

and 

hurt. hurt the size of everything it is

- dam

by Nayyirah Waheed

          its ugly of me to wish the world to awake from sadness, but i don't know how else for us to unlearn without pain, without empathy... i have witnessed too many times and people coming together only to cope, for laughters that aren't ours to finish and for joy that isn't ours to own, only to escape from solitude. i pray myself to hold onto grace, for how the rotten can be bitter and sour too. i hate myself/the world so much thus relearning self/community-love/care becomes revolutionary in our essence, our bones, back to our ancestors and for the daughters of tomorrow. we must hold onto hope, through the love for and pains from life... i wonder if people smell the shame off of my community presence and advocacy, i wonder if they notice me shaking. i wander through rallies from protests to political demonstrations, i wander for sanity and salvation for another day. i am tired of self-care being not community care; i am exhausted for us so invested in becoming that we forget to just be, just breathe, just be...

We believers in softness here

Believe in imagination, the colour pink

Believe in ‘fuck the police’ poetry

Believe in our hearts as heaven. I believe in bath time

I believe in bubbles on my nose, and warm warm water

I believe in my bed. I love my bed... 

But sometimes I’m afraid that if I die everyone will be too tired to remember my name, 

so I take care of my little body

You, take care of your little body

Take care

So when all we have left is each other's song

And unknotted curls

And clammy hands

We can rejoice and dance for having loved our skin so well

For having found finally at the end a healthy way to hold

Take care

And repeat it

Ritual, until the syllables run on sentence down your spine

So that when the next deaths come, because they will

We will have vigour enough to remember their names

Speak them angel into our pillows at night

And wear them in our hair in the morning

- "Take Care" by TASHA

Drama Queen

CW/TW: mentions of mental illness, suicidal ideation...

          I remember a theatre teacher who said that just because I'm dramatic doesn't mean I'm good at drama. I remember hating myself growing up, being told that I'm too dramatic, emotional, and weak for a "boy". I remember coming out in high school, being turned against then to blamed for the drama once again... I remember sisters calling me dramatic, telling me that they wish I learn to chill in the city amongst the chaos. People tell me to rest, to pause, to stop doing, to stop crying, to stop being emotional and extra, but no one ever tries to understand the oceans I feel or to affirm the waves I try to stay alive at riding... They wonder why I live as if I'm in crisis but never dare to swim in my heart. People wander into my life to take, telling me to calm down but still call for emergencies and their needs/desires of joy that doesn't include mine... People have gotten so comfortable with my softness that they expect me to carry theirs while rotting with conditional compassions.

"sometimes the night wakes in the middle of me, and

i can do nothing but become the moon."

- Nayyriah Waheed

          I don't know how to stop imagining my body hanging, or to stop crying when alone, staring into walls and listening to silence. I feel myself ill but there's no one there to witness the show - such a shame, for how a trauma clown goes insane, as she is found in a room muffling screams and licking her own tears off the floor. Perhaps I like walking alone at night because I want to die unexpectedly, a suicide attempt every block just waiting to be clocked... The next available psychiatry appointment is in mid-July. I am tired and scared to keep on observing my mood swings, snapping at jokes, phrases, sentences, wrong-sized bed sheets, broken glass, and/or even changed traffic routes. I find a woman hysterically begging for softness, for empathy, for an embrace but only met with labels of a drama queen. I have never made excuses for my mental illnesses but am I really for blame to ask for more sensitivity and compassion ? Especially within my own communities, I become exhausted of coping and surviving together that we must reimagine ourselves better - softer/gentler - kinder.

"poetry is fire leaving my body"

- Nayyriah Waheed

          I went to the waters for teachings, trying to (un)learn peace and (re)learn joy... I burn sage for cleanse, sweetgrass for purity, lavender for faith, and cannabis for tranquility; I kneel in the sand praying for forgiveness as I sit by the rocks meditating on salvation. Dandelion and chamomile, alongside chrysanthemum in water, finally rebirthing, for healing... Like the ways I rot and die with houseplants in isolation - unwatered soils and ashes on leaves, when did my solitude become such self-destructions ? Neglect became a routine as I searched for worth in all place else, fitting myself into people like homes even if it means to make myself smaller, and smaller... just to be friend-/familyless/homeless at the end. A room is not a room without being as a house is not a home without breathing. Maybe I'm not enough I think/feel, but to remind myself of the ways we've all become too good to survive that we mistake it as living. As the truth is that in no reflections of our survival and pains are we truly learning to thrive.

          I am the earth desperate for water and air - enriched yet heavy in heart, still searching for softness while waiting to bloom. Exhausted and burnout I feel a forest fire starting within... I have so much to learn, I must give myself the time and space: A love letter of forgiveness in light, thus a reminder that we all deserve to start again even while hopeless and dreaming of death. Perhaps a new lesson is joy instead of pain, to example by healing. At times I feel guilty for being a storyteller and not a healer yet, for the days I can not offer joy and for the ways I may not deserve the glory. Though do believe me when I say that loving you almost makes living worth the pains, that the rest is up to us to grow gardens of community and mutual-aid. I have died so many times in mind today, replaying visuals of past/possible violence, waiting for a pause or a breath... Make no mistake as this story is not a drama but a documentary. We dare to witness and reimagine joy, through teachings of empathy thus the inner work of practicing compassionate reflections. To all persons of feelings: we must heal and stay alive, together, as the world is often too cruel and ready for our erasure/endings. 

"if the ocean can calm itself - so can you

we are both salt water mixed with air."

- Nayyriah Waheed

Crazy City Cunt v.s. Capitalism

CW/TW: mentions of mental health, suicidal ideation,

poverty, racism, and transphobic violence

          Im afraid of the cynicism it takes for a tranny of colour to survive the city... I say stay soft so we don't break, but how do you stay soft without rotting when they wrap barbwires on trees ? A sister/mentor once said to me: "One of the reasons I love you is because you smell the truth off of everything... I know from experience, as you do, that it's not easy to be a feeling person in this world." So a femme of feelings, going crazy and already clinically sad, rotting of chills and shades in a city that cries with sirens... Sometimes my mind still wonders of ways to die, replaying visuals of overdosing pills and walking in front streetcars - playing with darkness. A trans woman of colour wanders the downtown at midnight searching of moonlight, waiting for answers, for death...

          Less than two weeks of settling in and a call to house and support a black trans sister in need, running into the rain and streets of Tkaronto to find a friend of friends that I've only met once. Serving, caring, reaching out for resources and planning collective solidarity/action - we must all practice walking the talk while looking out for those in need and most vulnerable. Another sister joked about me having to cry silently at night now while caring for/rooming someone else. The truth is that I'm not mentally/financially well/stable enough to support much, but this is how trans women of colour survive, together and by each others side. Along the way I had learn sisterhood and self-motherhood as tools of collective thrive, while promising myself and my communities that no one gets left behind. And still I pray/beg for compassion and empathy from even within communities of marginalization, as we have been all too invested individually wether of survival or for "success".

          Instead of hiding my scars to serve, I wish to heal for us... I want power, but not how the world knows and understand it. Instead of being known for what I'm doing, I wish to be known for being/feeling/becoming. I want us to do enough, I want us to be enough, I want us to feel enough... I must continue (re/un)learning joy thus to heal for change/justice. I must cry a thousand rivers more if it means to water the soils after planting the seeds. We must dare to have hope, and reimagine love and peace no matter the pains... Though tonight I'm holding myself closer, crying a little louder, and embracing uncertainties tighter - I admit that I am tired, too often neglecting my worth/needs while taking on responsibilities passed down by communities/others. I say I'm here when no one else can be, but who will be here for me or for those after that I'm gone ? Why is it the same people always at the front-lines ? And how will I/we survive better, to serve/support better ?

"I crave a meaningful life of gasping in wonder... a riveting life of panting in heat... 

a ticklish life of chuckling and hollering... a sweet life of sighing and star gazing... 

a soft life of whispering and kissing... 

A life where the words 'I Can’t Breathe' just means 

I’ve been laughing a little too hard and I need to calm down. 

A life where I am granted the freedom to use more of 

my energy exploring myself, my community, and the world around me — 

rather than dedicating so much of that precious energy to 

protesting, challenging, and suffering white supremacy...

Let me breathe." - Princess Bouton

          They say be a storyteller, a care-giver, or a healer during these times, but why not be all ? I wish to care and heal as I connect stories. I wish to continue sharing our pains and our joys; I pray to keep on living despite hurting, surviving, and dying. I wish to become powerful through soft love, to become deeper within only to contribute widely... The privileges of flowing through the in-betweens, smoking a cigarette with tranny sisters talking of crisis-care next steps and joking on death, while the next day smoking a joint with cis-students complaining of boredom. People of institutional privileges question my beliefs/actions in abolishing the police, redistributing my income, and having too much on my plate, but the real issue here is passive/performative allyhood and folks thinking that two weeks of reposting #BlackLivesMatter is enough. Black and femme folks are still dying/mourning; trans folks are still murdered while denied of health-care/shelters. Black trans folks, especially femmes, deserve so much more. I don't understand how people have grown to be so apathetic/complicit, I don't know how to teach care and love if people are hesitant/afraid/refusing to feel... How can we heal ? I'm losing patience for teaching/sharing with crises around/within me - how do I maintain grace ? I'm becoming exhausted with empty commitments and selfish excuses of "self-care" from non-black/native/queer/trans, neurotypical, and non-suicidal people only for joys/peace never shared. I'm tired of BIPOC and trans peoples carrying our own pains while searching for healing and peace, I want us to be more responsible for our collective joys while "allies" step up to fight for the pains and injustices... Though I am let down in disappointment again and again - why I say I don't have friends but only sisters, chosen-families, and partners-in-crime, I wonder why I've continued hope in the same people who suggested going to the police after I was assaulted/ra*ed.

"Your anger is the part of you that knows your mistreatment and abuse are unacceptable.

Your anger knows you deserve to be treated well, and with kindness.

Your anger is a part of you that loves you..."

          Thus we love and work harder, we try and try again, we plan, we organize, we try to find peace among uncertainties; thus we search for softness and joy. Im afraid of the cynicism it takes for a tranny of colour to survive the city, but then I remind myself of how it is love and community that got me here and alive today. My understandings of survival has always been collective, and may my storytellings be soft evidences of truth and experiences/encounters. And it is to carry each other's bodies when sore and tired, as it is to carry each other's laughter while relearning joy, that we survive this together... I felt as if I cried a lake from last night til today - drowning from survival guilt, depression, PTSD, and anxieties, wondering and planning of what more I can do without starving, exhaustion, and/or dying. I pray for healing, I mediate on community, and I continue active allyhood with care... Always balancing lines of the in-betweens, and while at the intersections of privilege and oppression, I ask myself - is my justice and healing not worth it too ? I've got so much to learn and let go, I must continue listening to/following those who have survived before and have continued to survive, organize, and thrive, both in self-preservation community support/solidarity. And instead of neglecting myself of rest/joy, I want to still manifest joy and healing for sharing. We've come to know our grief and loneliness so well, thus we must also remind ourselves of hope, of how we got here and how far we've come - only to go further for a breath, together...

what are the colours of leaves from branches wrapped in barbwires ?

how do flowers still bloom while wilting ?

and are we still breathing even though rotting ?
...

In a world where my existence and our pride are ongoing threats,

take care and take rest, as 

the revolution needs us after to rebuild the world again... 

          Rest in power and ever soft peace Chantel Moore, Dominique Fells, Riah Milton, and Oluwatoyin (Toyin) Salau. Say their names and demand/act for justice.

Community Resources/Actions:

#BlackTransLivesMatter - Solidarity

Prisoner Emergency Support Fund

Support for family of Chantel Moore

NABL Black & Indigenous 2SLGBTQ Fund

Sending Riah home

Intersections of Disability & Race

Grief Is a Black Trans Femme 

City Blues: Melancholy

CW/TW: mentions of death, grief, trauma, homelessness,

mental health, sexual violence, suicidal ideations...

"Later that night, I held an atlas on my lap,

ran my fingers across the whole world, 

and whispered, 'where does it hurt ?'

It answered: everywhere

everywhere,

everywhere..."

- Warsan Shire

          I can't stop crying, anywhere and everywhere in the city - whether in an empty room waiting to be furnished despite/among economic uncertainties, or while walking to the harbour waterfront in socio-political anxieties: she is wilting but still waiting and meditating on love. Downtown Tkaronto reminds me of growing up in Taipei with all walks of life on the streets and traffic sounds all night-long. It reminds me of back when I was dreaming of New York City too, of how I envisioned a femme searching for love and herself among skyscrapers/city greens always in style... However, the city can still be cold and lonely in such warming Spring, especially with me growing into more a community server and observer against capitalism instead of an advocate/lover for a comfortable city/urban life... I see neighbours wrapping barbwires around trees - drawing lines of difference and constructing barriers of defence in our own backyards, thus I pray for what suffering must the trees feel and endure because of our egotistic needs/desires ? I ordered a new bed because I don't know how to stop crying on a mattress that I've been ra*ed on. I have become so tired, even in my sleeps - I feel as if I have forgotten how to dream... I called my mother crying after midnight apologizing for moving away, asking if I deserve and if my body is worth buying a queen-sized bed... I don't know how to function or keep up with violence, the world is burning/fighting and yet people are still walking animals past humans sleeping on benches. I feel and become exhaustion: I scroll/type on screens for scattering heartbeats; I hold onto my device tight as if its my last breath to post, to share, to repost, to donate, to check-in, to rant, to cry, to rot, and to numb... I scroll past hours and days, triggers and needs for a break, a meal, and/or even a breath.

"Take Care & Take Rest, as

The Revolution needs you after to

Rebuild the world..."

- @theoriginaldijah

          Looking back, my mother had always held her children while running towards the unknown for safety and peace - from capitals of Taiwan/Singapore/Malaysia then to the rural suburbs of white silence in 'Canada'. Yet maybe its also why I feel that I must come back to the collective pains for salvation - thus challenging the comforts of avoidance while constantly confronting settler-colonial privileges. This is not just about knowing people in situations anymore, it's about living among situations and witnessing suffering daily: rotting from the inside out eating meals only after seeing someone go through garbages for food... I wonder of when/how we humans had become so trashy while claiming to have class and with righteousness slowly digesting inside - eating each other's empathy as feasts like the lands we looted. It has taken me weeks of solitude with my impostorism to understand again the magic/pains of surviving through the in-betweens... I remember last summer when I was concerned with unemployment and unstable housing thus a sex worker then a survivor from encountering ra*e and assaults. I remember how it was other sex workers who have fed me, how it was other queer/trans femmes of colour who have supported me with funds and support. I remember how it was black women/femmes who taught me resistance and it was two-spirit/queer/trans indigenous folks who have taught me resilience and joy. I would not have known care and love as a storyteller and as an immigrant trans woman/femme without the communities still constantly hurting but giving... Thus now I continue listening from the back rows while supporting the front-lines during these difficult times demanding for social justice. Now that we know better, we must do/be better. Though this is what many of us have been preparing, studying, waiting for. It is an important note for all allies to know that no matter the contexts: we are guests upon arrival while our hosts are already tired.

          Moving into downtown and (trying to) moving on from a heartbreak - I am becoming tired of crying to sleep in melancholia only to wake from an ambulance praying/mourning myself back to sleep. I am exhausted of witnessing constant police patrol and officers harassing folks experiencing substance-withdraw or homelessness. It worries me to hear sirens and it angers me to see cop cars; I feel sick watching a "Queer-Eye" makeover episode for a person experiencing homelessness while knowing/seeing too many experiencing unstable housing on a daily. I'm tired of balancing in-between lines/circles/experiences of contrasting politics and priorities... I don't know how to feel while witnessing and accessing both lifestyles of privilege and survivals of marginalization. I am angry that I have "educated" peers who would tell me to report to the police after I've been ra*ed and asked what to do if their cars get stolen when we advocate for defunding the police/military. I am upset that many people can still wake up oblivious and go out with full safety/access; I am disappointed that most still search for comfort and individualistic joys with such ignorance as bliss, while others are at the front-lines and us as allies supporting and also reflecting on how we can/must do better... Yet the burdens of educating our (privileged) peers and deepening one's actioning allyship is no labours of those already fighting but ours still listening. And the most uncomfortable conversations just may be the ones in our classrooms, friend/peer-groups, families within homes and other private spheres of traditions. Though we should also be mindful of our capacities, triggers, and possibilities of facing violence while being marginalized allies as well... My mental health capacities have been at a new low and I am really trying to cope/survive with the suicidal ideations, internal doubts of worth, and self-harming/destructive tendencies, especially during these times of extra uncertainties. I feel both hopeful and hopeless, as Turtle Island (North America) may not afford a revolution with such majorities of white middle-class, but then isn't it the time to reimagine freedoms and elevating/expanding notions of organizing ? Through my weeks of internal spiral and patterned explorations on humanity and justice, I always come back to the poetics/politics of death, thus I know the answer has to be love... As it is empathy that will lead us to the light, no matter how hard the fight; and it is only through love that we bring light into life.

"... I have died so many times

So when I told you that loving you almost makes life worth it I was not joking. 

When I tell you that loving you almost makes me forget 

how much I hate myself, It is not poetry. 

Loving you is taking all of the love I could never give myself and putting it to good use. 

It is reminding myself that if someone can love a dying thing this way, 

can hold the Lazarus of my body and give thanks for the way it holds back -

if someone can kiss the scars administer the pills absorb the bad days and 

wake up smiling next to me, then I can try to breathe again...

Because self-love does not always come first. Or second. Or even ever. 

But your love be the guardrail on the edge 

be the drawers that hide all the sharp things 

be the body that carries my collapsed frame into bed 

be the flowers you bought; because even though 

they are dying too they still dance...

Love will not heal me, will not wipe my slate of my body clean - 

I will always be a woman of wounds of rope-mark neck and melted skin. 

Love will not heal me; but it will hold my hand if I ever heal myself and 

maybe teach me a joke that I can stay alive long enough to laugh at...

I love you,

enough to want to 

love myself too..."

- Nayo Jones: Healing

Community Resources/Actions/Reflections:

2020 Toronto Police Budget - Call For Action/Defunding Template

Justice for Regis: NOT ANOTHER BLACK LIFE

The answer to police violence is not 'reform'. It's defunding.

What public health experts want critics to know about why they support the protests

Journalist and writer Desmond Cole calls for Toronto Police Service to be defunded

So after we abolish prisons and policing...then what?: A Black Feminist Dialogue

Indigenous Youth Outreach

A Fund for Black-led Mental Health Supports

Men Who Love & Kill

(by Warsan Shire)

CW/TW: poetics/politics of death, murder, transphobia, sexual violence,

mentions of anti-black violence and police brutality...

          How is that love becomes one's drive/force to kill ? Perhaps because fear is part of love too, as "our men do not belong to us... Then the men we try to love, say we carry too much loss, wear too much black, are too heavy to be around, much too sad to love. Then they leave and we mourn them too. Is that what we’re here for? To sit at kitchen tables, counting on our fingers the ones who died, those who left and the others who were taken by the police, or by drugs, or by illness or by other women. It makes no sense. Look at your skin, her mouth, these lips, those eyes, my God, listen to that laugh. The only darkness we should allow into our lives is the night, and even then, we have the moon..." (Warsan Shire).

          I don't know how many little naps I've had to take to escape reality in the past few days. The amount of media witnessing/documenting/visualizing continuous trans deaths, anti-black murders, and cases of police brutalities, informations carrying the heaviness of such patterning melancholy, grief, and rage. Social media then becomes a violent daily reminder for the uncertainties of marginalized lives as well as the systems of marginalized deaths, even among uncertainties of global health... I started writing this piece to heal through understanding the pains/intersections of trans and femme violence/deaths, and how femininities have been raised/taught to love/protect masculinities that often hurt us. The relations between violence, cis-masculinity, and trans-femininity has been of betrayal for the notions that we as penis/ego-holders choosing paths of softness instead... Yet it is through grace and studying violence for freedom, that I know we must continue to challenge masculinities while embracing/caring for men and folks with identities that are masculine-centered. Especially through the years of witnessing both cis and trans men (re/un)learning toxic/hyper-masculinities, often which is even more challenge/of survival burdens for racialized/migrant men... It's been a critique brewing within, as even though I joke about loving men/masculinity as an unfortunate event from the experiences of ra*e and violence, the studies/advocacy of feminist movements have often left out the work of healing collectively across genders thus the rehabilitations of toxic/hyper-masculinities. We must learn from the legacies of native/black feminism as #BlackLivesMatter too is a social movement with many feminine organizers as main leaderships, often advocating for masculine narratives of experiencing violence (centered in mass media). It brings the attention to the silence surrounding deaths of black/indigenous women/femmes as well...

          As a non-black individual: the pains of anti-black violence is not mine, even though I have felt by witnessing/living/understanding the world around me, the violences against people I love, and the police harassments and physical/sexual assaults from positionalities of being trans, racialized, feminine, a sex worker from past survival circumstances... My sympathy falls on the spectrum of colonial-constructions for racialization and colourist violence, and I (re/un)learn my allyhood daily by reminding myself that I will never be able empathize without references to other intersecting measures of experiencing violences nor will I ever be able to understand/feel the mourning of black families/friends/loved ones. Thus as much as pain allows us to unite narratives through support and solidarity, I believe in the compassionate politics of (re/un)learning absence as an ally: not absence as ignorance/denial/inaction, but absence as in knowing when to shut up or leave, to not take up space when you're only a guest to this narrative of feeling/learning. It is understanding that even with a common enemy, that support is also by simply offering space to grief/heal, even if it's in private/silence... Thus again from legacies of how "in the Black Panthers’ paper Huey Newton (August 1970) wrote 'A letter to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters about Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation' arguing that they were fellow revolutionary movements and pledging the Panthers to support gay liberation": It is the responsibilities of allyhood to demand for justice, to support and show up in solidarity along front-line activists as well as healers.

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today." - Malcolm X (1962)

          I think over the years of surviving/studying violence as well as loving masculinities that I become a (re)searcher/fighter for softness. And I believe that in order to achieve true gender liberation/peace/equity, we must work with masculinities through compassionate/empathy politics, collective (re)learning of emotional intelligence and notions of strength, as well as allowing masculinities to rehabilitate in their own organicalities (as I am only a feminine essence even if educational to toxic/hyper-masculinities)... Like the ways trans/awakening women/femmes rebirth femininities: it is for masculine-centered folks to finalize/actualize their glories in softness as well. Thus how I observe/study my navigation/survival with men/masculinities too, in many ways I find hyper-masculine men/masculinities to yearn for a safe space to embrace/express softness, as they are surviving through the violence of patriarchy too, especially racialized men under colonial-white-supremacy. My experiences with cis-white men have been mostly cases of asian/trans-fetishizing chasers and creepy old men who wants a young toy to keep, or an insecure man wanting a girl that's "different" for something "new". I found that many cis-white men (I've encountered with) feel comfortable and validated (or on the toxic ends of the spectrum: entitled) with their yearn for care and acceptance of difference, though often socialized as the "nice guys", I still find traces of manipulation or denials of privilege/entitlement in the courtships that are never in my best interests... The loving/killing/lusting of intersex/trans/non-binary folks is not generally a racial issue but one gendered, often concerning the violences of cis/toxic/hyper-masculinity. Yet the racialization of masculinities and the layers of violence as survival makes it much of a racial issue too while we think for the queer/2-Spirit/trans Black/Indigenous folks, who have always been at the forefronts of community advocacy no matter if feminine/masculine-centered, polygendered, genderly-fluid, or communicated/expressed to be agendered... I humbly navigate through layers of socio-political violences to understand pain and melancholia, hoping to (re/un)learn grief for healing and to contribute softness as an ally/friend, a flower/lover, and/or a sister/mother/daughter.

          As grief starts the journey of healing: the first lesson to freedom. In "Black Queer Studies, Freedom, and Other Human Possibilities" with reference to Marlon Rigg’s works: “His homopoetics is importantly a different embodiment, one that speaks its pain as potential freedom. In that moment, Riggs highlights how our lives can make no sense outside of his coming death, the collective deaths of Riggs, Joe Beam, Hemphill, and especially Audre Lorde—the foundations of a black queer studies—demand to think desire and politics in the present as a way of making reparation with ‘our dead behind us.’ Such reparation allows for a life that can be lived with a freedom not yet felt, but one genuinely yearned for. Freedom as a way toward new ways of being human in the present, ways of being human in which black life preceded black death and is continually fashioned by death even before its birth—our embodiment takes place in the context of reckoning with life-death-world experience” (Walcott 2013)...

          And after recent viral cases of black/trans murders in the Americas with public medias advocating justices for Tony Mcdade, Regis Korchiniski, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Nina Pop... Not to mention trans latina/xs' survival as Layla Peláez and Serena Angelique Velázquez murdered in Puerto Rico, and Jesusa known locally as Chucha found recently beheaded in Mexico, as well as the other continuing deaths globally/transnationally - no matter documented/visible/recognized or not. I can only write of grief now after reflecting on freedom, and as Judith Butler reminds us: "All these lost lives are grievable, which means that they are lives worthy of acknowledgment, equal in value to every other life, a value that cannot be calculated" (2020)... Often times I see trans-feminine faces online with a sense of familiarity, they become my sisters, maybe from the relations of survival or maybe just my brain playing tricks after seeing reposts after reposts, yet thus I understand/feel better/deeper of the notions and discourses described in "Black Queer Studies, Freedom, and Other Human Possibilities". As a trans woman of colour with our global life-expectancy of 35 years old, it becomes more than poetry reading the words “our dead behind us” while feeling/carrying the weight of my mothers/sisters/femmes/siblings; from the missing and murdered Indigenous folks, the violence against our brothers, to the often trafficked and sexually abused racialized intersex/trans sex workers - I grief in melancholia with a collective promise in solidarity: navigating/fighting/learning/teaching for those alongisde/after us... However, its still important to respect/honour difference even when bridging identities/experiences and aligning politics in the name of intersectionality/unity; my community-understandings/actions in solidarity must emerge from the reflections/critiques against the violence/solitude of embodying settler-colonialism. And though understanding such intersections of violence through empathizing experiences of commonality, it is to note of trans-misogynoir as black trans women/femme are still the most targeted as subjects of murder/homicide while native/black cis/trans-men continue to die from police brutalities and state violences...

          So healing through love: How do we begin ? Other than the continuing lessons of allyhood and actionable solidarity, I pray we rest, especially in ever so softness for the black folks retraumatized. With a softer essence as a fighter for love, it is only in love's full glory that we demand for justice, even if it means no peace... Resonating with Murther Luther King Junior's reminder of how "a riot is the language of the unheard" (1965), it is importantly necessary to recognize/embrace the heavy histories and emotions in the awakening from painful losses. May we find healing slowly, gently, and gloriously through support/solidarity, while our community front-liners and allies demand for and organize towards justice fiercely... Sending love and light to all especially those often caring for others - the activists/organizers/healers/care-takers/lovers during this time.

Community Resources/Actions:
Anti-Racism Resources
MINNESOTA FREEDOM FUND
Justice For Regis
Justice For Tony McDade

Moving In & On

("Solitude" by Warsan Shire)

"God, my alone feels so good, but lately I’ve craving something more, something deeper

I want love. But not just any kind of Love,
no, I want a love so deep it’d make the ocean jealous.

But I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude...

You must love me for everything I’m worth,

and then some..."

          Why loving has been so painful, like embracing a rainbow only to be left with the wind ? Maybe love will always be painful for "I'm lonely so I do lonely things"; Maybe love will always be bitter when I don't love myself thus a bittersweet lesson of self-preservation... Then "I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things," and "I had to leave [because] I felt lonely when he held me..." Maybe I wasn't ready for love, but perhaps the lesson also had its timing. I remembered saying I would never sleepover at a mans, and funny how now I still cry myself longing to be held: "Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you. I'm a lover without a lover; I'm lovely and lonely"... Now that I have tasted and felt love, I still fear myself in love ironically when love has been what's keeping me alive as well. The truth is that I'm afraid of my solitude, but I also know that without loving myself first by example, the world will never learn to carry my heavy heart... However, sometimes I wonder if maybe the lesson's never to teach the world but to just practice the art of self-love, to not just write poetry but to actually believe that "I belong deeply to myself" ("34 Excuses For Why We Failed at Love" by Warsan Shire).

          I'm afraid of moving on; I'm afraid of not being loved, I'm afraid of not loving enough, I'm afraid of not being enough... I pray for vulnerability to lead me onto paths of freedom, I meditate on the nights of feeling hopeless and I honour the rivers I've cried to survive. Yet I must do better, I have to... Instead of crying and holding myself through darkness, the lesson is perhaps to love myself through it, to embrace myself no matter the worth. As like the moon, we don't always feel full but we are still loved and deserving of light, no matter the phase...

          I'm also afraid of moving in, as I'm moving into the city for June, finally, but still during a pandemic. I always make decisions my mother questions, but I tell myself that the uncertainties of others only make my mission more deeply personal. I'm not to be understood by reasons, but to be by feelings. I know I make decisions to constantly challenge my comfort zones, almost as if I don't allow myself to have comfort zones... Virgo in both Sun & Moon: being good is not/never good enough; there is always a work in progress. Maybe it's positive to obsess over self-betterment and improvement, as my processes so far have been just studying/working as worth and rotting slowly at home... I need change, close to community, and compassion. I need a room above earth, I need sunlight, I need to start planting and growing the gardens I have been planning. I want a new room and bed, a new start, a new chapter. And I wish this time I know it's not to run away but to resettle/refocus/relearn of loving my own solitude, in all phases again...

          What do I deserve ? Why does a flower deserve to bloom ? ... I'm afraid of not being happier after I've moved aboveground, but isn't it unfair ? I know happiness to be one's responsibility but for me it has only felt like a burden. Maybe I'm getting too comfortable in my sadness, thus unsafe in solitude... The lesson of this Spring/Summer becomes a soft reminder, of patience and healing as I start to plant/water my garden within. I come to slowly realize that it is never too late for a wilting houseplant, to dream/plan of love, freedom, and light.

"... Remember that I want to be loved as deep as the ocean, but 

Remember that I am like the ocean -

I can slip through your fingers, but manage to hold up an army of ships

Kiss me, hold me, love me, but tell me if you’re not up for it...

I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude"

- "Solitude" by Warsan Shire

My First Man/Love/Relationship

("For Women Who Are 'Difficult' to Love" by Warsan Shire)

          I hesitate with the idea of having someone close and intimate. I'm scared to rot comfortably in someone's comforts, to make a home out of human desperate for care... Yet it really comes when you least expect it: the pains of loving and the pains of loneliness meet me here at the intersections of both memories and imagination. I am thankful, for those who have helped given me lessons/stories of love in my life, even if it is through crying then understanding... I'm also humbled by loving/being loved, as I will always have more to give from within for those too concerned/occupied with survival to fill in substance, to love/be loved fully. And yet I still apologize for my trial-and-error in loving myself deeper thus caring for others better, as I shall then continue to (re/un)learn through loving beyond.

Me: "... but you're not a criminal."

Him: "baby... I'm a Black man in America"

          I remember our first night together last August: cuddling/sleeping naked, kissing and sharing stories of our past, holding each other tighter... No sex, even though he had already made me feel so safe in his arms, he knew of a soft night was what I needed. It was just weeks after I was ra*ed, and it wasn't the first time encountering a man of complicated pasts either. A rough intellect I would say, troubled with memories of societal neglect that still haunts him until today. And not the first time I have people who I care about having experiences of street violence, financial/housing instability, childhood traumas...etc but as lovers I felt like it began as trauma-bonding/trading/sharing, and I was scared of a toxic attachment... like between my parents.

          About 8 months of learning each other's touch: he shared knowledges of herbal/crystal meditation/healing, I shared poems and political imaginations, continuing conversations about both the intersections and differences of black/trans lives, and how our sexualities are impacted by society. I remember fighting into 3AM about the usage/violence of fetishization and porn productions, but I also remember him holding me doing breathing exercises at 5AM when I shook with flashbacks and panic attacks... He is older, his economic ambitions remind me of my father and his brothers, his aggression reminds me of men and men before but he is different: he is goofy/funny, always trying to make me smile, he's smart and secretly soft deep inside - only when no one else is around... I asked him often about me not feeling prioritized/cared-for and why he even loves me, he would asked me why I can't just be more patient and "chill". Women/femmes spend their lives waiting for loved ones, and maybe selfish but I can not wait for change nor peace, not here at "home". He overworks and hustles hard on wheels around the city, and though unrelated but I hate how he never uses a wallet so his things are just everywhere in his pockets/bag. I don't know why I encounter and entertain so many deliverymen, both of goods and drivers of people... It's a lot to unpack, and as a trans woman/femme of colour who have very limited subjects of interests/attraction after eliminating tranny-chasers of fetishization, old (and mostly white) sugar daddies, and "discreet" married men, I find myself left with also a margins of men and masculine folks of complex backgrounds/stories. I dislike patterns of heteronormativity in my connections of intimacy, and I really am open to more possibilities beyond cis-men, especially when trans-masculine folks are sexy in the city and some butch woman/femmes have gotten me more open minded about my own romantic attractions as well... Yet as long as I am with a cisgender man, there becomes layers of socialized-heteronormativity and internalized-homophobia to unpack (yes even with queer men too), especially in a positionality of a trans woman without bottom surgery and for if/when the connection ever becomes sexual (even though most are already lustful due to the fetishizing reality of transhood after colonialization, often even more desired without bottom surgery for the fantasy of a secret cock).

          I started to be aware of my connections/relationships/encounters with racialized cis-men and their stories/struggles, especially when I also push to have more personal/emotional conversations. Often I find cis-men to open up not only because I try my best to create a safe space but also because perhaps their time with a trans woman/femme becomes an escape from the burdens of cis-heteronormative hyper-masculinities, especially as racialized cis-men, migrants, as black men... Their stories struggling with masculinity is not mine to ever share or use as public analysis, but I dare to be truthful to the narratives I've encountered/involved with as so many trans mothers and sisters have been hurt/killed from just loving cis-men, waiting for masculinities to (re/un)learn and change. Maybe a selfish project of coping with past sexual violence, maybe desperate for stories/evidence of humanization/empathy or an allyship over sadness/loneliness/survival... I find my attraction towards trauma not a romantic issue with relational subjects while definitely involving and impacting intimate relationships, but as a toxicity deeply rooted in my survival methodologies navigating self-love and stupid poetic-hopeless-romantic self. Thus really, I thought I would not fall in love just yet... til I do, hard.

Him: "don't worry, I'm eating right now... consuming love from you."

          He supported me with herbs and groceries, and I would support him financially and with accessibility here and there also. The heaviness of such love made me grow cold, and I began to realize how loving/caring words and company won't feed a person or pay one's debt. Nor could any amount of reassurance can settle my mind when the people I care about are hungry/unsafe. I was exhausted/lonely for waiting: worried daily wondering if he's safe on the road, if he has eaten, and if he has slept enough, etc. Such relationship has confronted me with harsh truths of societal/economic as determination of priority... How can I love and convince a person to pause/breathe when capitalism chases them day and night ? What is my care and allowance of access worth to their survival and how can we do better, for each other and together ? Like the ways me and my sisters support each other, like the ways the community feeds me with both resources and teachings, and like the ways we can continue loving/caring for each other: I knew we had to become partners/allies/friends, anything but lovers...

"I know my love,

It's forgiving

It's gentle

It's long-suffering

It's tucking away my tears and listening to

your reasons for hurting me

It's piecing together your childhood trauma

and feeling sympathy for the darkness you still carry

My love will remove the light from my eyes

to find beauty in all your dark places 

My love is deep and beautiful and sacred...

But my love

My love no longer lives in the hands of those who abuse it

My love belongs to me."

- Aschel St Ville (@sabrinajpoetry)

          I realize now that I must not thank him for meeting after I was ra*ed but to thank myself... However, I do thank him for holding me holier and wiping my tears away, reminding me that while I am searching for softness in others, that softness is already in me too... My first relationship didn't have room for romance, no time to pause, always on the go, and maybe selfishly I wanted superficiality like dates of youth simple pleasures. Somewhere on the dance floor of marginalization we found each other, holding onto one another in times of need but isn't love more than survival ? Yet in explaining my decision to break-up in the simplest way is the struggle between attraction and compatibility. Especially when he's a virgo too... where he is growing a mountain and I'm planting a garden, thus friendship/partnership is what I've proposed. He is wiser and much more understanding, it has been hard to move on from my feelings for him while still keeping in touch and caring closely. I can't help but wonder if it's because he needs my resources too, yet it's unfair that I often in analysis question my attraction to him as care after violent circumstances, and his attraction to me as accessibility... The emotions of/from such connection have been strong but unstable, and I am still learning to process/cope without turning too cold/analytical/cynical.

Him: "babe I'm a dreamer not a thief."

I know baby, I know...

          He has always been a dreamer for freedom as I am for love. I will miss us sharing lessons of life/culture/history with each other through intimacy, yet someday maybe again, when we're better and more stable. I will always remember and miss waking up to him smoking a joint and holding me close, him making jerk-chicken quesadillas for brunch, and him gone to the store for juice. He is the first man who has taught me of truly loving/being loved, and he was open to change/grew/blossomed so much along the way as well... I know we will continue supporting each other and navigate our feelings and circumstances, but I know I need a break from romantic intimacy and committed relationships for now. It breaks my heart but he also said that one day I'm going to find someone "softer, more relaxed, and not pressured from goals like an animal"... We didn't go to the mall nor markets/festivals because crowds and families could be triggers; we didn't do valentine's day because he wanted/needed to work. Yet I was understanding while constantly checking my privileges as well; I have nothing but gratitude as we did make it our little universe even just spending time inside smoking and ordering in take-out (with only occasional trips to nature). We were my first love story and I will always treasure the memories of us as lovers while imagining/practicing for love/care beyond...

My first love story: where

A flower sends her kisses to

A mountain with petals in the wind,

And the mountain embracing her 

with dancing leaves flowing from streams

...

It ends beyond attraction and compatibility

in support and solidarity:

We become family,

We build community,

We (re/un)learn to love better -

A breakup or wakeup, for

An ending is but another start

...

We wake up today and tomorrow:

Loving ever so softer, for

Those after us and to the world/beyond