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october’s theme: home

this one took place on october 14, otherwise known as “columbus day”. scratch that. i wanted to talk about home, where we all come from, being immigrant childen, bearing trauma, building and rebuilding over and over again. this was our first month in a new space at kinfolk 94 and the evening was full of curious energy and love. thanks to all our writers: Sam, Meetra, Steve, Alexis, Audrey, Danielle, Ana, Rachel, and Gensis. a few extracts from the evening below.

‘Notes on you and me’ by Hardeep Gill

In the beginning there was you and me. Most likely, we were two stars in the atmosphere, pre-explosion, no idea that our worlds would ever collide. As someone who has always craved LOVE, I go back and forth between romance and cynicism, are they related? Are you meant to question it all, or is that just me? Still I lept, eyes wide shut, into the unknown.

Shakespeare put Romeo and Juliet in Verona in the 16th century. He put us in Hello Bklyn, a bar, where a pair of star-crossed lovers shared a deep affinity for one another. We shared fries to soak up the shots with a side of mutual understanding for what just happened. We had fallen in love and neither of us were surprised.

I ask you often if you knew then, and you tell me you did. I inhale. You had that sweet scent of optimism about you, stronger than any Byredo fragrance and I was immediately hooked on the fact that you ignited a fire in me so deep—something I hadn’t felt for a long time. I whined to friends about how I thought my Vag was completely broken, maybe I’d never get my mojo back, and then I met you. A necessity.

Post-explosion. Do you still get nervous around me? I do. I get as nervous as that first date two days after the night we consummated our relationship. We shared a chicken sandwich, (too shy to eat), and stories about how we had both found ourselves. Being single gave us the clarity and self-love we needed. I folded and melted into you so deep that I lost myself. It was the first time I understood why people run away and get married. Even though i’m glad we didn’t go to Vegas, I am glad we got matching tattoos. Symbolic reminders of the blissful memories that made up the beginning—a declaration that you and I give zero fucks about conformity.

You were and still are the best drug I’ve ever had.

And then life happened. No poison, no banishment, no death. Our loved played feintly in the background while lessons of adulthood danced around in front of us, loud reminders that love is the easy part, your words darling, not mine. In these moments I questioned more than ever whether I could do this, whether I had the strength to push through and show up. Each time the answer was the same: I was designed for you.

In all of this I’ve found that you are my adventure. You drive me crazy, I drive you crazy and I’m crazy for you. Yesterday I told you just how in love I am with you, your response: “I’m in love with you too, baby.” Sometimes conditional because you know life but always mutual. And perhaps out of everything, even if you don’t mirror me entirely, we mirror reciprocation for one another. We choose to stand in love together.

Maybe we’ll never know how or why, but you keep me here, firmly planted in the roots of this life we’ve chosen to create together. I’ll walk through the fire with you, again your words, even if it burns sometimes. Because nothing is sweeter than coming out the other side, deeper, harder, better, faster, stronger, like the Daft Punk song.

You know that feeling you get when you eat something so fucking delicious?

Like your favorite meal made of only 1 or 2 simple ingredients and you savor every single mouthful.

Yea, that. “Thus with a kiss I die.”

‘INCLUSIVENESS, INCLUSIVITY, INCLUSIVE BUT HOME’ by Genesis Haide Vallecillo

Some of us missed the importance of this word growing up in a place they were forced to call home.

some weren’t conditioned to have to learn this word: inclusive.

Am I wrong to think that way? If you look at society, we're not doing so hot so I do feel I’m right to think this way. We have a lot of work to do, I mean being inclusive and being home.

Connecticut was how I learned at the tender age of 6 that this skin is not entirely welcomed here and I will had to deal with this my entire young life. Could that have been home? I am obliged to feel less than because of the way a group of humans thought it’d be easier to live their lives as such.

Do I have to limit myself from what society tells me “this is where you should be..” ...I don’t think so. I grew up hating myself, asking me why am I not white enough? Why am I from a place called Honduras or Mexico or as I would here: “same thing...”

These kids here didn’t even know they were learning racism. Made fun of me because of how different I was. You know, even my fellow Puerto Ricans. ‘It be your own people!’ Connecticut was truly a vibe but I had waved my flag and moved to San Francisco to really learn about myself: 19 and thriving -- trying to find my home and share my idea of inclusivity. Home was a box of a studio in the lovely neighborhood of tenderloin SF, to put it nicely -- after coming from class or work, I couldn't tell the difference between human or dog shit…right next to my building or home. BUT I learned so much from locals and 1st generation folks like myself on what my skin really means, how beautiful it is and how I should learn to love myself and my culture. So I did just, I started to love myself but had to leave this place I called home because the rent was just too damn high.

Shit we can’t say

To people who need to hear it

But it’s mostly those people who missed out on the importance of inclusivity, they simply missed out; something like if you didn’t watch the news and it rained today. It rained and you had to just bare it, for the sake of not being late to work. Now you know to watch the news before you run out that door. Conditioning man.

Anyway- I just want to move on from this era of humans being so fucking stupid.

I'm in New York now and things FEEL much better. I'm living with my family but I still don't feel like I'm home. I heard this saying or maybe a song "a house is not a home" which stuck with me for a while. Am I met to be in a single place to call it home? Maybe it's this yearning for Japan I have to get out of my system to finally realize that home is and will always be a place of comfort, an inclusive space for me to just be. I am home, it's here with this lovely audience (I mean I hope, the program IS Hardeep's brown life, all inclusive right?) and for those who understand what it's like to be in a world full of ignorance. Thanks for bringing me home Hardeep.

‘Home’ by Danielle Hecht

Walls built with integrity and insulated with truth. Floors fabricated out of honor and a roof laid with protection. Home is a place of peace and of nurturing. Home is a place to plant the seeds of healing, learning and growth. Home is a sacred space where maturation takes place, where self exploration begins and ends with the rising and setting of the sun. Home is safe, warm, and brimming with love, joy and acceptance. Home is the foundation for a fulfilling journey through life, a place to maintain balance and harmony. Home is a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a friend, a plant, animal or mineral conspiring together to create flowing abundance. Home is a choice. A choice to love yourself. A choice to share with others. A choice to create boundaries. A choice to be fulfilled. A choice to be self reliant. A choice to receive and give love - true love, honest love. Home is the epicenter of a life well built with an unbreakable foundation of integrity. Home is a reflection of the souls path, where ancestors retire to rest and rejuvenate so that they may best lead the living into higher realms of understanding. Home is where life awakens.

‘Queen’s Greatest Hits: Volume II’ By Audrey Olivero

When I remember the apartment I grew up in, it’s less a place than fragrance. Home is the waft of hallway piss perfumed in cheap detergent, but it hits me the way the scent of apple pie at Christmas hits some white girls, so intoxicating Bath & Bodyworks extracts it into candles they can light in sacred honor of their homecoming year round.

My homecoming’s high concentration of ammonia makes it dangerous to bottle. Home is in the Bronx with the memory of my father wearing a tracksuit and separating laundry by color on the floor in front of our kitchen, where the washing machine we are not legally allowed to have sits, working it’s second hustle as a counter for our coffee machine. Home is the sound of Freddie Mercury hyping a crowd on the TV in my parents’ room slash the living room, depending on the position of their pullout sofa.

Home is a Live AID concert that never ends and doesn’t continue once Queen has left the stage. It is songs I memorize before sound means anything but sound to me. Home is my dad just before he gets really sick, before we both learn terms like “disability benefits” and “necessary side-effects”. Home is him watching Freddie teaching the crowd their scales, captivated, still young enough to have heroes. Home is a worn VHS tape warping Freddie in rainbow stripes and yes, that is an on-the-nose visual representation of my sexuality and mental health. Home is how this scene hurts now, how strong he is, how sure his stance, the power he has in this big little world. I can’t imagine this man hurting his kids.

Fact: In this memory of Live AID is Freddie Mercury’s ghost, because Freddie Mercury dies before I begin to live. I forget when I learn this.

Fact: Because Freddie Mercury dies and my father does not, my father becomes the human weakness of his body and Freddie Mercury the god of my small world.

I take my god with me for the rest of my life. My prayer is Queen’s Greatest Hits: Volume II.

Let’s close this bit with some jokes.

When people tell me to go home, they usually mean Mexico. I am Puerto Rican.

Home is just a place you find in other people and we can only afford to rent.

Growing up is knowing nostalgia is the forgiving light on your understanding of people.

You can love Freddie Mercury and still be deeply homophobic.

In high school I date a girl who my parents, to this day, think was my “best friend”. She was.

The song ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ is not about dying, it’s about loving someone.

august’s theme: peace

after a two month hiatus, traveling, living, loving summer, word of mouth came back with an incredible line up. at a time where the world is a hectic place, all we can do is find whatever little peace is available to us, or that we can create. thanks to our amazing readers Mary, Ben, Tierra, Aaron, Denali, and Gus—faces old and new that has reinvigorated me in so many ways.

‘Peace, nostalgia and those kind of summers’ by Hardeep Gill

I just bought my first-ever deck of tarot cards, but let’s talk about the past.

Time is never going to share it’s plans for you—with you. It will make itself apparent and present in your life, only when it chooses to. Time wants you to know who’s in control, and clearly it’s not you.

Are you okay with that?

I can feel the season changing. Everyday the sun sets a little earlier and rises a little later. A new darkness is coming soon.

And I’m okay with that. I need something new. But first, something old:

I close my eyes and I miss Grasmere avenue. The long winding street boasts two parallel rows of semi-detached houses and even then, it felt like the biggest place in the world to me. Everything felt big then. I miss posting up at Balfour news like we were all about to do something real grown up, maybe even sketchy but actually we were just waiting to spend 20p on Frosties and Space Raiders. Healthy diets weren’t a thing then.

It was the summer of 2000—2006. And Slough was home. Mum and Dad didn’t really like it much but I did. They’d call it a shithole but it was our shithole. And I liked our house nestled in between school and the nicer parts of town. I could jump in and out of the shithole whenever I wanted.

I miss football on the astroturf behind school. The first time I ever wore my astro’s on the pitch made me feel like I could fly. I’m smiling now. I never really was that good at football. But it made me happy. I was the only girl on the team who played with her left, even though I’m right handed. We’d play five-asides until just before sunset and I’d run home feeling complete af. Mum would have roti and some kind of daal saajbi ready but I never wanted it. I just wanted to go back outside. I wanted parents that didn’t care.

I miss our garden. We’d make a home in the garden during the months of July and August. Raj suggested, I mean demanded a trip to B&Q so we could get the basics: a table, some chairs, a lounger, a gas bbq (why gas I’ll never know) an umbrella—and we were set. Every night for two months for the next couple of years we’d just lounge out there, talking, blasting Kiss.fm, pretending we were all grown up. We weren’t.

There was one summer in particular that I borrowed aka taxed, Matthew Green’s MP3 player. It literally had 3 songs on it: Mariah Carey We belong together, Omarion O and a third that I can’t remember so it couldn’t have been that important. I was 15. I never thought two songs could be my whole summer soundtrack.

I even took the MP3 player to Sikh camp. Where for one week of the year Sunday school would turn into a camp except there was no camping. I even miss Amit making fun of me and when he promised to never do it again, he did. I remember the one day that religion felt serious to me. I asked to wear a turban and sit behind the Guru Granth Sahib aka the Sikh holy book and chant prayers. It was the brief period in life where I felt religious and it was heavenly and magical all at once, and all i see is color now.

I miss Southall. Little india. A cesspool of bazaars and markets and the best Indian food you’ve ever had, next to Mumma’s, of course. Take me back to Chandni Chowk on Broadway so I can have the samosa chaat, chai and tandoori chicken just one more time.

Just one more time.

‘I come from’ by Gus Alexander

i come from a

small

strange family.

from a history of jewish struggle

US colonialism and

jersey.

i come from the closeness of a twin sister.

from growing up in a

small town where we stood out

and it was good.

i come from the beauties and uglies of a

no-boundaries

loving

manic mom.

from the benefits and hardships of a

cutthroat

brilliant

goofy dad.

i come from two dads –

my mom’s husband from britain who

yells a lot and

loves just as much but

the love is quieter and

that’s ok.

i come from a bleeding heart chemistry.

ingrained in my nature and nurture –

i care about people and things on a deep-dark level and

it doesn’t stop.

i come from a family that refuses to water things down.

from a play hard

play hurt

sprint at the end

make it count - kind of place. i come from that.

i come from a privileged experience.

college experience.

life-changing exposure to race and

racism

my own whiteness.

so much.

from mentors – young and old –

who teach me to

keep turning my gaze toward the

Real Shit.

and i keep thinking –

WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?

i come from that question.

what are we gonna do?

i come from a mix of hope & disbelief.

hope that whatever the answer to this question - we will do it.

and disbelief in the fact that we can.

and i come from navigating that

hope & disbelief

deciding that no matter what – it is all

Worth The Fight.

i come from strength.

emotion.

from meaning and wanting to

do well,

do good.

i come from being misconstrued.

oversimplified as ‘too nice’

when there is nothing simple about it.

in fact –

i come from a place where there is nothing simple about anything.

and where there is so much i don’t know.

i come from a time that can feel like the best and worst of them.

and i get to live in it with a

full heart, and

not too much pain.

i come from that.

‘Peace from the understanding of Piece’ by Denali Farrell

Here are my revelations about pieces. The desire to compartmentalize, collect and selectively distribute information or property make it hard for peace to last. Here are some examples.

The Witheld Piece

I once came home past curfew and saw my mom in a chair at 2 AM watching Matlock. She had two small single tears running down her face as she turned to look at me. I opened my mouth to explain, she stopped me and said "let me speak my piece first!" She then gave me a stiff hug and said "Jesus loves you and will show you the right way to live your life." I wasn't so sure off that, but I did wish Jesus would tell me how she really felt instead.

The Misguided Piece

From the ages 8 - 14 my dad would make the whole family participate in game nights. He would them proceed to mercilessly defeat his wife and three adolescent children to the tune of his own laughter (hë hë hë) at Wii bowling. One day my Dad saw that I was going to make a bad move in a game of chess and said, "Son think before you move your piece." So I did and decided to move another piece, I was greatful for his wisdom...he tricked me... "check!" (hë hë hë)

The Undefined Piece

I'm visually literate. I observe things, I'm getting better at seeing intent in art but...I don't get it...Kandinsky, this is wild, there's no way this was meant for anyone else besides you. It really is his masterpiece it's kinda self centered. It's still beautiful.

The Coveted Piece

I used to know a kid in my elementary school who was less fortunate then I was, and every other lunch or so he would ask for some of my snack. Seemingly simple lunch table diplomacy, but I'd struggle with the size of the portion to give him. After a couple attempts to divide the bar I'd finally find what I consider, a fairly sized piece and hand it to him..."Thats all, you mad stingy."

It took me all year to understand that it didn't matter. He wanted the whole thing. Like many others to follow he just wanted my peace.

‘Peace’ by Aaron Kaufman

To me, peace means loving myself and accepting my life. To this day I still have to work to maintain that mentality.

A teacher once told me "water is wet. Rocks are hard. Life is challenging."

I thought he meant that the struggles in life are inevitable and so we should just accept them.

At the time I dismissed his statement as oversimplified and out of touch. How can we as a society be ok with the unbearable suffering that this life holds for so many of us. How can we accept tragedy and hate and disaster and still feel calm inside? It felt selfish to just not care.

I have met many people who struggle to accept the harshness of life. Everyone has their own way to cope. Some people embrace religion. Some embrace philosophy. Some use drugs. Some practice mindfulness. Others use self expression. There are limitless options and there is no wrong answer.

The best answer that has come to me is serenity.

I used to regularly attend alcoholics anonymous meetings to support a former partner who was in recovery. At those meetings I often encountered people who had suffered to a degree that I am privileged enough not to have known personally. In those meetings I witnessed incredible personal resilience and determination. It was helpful for me to talk with people who had overcome the very darkest parts of life.

Alcoholics Anonymous groups encourage a twelve step program to fight addiction. Usually the meetings begin with the group reciting a prayer called the Serenity prayer. It was written by an american theologian Named Reinhold Niebuhr in 1934.

The serenity prayer has always stuck with me. I have come to adopt it as a simple beginning to address almost every problem I have faced over the past five years. The prayer reads:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

In hindsight, I think this is the sentiment that my teacher was trying to express. That finding peace requires acknowledgement of suffering. But I prefer the spiritual prose of the prayer to the blunt oversimplication of "life is challenging". I needed to hear the message in a way that I could relate to.

I dont believe in god. And I haven't prayed in years. But when the events in my life cause me to lose focus of what's important I seem to consistently return to the serenity prayer. It is the best tool I have found to give myself permission to accept tragedy and endure suffering. To reject hate and to return to peace. I share this peaceful prayer now in the hope that it may continue to inspire hope.

‘Peace’ by Tierra Lee

It's important for me to tell you how beautiful you are

you stars

all 100+ of you, I'm counting bodies and souls

you glow, and you flutter beyond my mind through this time and next and what's best is you see in me what I see in you and I see in you what I see in me and if that's not a world of peace, I dont know what is.

This wild and free exchange of love and support

I am overwhelmed

under no spells but still very taken

very much awakened and aware and most times very brave and sometimes super afraid ...like now but its ok I stay the course

I am a creator and I sold my first drawing this week

heart and mind combined, aligned like never before

Have you ever been more sure

of where you're going, your purpose

what you're here for?

I'm here for you and ultimately, you are for me and we are for us and I just hope that you trust and believe it --

youll have access to this poem on the web should you need it

a reminder

of how beautiful you are, you star

of how seen

of how still you can be

real you can be - with yourself first

You are felt

Like God or the 'verse in my heart all those times I've knelt, to pray, for a space, that was safe

enough for me to bare my mind connect me with my words, with our earth, to my kin, to my skin

while in my skin and very much alive

Here it all begins...

‘Peace’ by Ben Moosher

I've been working on my plan for peace and I think I've finally figured it out. I'm gonna first start by achieving physical perfection, waking up at the crack of dawn and hitting yoga poses on my roof. I'll look around and see if anyone is watching me, while the sun will hits my newly chiseled abs, and if no one does, I'll hire someone to break into the apartment a few blocks away from me, climb on the roof, and take candids of me hitting Warrior 1. The first step to finding peace is having everyone know that you're both spiritual and hot all at once.

I'll quit my job and move to Puerto Rico and I'll refuse to learn Spanish. I'll order quesa dillas and chore rizzo and marvel to no one in particular about how simple everything is. I'll unplug, turn my phone off for good, unless I need to get a picture of me on the Rincon beach with the caption Yo Tengo Blessed. I don't know if that's correct but who cares, I'm Blessed. Puerto Rican teenagers will skinny dip off jagged rocks and cackle incoherently and I'll wonder where their parents are while I reapply SPF 75. Peace means finally having perfect skin.

One weekend in San Juan I'll stumble across a bachelorette party and show these 10 white chicks how to order mo-jit-os. I'll ogle the bride's 18 year old niece and remember what it felt like to have a sex drive, and be excited to not fuck, but just be intimate. I'll end up going back to their resort with the Maid of Honor and bring no one to orgasm. Peace just means going to bed with anyone at all. We'll meet years later when I'm back in the States, pretending to have my own startup, and get married and have kids and watch them play soccer. I'll be the only dad at the park with a dab pen. My kid loves soccer but he loves Snack more.

Better get up bright and early for yoga. I can't wait to be a happy douchebag for the rest of my life. Before I sleep, I'll slip into my nightly routine of worrying about the future, about the 15 unfinished Google Docs all called "Ideas I want to do" and how I just don't have enough energy, enough money, enough self-love for any of them. I'll think about all the people I was cruel to and whether or not they even want to hear an apology. I'll think about people telling me I'm a great person and wish I had the courage to tell them to change their mind. I'll touch the little dip in my chest where you used to put your head when we slept and still feel your heaviness and warmth. No one else's head has fit so perfectly. The world is closing in around me because I'm haunted by my past and future at the same time. I can feel myself shrinking and I'm too small for beauty sleep, so I stay ugly and awake.

I'm up at the crack of dawn. I'm exhausted. I'm too tired to turn my alarm off. I don't think I can do yoga today. I don't think I can quit my job. I don't think I can flirt with a bridal party. I don't think I can be happy.

At work my coworker left a full glass of water too close to the edge of the table. When everyone leaves the conference room I push it back about an inch and a half away so it doesn't spill. I can wearily crack a smile. I'll take peace where I can get it.

‘Peace’ by Mary Atkin

Hi everyone,

I’m Mary.

I got quite drunk recently and read something to Hardeep and apparently, she convinced me to read tonight. It wasn’t until I saw my name in the lineup that I remembered, So here I am, sorry.

I’m not a writer by trade. But i do write, I write a lot.

And this year, when the life I’d worked so passionately and carefully on creating completely fell to pieces I didn’t write enough.

On one of the foggiest, darkest days, when i'd lost all meaning of the word peace I remembered to write.

But this time It wasn't a poem, no dramatic questions or letters to myself, no unsent letters to people I had something to say to. This time I just needed to write a list, so boring right? It’s not though, really, it’s great and I love my list.

it was a list of things that make me feel safe, fulfilled, and most importantly it was a list of moments of peace that I’ve had and can have again.

I needed this list, i needed to try and cling to the feeling and distant memory of peace.

Here it is

1. When girls arrive at the pub with wet hair on a Sunday

2. Putting on a coat for the first time in the fall

3. Having enough time to sit down and have a croissant and a coffee

4. Arriving at the airport

5. Jumping into the ocean off a really tall wharf

6. Small windy roads in England

7. The smell of street food in south east Asia

8. Sitting at the bar eating pasta and drinking gutsy red wine with someone I love - has to be cold out

9. An unexpected long phone call with a friend from home

10. Saturday mornings with nowhere to go

11. Upstate

12. Remembering something funny that happened months later and cracking the fuck up

13. Listening to Rolling Blackouts with Tom

14. Jazz clubs

15. Clean sheets

16. Finding a new song I fall in love with after one listen

17. An English garden in the rain

19. Slow cooking for my friends

20. Finding a painting in a gallery that I’ve never seen by an artist I love

21. Strings

22. Sunday roasts

23. The way Hardeep laughs at my jokes

24. Seeing a flower I’ve never seen for the first time

25. Speaking French

26. The smell of gardenias

27. When Flick talks to me about politics

28. When Phuc puts my heart in her heart and knows what I might like or need before I do 🤷🏻‍♀

29. My nephews laugh

30. Knowing I have plans after work

31. When my friend teaches me something new

32. A beer and shot buzz on the subway

33. Seeing my mum happy

Sorry about my list guys 🙄

But can I tell you? I read it every day. And you should make a list too.

Chaos is here, sadness is out of our control, loss won’t stop, but Peace is yours if you seek it out, beg for it, work for it, earn it, with grace, dignity, acceptance and it will be yours

Writing this list brought me stillness but speaking my truth is what’s bringing me closer to peace.

One of my best friends gave me Bob Dylan’s words recently and I want to borrow them to close,

"Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself."

may’s theme: healing

this month i was inspired by the strength of the people around me. how they carry themselves in and through their own healing journey’s. how healing means something different to us all, but our lesson’s help everyone. thanks to Amina, Quyn, Alexis, Roya, and Michaela for reading.

‘It’s so much more than East meets West’ by Hardeep Gill

In the beginning

Sometimes I ask myself how differently life would have turned out if I wasn’t a person of color. Would it really be that different? I guess the part that makes me feel sad everytime I answer this question, is that the answer is “yes”. It would be that different.

We grew up on the outskirts of London in the nineties and there was a lot of us—Sikhs from Punjab, a northern region in India. We were one of many families living in Slough, a suburban British town famous for the industrial revolution and a show you probably know called The Office (which I’ve never seen by the way). We had a library and a bus station and one time when I was about 7-years old, Queen Elizabeth came to visit us. Going to Sikh school on Sunday’s wearing a salwar kameez and then eating bangers and mash on Monday nights was the done thing. It was all I knew. This ever-blurry combination of two worlds that felt neither here nor there. Not fully mine, not anyone else’s.

I remember the first time I experienced racism. I was about six years old and the word “racism” wasn’t even a part of my vocabulary yet. It was break-time in primary school, and a girl in my class told me I couldn’t come to her birthday party that weekend because I was “brown”. Ouch. Sad is an understatement. That shit stuck with me forever. And it makes me sadder to say that, that little but big moment shaped me in so many ways. From then onwards, being an outsider was something that I was constantly aware of, defined by even.

Misunderstood

I don’t think I realized that my Dad had a thick indian accent blended with broken, barely-there English until I was 12 years old. It hit me out of nowhere one day. Like shit, “how come he can’t say things properly, the same way I can.” It was around this time I started to learn that it wasn’t only Dad’s English that was broken and barely-there. He was too. He felt so much anguish towards his decision to move to the UK for this so-called “better life”. In some ways it was and other ways it wasn’t. Still, we tried to blend in. A holiday in Portugal in 2004 met the juxtaposition of screaming matches with bibi, my gran, who sincerely wished all her grandkids somehow get cancer and die.

Hiding

Teenage years flew by and before I knew it, I was about to start my degree in Fashion Journalism. I know, it doesn’t even sound like a real thing. Dad felt the same way, and chose to ignore me for a few months because of it. A note to immigrant parents or parents everywhere: ignoring your child does them no good, trust me. I convinced myself that going away to uni was going to be my escape, my time to be the real me, but in those three years, I never felt further from that. Now I had to try and fit in here. I was one of two brown girls on the course and the other never even looked my way. So I did what I had been used to doing by then, I became the token. To the world, I was “H”, the English girl with a bright red lip, cunt bun and a big fur coat. It’s what everyone was wearing then and I didn’t wanna be different. I didn’t wanna be me.

A Greencard

I arrived in NYC in September 2014. It was HOT af. I was running away but I didn’t care. I wanted a new beginning so I created it. People wanted to know where I came from, they were curious. Dominican? No. Guyanese? No. I was just me. Indian, British, a New York transplant, a girl, a woman, searching. I was using the name ‘Hardeep’ again. And then the light came on: I just hated myself ever since I could remember. And I bet that bitch Jade Billington with her narrow mind had a lot to do with it. It’s okay Jade, I feel sad for you. Only because you’re part of a vicious cycle and it’s because of these cycles, the lessons not learned that there’s so much hatred in our world. Anyway, the lesson here is that sometimes you have to cross the ocean to find yourself. On some eat, pray, love shit.

The era of “Woke”

It’s 2019. I am a person of color. I am woman of color. Tupac is my savior. He said change would come and it’s here, it’s happening now and we’re in it. I can say these things out loud even to my white friends and instead of turning away, they understand. They care. And now I’m on a mission to learn more. More about where we come from, our land, the people that call it home and the parents that looked at life very differently. I think knowledge is the only true power. And when we use it properly, the sky will always be blue. Now, let’s make the world better.

‘Healing’ by Michaela Malvasio

Definition of Healing:

the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again.

"the gift of healing"

but one can grow without being cured or heal without "a cure".

synonyms:

alleviate, assuage, palliate, relieve, ameliorate, ease, help, soften, lessen, mitigate, attenuate, allay, salve

It is commonly said time will eventually heal the pain of grief

Clearly Healing implies damage was done to something that was once whole and healthy.

Not everyone heals, but everyone has hurt, everyone feels pain

My pain has always felt like such a physiological experience, it over powers the emotional and spiritual

it’s a physical tightening clamp :Anxiety. Tension. Shame. Fear. Embarrassment.

I feel it all right here, a spot I thought my heart was, I sometimes try to massage the tension with my hand. Touch the pain and smooth it out.

The Pain is Like holding weights that u can’t seem to put down. You so badly want to relieve yourself, take a break. Finish the set and drop the dumbbells except your unable to find a way to let go of the weight.

Healing to me is finally,

finding a way to put the weights down.

The relief of the weight pushing down on your chest. Your heart. Your gut.

Rubbing out the decay with your fingers.

A deep tissue massage for the physiological sensations of emotional angst

But when relief feels unattainable, healing can be a cruel word.

A tease

or a fantasy .

A coach that is telling you “just 10 more seconds, stick with it ” ... yeah right

fuck

you

I don’t know how to put the weight down. I think I’m finally learning how to do it. It seems so easy. Just let it go. Put it down.

It’s not that easy.

Healing is not that easy.

Healing is vulnerability, finding a way of becoming sound or healthy again.

and finally finding a way to put the weight down

‘2001′ by Roya Shariat

“Healing” takes me to 2001

A tragic accident

I’m still healing from

Nine years old

A broken nose

Shattered bones

Torn muscles

Multiple surgeries

Doctor’s visits

Pain

Scars

Fear

Healing took place on a red floral print couch in Maryland

A cast covering my face

Headphones on my ears

Destiny’s Child on repeat

Nine years old

Sentenced to nine years

Without the ability to breathe normally,

Waiting for my bones to grow and heal

Before

More surgeries

Doctor’s visits

Pain

Scars

Fear

Now, I can breathe again

But

My scars and fear linger

I try to push them deep

But they always float to the surface

Physical healing turns into mental healing

This accident, near death experience, unfortunate event…

Whatever it’s called

Is the reason for my sunny disposition

A double-edged scalpel

Edge one.

Be gentle and good to others

Be happy

Because life is unpredictable

It can all be taken from you

In a moment

Edge two.

Because life is unpredictable

Live in constant fear

That your happiness is fleeting

And it can all be taken from you

In a moment

I try healing intentionally now

It’s called therapy

It also takes place on a couch

But this one’s gray and it’s in Downtown Brooklyn

Can anything good last?

My therapist says yes

But I don’t believe her

—

I am a slow healer

My healing is not linear or graceful

There are drops, cliffs, and regressions

Almost always

I don’t know what I am working towards

There is no end state

I will never be healed

I am always healing.

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