On Accountability & 'Cancel Culture'

    I've found myself having to apologize a lot in my life, and it's not because of always hurting/harming people but a trauma response for often not feeling enough... Yet I've really taken this opportunity to examine/reflect/study accountability, anatomies of an apology, guilt, and ethical responsibilities to each other within/across/between communities, as well as the feelings/healing that fuels such emotional phenomenon of (re/un)learning, calling-in/out, diverse definitions/demands of duties/ideals within/across/between relationships, and forgiveness as well as reparations/restorations after impact... Thus how do we even begin with the guilt of being, when my existence/presence on stolen land contributes directly to the violence and continuance of settler-colonialism ? I've come to learn to use my guilt as drive, as basis of my passion and will for Indigenous sovereignty, as my being would be nothing without the resilient becomings of the elders, youths, and the water/land protectors across Turtle Island... 

    But verbal/emotional/mental acknowledgement is far from enough, as it takes practice to relearn languages, to unlearn mindsets/impulses/behaviours, to understand/learn how to make space, what it means to create softness/safety, to invest in mutual-aid and more meaningful connections, to buy/purchase Black/Indigenous-owned services as well as to always give back/thanks/credit. I remind myself that there is no 'enough' when it comes to allyhood for all livelihoods, as there's always room to love, care, and learn better/more. And I often think about the differences between interpersonal and socio-political accountabilities, how they intersect and how each serves differently in diverse circumstances... I've had the honour to (un/re)learn thus humbly reference Rania El Mugammar's teachings/work: The Anatomy of An Apology for better understandings/reflections upon accountability. One thing I've also learned over the years is that if we're truly sorry and remorseful about our faults/harmful impact, we should not even be seeking forgiveness at all - we should we seeking and working towards reconciliation through harm reduction with minimal feedings/centerings of our feelings. It is to understand that the relief to our guilt is not being given forgiveness necessarily but to be a worthy and useful contribution to their healing by duty/responsibility/care. Thus to be accountable, is to reconciliACT in changed behaviours/ideals for the betterment of those impacted/harmed/exploited/neglected. Even if that looks like leaving them alone, to give space for process/healing, and to honour the boundaries needed when they are impacted no matter the state/excuse. One of the most important lessons of mine is also to understand that not all can be fixed or forgiven, thus our guilts/regrets really are just fixations on our feelings without clear conscious of what is needed for reconciliation and justice. I remembered years ago being compassionately called-in with words/labels like "savage"/"spirit animals" that I've learnt from mainstream/pop culture, and til today I am thankful for those reminders/teachings thus knowing how to navigate/serve better within/between/through interpersonal relations and for the defence/honour of Indigenous presence/history/resilience. One of the lessons I'm also grateful for was from a virtual and meditative conversation/smoking session with someone I consider a great friend/femme-fam/ally and mentor over the years, and we spoke about our crafts, poetry, and words... also how we can easily find anti-Blackness even in the romanticizations of healing through words - comparing lightness and darkness, using words like the shadows in relation to trauma... How can we write and heal without historical/cultural measures/norms of negativity surrounding darkness ? What about weight and heaviness ? As a writer/poet and emotional being I confess of using language like "feeling heavy", and I now know that contributes to the mindset of heaviness/fatness = negativity. I believe that all is connected and influenced thus a sort of responsibility to analyze and reflect in every circumstance/interaction/sentence/conversation/incidence to truly hold ourselves accountable to our ideas/speech/actions/impact. Yet aside from being accountable to both ourselves and others through interpersonal/socio-psychological relations, what about our commitments to community as a collective ? And how we navigate/serve personal relations/responsibilities while through community guidelines/duties remain a lesson/journey/test of our fair support/solidarity for justice.

    Then we have what's known as "cancel culture" - which I believe to be rooted in notions of community safety/care but often polluted with social media performativity/spectacality, and false/tainted intentions/presentations of politics... The possibilities of being canceled has been a common joke/punchline from certain peers surrounding my work and social profile. It still brings me great discomfort when joked about being "canceled"/"exposed" in the future as it makes me question if people my age actually believe in my/my work's genuineness/values at all, but also a reminder of the realities of serving/organizing communities publicly. At the end of the day, my name is not mine when I've chosen to work for/towards community, and I believe it to be an honour even if it becomes a trigger of anxiety/panic over how others view/think/speak of me. Yet I stand softly and strong in my essence as I hope for my character to be firm, foundational, and transparent enough to not have to explain/defend myself when times come controversies. And though I've learned to stay away from drama and often keeping my full opinion/analysis/understanding to myself, recently I was still forced into the spotlight as a target of being canceled/unfollowed on Instagram... It all surrounds me being approached by a local organization/team of queer/trans Asians who posts/organizes/hosts campaigns as well as events centering Queer/Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour narratives. They reached out back in the Summer to include me in a photoshoot which I was honoured/humbled to accept, however the concept was to have me wear a t-shirt with words of "Jolliqueen" while eating Jollibees fried chicken. I knew that Jollibees from the Philippines and had checked in with their team as well as a close Filipino friend/sister at the time, and was explained that their whole team/organization involved were Filipino and they were okay/wanted to cast me even though I'm Taiwanese. I was also encouraged/supported by my sister/friend back then and had a fairly pleasant time participating in the campaign - but now a few months later before the photos even came out, I was now called to be cultural appropriating and racist of/towards Filipino culture... Thus now I know in my deepest apologies/regrets that I should have never agreed to appear in a campaign when another trans Filipino person would have been the perfect fit. It was never my intention to take up space where it's not appropriate and maybe the flatter/vanity got to my ego before my conscious could be clear. There's no excuse or forgiveness needed as I should have been smarter and questioned myself more. Though I'm glad to have the organizers/team respond so professionally/compassionately as we all agreed that the photos just won't be used/posted when time comes. And I'm only thankful that this was dragged out with intentions to cancel my name by a hurting friend instead of community outrage/disapproval/responses that could come after posting... Maybe it's a sign for me to never model seriously/professionally, or just a reminder to trust my initial questions/doubts - if I needed to check-in with their team on their casting decision and creative directions, then having to double-check/unpack with a community member, then I probably shouldn't have accepted the gig (not that I was compensated/profited in any way). I'm not perfect, and I know I must do better and hold myself more transparent/accountable to each person/community I interact, encounter, and collaborate if I dare claim to love/care/honour.

    Also not to use such (un/re)learning experience to critique/debunk cancel culture, but an example of the usage/exploitations of social media and politics as intentional tactics/tools to hurt/harm/slender/call-out someone's public name/presence unforgivingly... I believe in community accountability and canceling/calling-out publicly as tools of harm reduction and announcements of safety measures. I believe in calling-out predators and abusers for the safety/care of victims/survivors within communities, I believe in publicly shaming and dishonouring discriminative/violent practices/services across communities. I believe in the need for being accountable, honest, and true to ourselves - but not like this, not how names are thrown without decency and respect, not when shared traumas in private are used so ruthlessly without empathy, not virtually online where compassion is already fatigued. I become so sad and disappointed of how many chooses to follow/unfollow without further investigation/understanding, thus I come to realize that the internet public is often more interested in a gasp then in whole truths. And I must remind myself of softness, of standing in my vulnerability against judgement and accusations, I must again remind myself of true allyship and accountabilities. I remind myself to stay myself, as I've learned that realness will always be questioned and tested... 

    I call on us to invest into community healing, into what comes next after calling-in/out, into learning what it takes for reparative/restorative justice. I wish we can grief softly over the love and fights we've lost, and to remain respectful through circumstances/complications. I pray for us to heal, as I demand for empathy and more compassion even in socio-political analysis/reflections... I believe in our growth, as even a survivor I call for abolishing the prisons - I believe in humanity and healing. I believe in holding truth and our communities even safer, closer, and softer.

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

On Racial Belonging & Solidarity

    Home is wherever water flows - as being immigrant and trans have layered my experiences, feelings, and navigations around/to the concepts of home and belonging...

    I remembered at the age of 11 turning 12 - moving countries again and again before settling in 'Canada', across the globe and far away from my East-Asian Island home. It was a contrast compared to living in Singapore and Malaysia as well, where flights to/from Taiwan were only 4-5 hours long. Yet I remembered being excited to leave and begin again despite the uncertainties of distance and language/cultural barriers... I wanted to start over and do/be better, socially as a feminine "boy" tired of being bullied at every school I went to. I told myself that I must learn to fit in and make friends, forcing myself to be more masculine and thus why I tried hanging out with many cis-guy classmates in grade 7 when I first came. And fast-forward to failed attempts of learning cis-masculinity, repressing queerness/trans-femininity, and toughing out against endless gay/fat jokes, which resulted in me finally coming out as a queer teen. However, the lessons and trials of assimilation for socio-political survival doesn't end there as traumas of being asked to eat dumplings outside a portable classroom also made me stopped eating Chinese food at middle-school and fighting with my mom weekly about what to bring as lunch... Coming to what we know now as 'Canada' as a child who already was marginalized socially in different Asian countries/cities/schools, was a violent game of cultural-assimilation and self-whitewashing with my deep desires to being understood/loved/accepted to be exploited as drive for mental submission. I still think of young times of solitude as a child growing up and playing alone, without trying to be anybody else or ever compromising my identity/expressions for others' understandings nor validations. I remembered not having any words/analysis/reflections nor explanations of why other boys and girls wouldn't play with me or laughed at me; I remembered crying about people not being nice but sometimes being okay with it as well... I softly remember and gently treasure those innocent and youthful memories of enjoying/embodying/embracing myself - memories I miss/grief/recall for our hurting humanity. 

    And then one night in the last year of high school on our way home, my mother asked in conversation if I think I'll ever and fully be seen/treated as white Canadian after years of cultural-abandonment and conditioned self-assimilation... I responded no while remembering the stares of cis white parents, the betrayals/neglect/misunderstandings/tokenizations from cis white peers, and even if queer but cis + whiteness: the normality of privilege and ego comfort. Looking back: from sitting in front of the TV repeating sentences in practice to soften my accent to me being the only trans person of colour in social-circles to me pleased to be a cis white girl's "gay best friend" to how no one cared for a trans friend at the end - I understand that it was all but a game of trying to be seen, felt, and wanted while navigating character/identity realizations/development/actualizations. Many other Asian/immigrant peers called me "banana" and joked about my whitewashing back then as well, but I forgive and hold myself dearly for the ways I had learned for survival. Especially as a queer/trans person in a suburban town like Waterloo, I now understand how my lightskin and me speaking the colonizer's language was what had saved me from further social-antagonization/alienation and extreme/violent discriminations/marginalization... Yet I remember not long after, it was a friendly stranger's kindness/softness: an older non-binary Black femme, who's an immigrant-islander as well who sent me money after hearing stories of transphobia at school. It was also around when I started attending community poetry slams after losing most friends at school, thus again a new beginning of social-searching for belonging. Though this time, it was of queer/trans Black, Indigenous, and people of colour who were artists as well. I remembered being in awe of coloured femme bodies together, in support and solidarity, being unapologetically ethnic and feminine on their own terms. I remembered feeling free, and accepted, even when I've just met those people yet now I understand that its the linage and connections that we have as femmes of feelings for healing...

    Black people have taught me love as Indigenous people have taught me life. I have painted myself as a lost/abandoned mermaid at shore for a self-portrait before as I've often referred to my journey of interpersonal/socio-political belonging to being a mermaid. Thus through growth and reflections, I really believe that my blossom here as a settler-immigrant in Turtle Island (North America) could not have been if I didn't cross paths with certain mentors, chosen-families, and community members - if it weren't for the teachings, generosity/grace, and specific moments of reaching out/empathy - I would not be the flower I am today. It is from Black/Indigenous women/femmes that I relearn how to grow a home internally while communities externally; and it is with Black/Indigenous queer/trans folks that I unlearn for collective rest, self-preservation, and intercommunal joy: like an adopted mermaid at shore, I will forever hold gratitude and give back for the ways this land and its land/water protectors have helped me breathe.

    Though I was also afraid of repeating same mistakes - of mistaking bodies as homes, as belongings and acceptance my inner child still craves... As domestic violence and physical abuse was the normal exchange between families of blood that I still seek of chosen-families by waters for cleanse. Yet I must belong deeply to myself, like waves extending/embracing out and back to themselves; I must feel safe with the rivers within even if I become/represent the in-betweens of belonging - perhaps both, perhaps none, perhaps all but still one and at peace. I must cry oceans wondering of home, to wander across seas for blood just to drink and cry more... So I understand, that there needs to be no belonging for solidarity as empathy is not required for support either. We don't need to be included to love and care, to re/unlearn and to do/be better. I am a Taiwanese lightskin immigrant, an East-Asian islander, and a transgender-woman/femme always in support/solidarity while searching for softness and belonging. Though no matter my positionalities of "home" or belonging, I shall defend the homes of others as well as the homes of our collective future. 

On Fetishization (Sexualities & Fears)

fetish (noun.) : "a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc."

    As a transgender woman/femme of colour navigating this patriarchal society: I have interpersonally and socio-politically understood fetishization through experiences of exploitive intimacy as well as conditions of always being desired sexually but never loved physically/mentally. Yet also as a body/sex-positive/affirmative assault-survivor in processes of healing, I not only wish to understand the violences of fetishization but the roots of such drive for dehumanization as well as the complicities among us all who are impacted by the colonial constructions of sexual/physical values of exchange... I often wonder of the differences between 'kink' and 'fetish', of how they intersect and challenge each other's ideals and notions of sexual/physical norms as well as their relations to our diverse roots/triggers of pleasure/desire. From reading, communicating, and reflecting: I have understood kinks to be "abnormal/non-conventional" physical/sexual practices/concepts/fantasies, while fetishes are usually described as sexual fixations and psychological needs for a specific/certain object/act. Some explains it in simple yet confusing matters that "all fetishes are kinks but not all kinks are fetishes"... And such conversations first bring me to the needs of discussing our understandings of kinks as a colonial impact, as some would have suggested that intersex/queer/trans bodies and sexualities are kinks by historical/cultural/educational marginalization. Especially when we know that "kinky" hair have also been used to describe coily/twisted/curly hair often with Black/Afro-Indigenous hair as abnormal, non-conventional, or a social spectacle in hierarchal comparisons to settler-European standards and norms of non-textured/straight/wavy hair. So with hair as an introductory, layered, and intersecting matter between both understandings of 'kink' and 'fetish', I wonder what the differences between having a "hair kink" and having a "hair fetish"... Through analysis and thought I come to realize that perhaps having a hair kink is of being physically/sexually/mentally hyper-aroused/attracted to the visuals/concepts of certain/specific hair, while having a hair fetish requires certain/specific hair to be physically/sexually/mentally satisfied. Even with the example subject/object changing, ie. feet kinks vs feet fetishes, the analysis remains sound and I can understand how partnerships of safe kink/fetish play can work out in both favours with one having kinks of hair being gripped/pulled and another having hair fetishes (ie. sensory fixations of touching/grabbing/smelling/licking hair). While one could have roleplaying kinks of being worshipped/served with another having the feet fetish to focus on and be at one's feet... Kinks are interpersonally and socio-politically shaped by what we have been taught, considered, and understood to be non-conventional intimate practices/concepts/fantasies between bodies, which is heavily historically/culturally based in the normality of perceiving sexuality as purposes of human reproduction. And embracing open/diverse sexualities and intimate physical expressions/practices/desires is decolonizing our perceptions of what is sensually/sexually "normal". Yet while I can be easily kink-positive and accepting, it takes more to unpack fetishization as it also often feeds into the colonial-patriarchal notions of physical/sexual normality with slippery slopes to hyper-sexualization, objectification, and dehumanization.

    Fetishes still can be expressed and practiced healthily with the focus to be objective and direct. And while I think it is dehumanizing to the root of objectifying certain body parts or requiring specific features to be satisfied sexually to the sight/mind/touch, I still have witnessed and heard community testimonials of healthy practices/expressions of fetishes of hair/feet/toes/armpit/nipples/anus...etc. Though what causes the red flags for me is the slippery slope of giving into colonial-hierarchal categories of exotic/forbidden desires and the fetishization of identities. When the focus is no longer objective and direct, it places the subject in a dehumanizing position during such exchanges/shares of physical/sensual intimacy while the fetishizer focuses and emphasizes on their sexual satisfaction/release. Thus I come to understand that kinks are rooted in sub-cultural, anti-conditioning desires/fantasies while fetishization is deeply rooted in psychological repressed attractions/needs for a physical/sexual relief... And when transferring realizations to the lived aggressions/experiences/violences of being fetishized, I console myself on the fact that I will never escape the socio-political/sexual realities of fetishization when the slur "tranny"'s history begins as a porn category of sub-dehumanization. Even now in 2020, people still ask what "transgender" means and if a trans woman means to have boobs and a dick at the same time, because that's what most have seen/witnessed/understood through mis-notions/representations of an entire group of people through fetishizing media like main-stream pornography. And while the situation can still be non-violent and sensually/sexually safe if the fetish focus is on "the feminine penis" as many cis-men are attracted to women/femmes with dicks and it all works out fine, but when such mental fixation conflicts with one's colonial-patriarchal cis-heteronormative constructions/definitions/understandings of being, then it often leads into violence towards others and internal struggles within the self/ego... As kinky concepts and fantasies (should) have consent and consistent communications between participating partners, many hold fetishes as psychologically personal and private thus not unpacked and often acted upon urges or intended self-serving satisfactory. Needlessly to say/state that all is but our humanities navigating through sensuality, intimacy, and sexuality, and though both kinks and fetish are socio-psychological evidences of colonial-hierarchies of the body, fetishization remains deeply in relations with repressed fixations, control, and fears.

    As an immigrant and East-Asian islander, I have also felt the racial fetishizations forced upon me physically/sexually as focuses of exoticism as eroticism in degrading positionalities. From men guessing my ethnicity as ways of flirting to non-consensual nicknames/catcalls of "Ling Ling"/"Panda"/"Fortune Cookie"...etc. and while I'm still trying to settle my feelings around being called "Bubble Tea", many still don't know that bubble tea is Taiwanese or where Taiwan even is. Though such experiences only has led to more socio-political analysis and reflections for collective accountability, as I have noticed my own attractions/interactions with men of colour to be even more critical in understanding intersections of raciality and sexuality. Despite growing up queer/trans and learning how to repress interpersonal truths/desires/pleasures, I began practicing/expressing sexuality/sensuality after coming out and coming to what we know as Canada. And such journey of a trans-woman/femme being exploited/fetishized for her body in discretion began with white men as I navigated through Kitchener-Waterloo as a queer teenager. Yet along the way and after moving to Tkaronto (Toronto), I not only have found belonging to queer/trans racialized chosen-familites/social groups/communities, I also find myself less sensually/sexually attracted to white/European-descent peoples/features. I've often joked about "decolonizing my pussy" and decentering from our attractions to whiteness especially as an immigrant who knows/understands the powers/corruptions/violences of both white supremacy and settler-colonialism, but I've also wondered privately about my sudden increase of interests after being rap*d twice with both times encountering men of colour... I find myself to be the best investigator for my own feelings/behaviours, thus it's also part of my psychological responsibility to constantly unpack and unlearn while calling for socio-political accountabilities. I often question my own complicities within discourses of anti-Black racism and racial fetishization even as a POC who experiences racism, xenophobia, and racial fetishization as well, but I must align myself with such constructions of violent hierarchies due to my lightskin and participating on settling on stolen lands. It is continuing difficult conversations within and around that pushes us to do/be better. And I couldn't help but wonder if my preferences of raciality can be a form of fetishization instead of realizations/growth away from the colonial-patriarchal whiteness... From talks with another trans sister/femme of colour on our lives being fetishized on a daily, we critiqued of how such attractions based from internal conflicts/fears only feed the egos of normality; while some searches/obtains empowerment from participating hyper-sexualization, some finds empowerment/healing from desexualization (especially after sexual violences). I personally know many fabulous queer/trans racialized sex workers who can testify to their challenges against femme/trans/fat/racial fetishization/dehumanization by turning the table and still profiting/monetizing as reclaiming power. However for myself, I ask if I can build my own tables and grow intimacies on my own terms of balancing between sensuality/sexuality through softness... And when asked about removing/detaching myself completely from such societal-obsessed sexualization and hierarchies of fetishization, my friend suggested that I dedicate myself to demisexuality -

    So there it is, not demisexuality to be exact but empathy: my weapon/shield against the violences of such fetishization both within and around, is hyper-humanization. Which is also what I believe in when we speak of decolonizing human intimacies and relations, as not exchanges of power but a sharing of powers. I dare to dream of loving/caring for each others bodies/minds while exploring/honouring our pleasures. I can only dream of a world without hyper-sexualization/fetishization as representations in media with understandings of consent blurred and cheated on. I dream of un/relearning sensual and emotional intimacy, by hyper-humanizing and empathizing with all bodies/identities/expressions that we encounter, interact, and access. I want to not only combat our fears with compassion, but filling the gaps of difference by creating safer spaces of intercommunal desires/pleasures as well... On the socio-psychological and political spectacles of fetishization/sex/fear, it is through a collective effort of transforming mindsets/relations to honour our bodies, humanities, and souls for freedom. As my powers birth from growing gardens of revolutionary justice, not from the games of colonial-patriarachy and its tools of desirability as poetics of hierarchal violence.

Disease & Death

 

(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.

Abolishing The Police Within

          every breath i take i balance between life and death. every day i wake feeling undeserving, crying into my sheets and apologizing to the world, for how i have failed at love, for how much i hate myself, for not being or doing enough, for not feeling enough... through experiencing/witnessing violence, hating/loving myself, and embracing death that i (re/un)learn life from lessons of humanity. we study humanity, we research compassion, we experiment empathy; we come to understand that humanity is of such soft essence, many would name it fragile but through softness comes strength, as life only blooms the brightest in organic ways - as souls only saved in the peace/truth of salvation - as "there is brilliance in survival but thriving is an art form"... what we have been taught, even by ourselves for survival, may not always be the medicines for healing. how do we find freedom while still fighting for liberation ? how can we find collective joy amongst such pains ? how do we move forward, together ?

          every time i go to the waters i wish to bow in balasana, pray in child's resting pose, stretch my hands into receiving the waves - i meditate for cleanse, for clarity, for clear conscious. i hate myself so i ask for forgiveness, i love myself so i ask for teachings. i hate the world because i love the world, and i dare to hate myself deeper, to love the world better... the nature of our egos position ourselves in the good, as we most make decisions that are self-serving. the connections of such relates to moral developments as well as a test on empathy, and somehow everyone becomes an enforcement of social/moral hierarchies, a judge of their rights and wrongs, and a defendant to their own standards. we become hypocrisies to our own humanities, we become the labourers of our own oppressors, and we become ignorant/denial to our own complicities through the ways Black/Indigenous women/femmes are always at the frontlines but never given the honour/credit/respect, in the ways we govern over stolen lands, as well as from the ways we perpetuate/gatekeep colonial notions of understandings/expressions... they say fuck the police but will police your gender, they will say abolish the state but then want to erase your existence, they say uplift their women but will stomp trannies into the sidewalks. maybe we are all just compensating for the flaws of our becoming, as we're too busy performing our growth that we forget about our being. how do we make space to move forward, together ? how can we make spaces for those who doesn't look/feel/love like us ? how do we make space for us to slow down, to pause from survival, to dare to reimagine ?

getting yourself together.

what about undoing yourself.

- the fix 

by Nayyirah Waheed 

          every night i crawl to my bed for comfort as i survive through the city in safety... every day holds another lesson of humility as i explore my own humanity, and every breath i take is full of grace and growing pains as we dare to keep going. i dare to claim for my uncertainties for life to be evidences of exploration, as at times it takes dancing with death to make peace with living. i dare to claim for my uncertainties for love to be lessons of compassion, empathy, and preservation, as often it takes lose to make ways for rebirth. i dare to claim for my uncertainties for our humanity to be deep meditations of what it means to be, as we survive and we evolve - as we are becoming... what is your being and who is your becoming ?

be easy.

take your time.

you are coming 

home.

to yourself.

- the becoming

by Nayyirah Waheed

          abolishing the police means to confront its violent legacies internal to our humanities. abolishing the state means to decolonize lands/bodies, to pray in reparations and meditate in reconciliactions. abolishing systematic violence means to relearn community care and unlearn individualism, to relearn collective joy, to unlearn for justice... abolishing the colonial-patriarchy means to embrace compassion and vulnerability, and return to the roots of feeling for our collective breath.

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