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