Untitled Musings

Jojo-

When I thought I was never going to see you again, I tried to write to you dozens of times. When I would pick up my pen, I’d stare listlessly at my notebook in front of me. The notebook filled with words scrawled every which way, in script I barely recognize as my own. As I flip through the ciphers on the pages, I see food stains, snippets of tears that leaked from my eyes, my heart on paper. 

There are unfinished thoughts and stories; I see tales that I thought would be good to write down but gave up on halfway down the line. I see repetitive words, the same shit I always write over and over again. The same tropes and the same cliches, the moon, the tiger, the witch. The omnipresent darkness that threatens to swallow me. I see it all and lose hope in my words. 

I can’t help but be tired of them.

How could I not be? When the ones I use are contrived, and every time I think, I feel the lurking irritation rising like bile from the depths of my soul. 

This is not to say that I do not feel. It is difficult to separate the thoughts from the feelings. Rather, it is easier to just acknowledge the feelings are there with my thoughts, but feeling the full extent of them is truly quite a chore. 

As I write this to you now, I feel the familiar suffocation in my chest. There is a balloon where my heart is meant to be. Much of the time, it is deflated and I have to heave to get a full breath of air. The balloon is never filled with air. It contains my melancholy and insanity. And it always holds my tears. 

Even now as I write to you, I feel the weight threaten to break my ribcage open. I feel emotion, and I do not think I am one for it. 

My mother always tells me, when I begin to feel this way, I must say, “Namu Shinnyo, Namu Shinnyo.” If I do, the dharma and my ancestors will protect me. 

It is fall again, and I used to despise this time of year. I hated the holidays, daylight savings, the aching loneliness I felt when the night would envelop the land. I hated the rain, the wailing cry of the wind, my pasty skin reflected in the mirror before me. But now when fall comes around, I am nostalgic. Fall helps me remember. Fall is just the beginning. 

I was born at the tail end of the lunar year of the tiger. Superstition has it that the year of your zodiac is a year of growing pains and misfortune. I knew this year would not be easy, but I did not expect to float through it like a fever dream. 

They say that as you get older, the sadness becomes easier to bear. Maybe I’ll be less likely to want to cut my wrists open, but I think it would’ve been easier to slice my arms than to sit through the stillness and do nothing. 

Namu Shinnyo, Namu Shinnyo. 

The two halves of myself, the manic and depressive, are usually not distinguishable. I rely on the schizophrenic to help me. The voices are louder in the manic, and the hallucinations are more present in the depressive. These are not mutually exclusive, just road signs along the journey. 

I was talking to my boss the other day, and during our entire conversation, I saw a giant shadow eclipsing my view. When I am this way, the walls move too, and the ground will swirl like the floaters in my vision. But everything is okay. I know it is not real. 

I have once heard the voice of a man following me as I was walking home. There was no one around me, but I could have sworn he was right behind me. Sometimes the voice is that of an old woman. She calls me all the names I was called growing up, and I will admit, I sometimes think they’re true for just a split second. 

As I walked down the familiar liquor store aisle today, I get this uneasy sense that I am back home. I remind myself I am not like this anymore. I no longer need alcohol to live. Consumption is a choice. 

Yet all I can remember is the sting of the blade against my thigh, cut after cut, as I stare with dead eyes at the shapeshifting wall in front of me. The blade that I could never bring myself to throw away, still hidden in the pocket of the backpack sitting under my desk. I stare at the ribbons of blood and wonder why they don’t stop. I wonder why I don’t try to staunch the flow, and I realize that I do not care that my skin is dying. This was only three months ago. 

Namu Shinnyo, Namu Shinnyo.

There are days where the rays of light are soft against my hair. Sunshine dares to visit the cracks in my brain, and the softness is a welcome embrace. I relish how small I feel in this embrace. In these moments, I can hear the universe exhale.

On such days, I remember that I loathe to be touched. All I can think about are the fingers on my thighs, spreading my legs open when I cannot move. All I can think about are the words I heard, “You felt like a dead fucking fish.” 

And then I feel the fingers on my shoulders while my back is turned. I feel the fingers press into my shirt and I feel my entire body stiffen. I think about embraces, about the softness of touch, about the warmth of embrace, and I look at my yellow figure in the reflection and wonder if this body will ever truly be mine. 

The static of the line brings me back to life. I could never be as bad, or anywhere as close to the end, as when the pair of headlights steadily made its way toward me. I make it out alive. He tells me on the other line, hours later, whatever love was there is gone. There is another figure that is his dream. On the day I turn 20, I find that I have not ever quite understood unconditional love, and I perhaps never will.

Namu Shinnyo, Namu Shinnyo. 

In this dream a few days ago, I see my mother coming after me with a knife. She tries to kill me, and I wonder. I wonder if the headlights had made it to me that day, if their threats had ever rang true, if I would’ve missed out on all that much at all. 

To be a girl with flaxen hair is all I wish. Is that too much to ask?

I ask God, I ask Buddha, I ask the divine if ever the tattoos inked into my skin will erase the scars all over me. If only I could just acknowledge them and not have to feel them to their full extent. If only I could grow past the sadness. 

They say this is just the growing pains of getting older. I waited and waited and waited and waited to write something profound. I thought if I kept waiting, I’d find the words to explain the sadness that still lives inside me. I thought fulfillment would inflate my poor balloon heart. 

But even so, my only revelation is that there is no such thing as revelation. I thank the ones who came and left, and I thank them for saying goodbye. 

Some years will be flatlines and some will be filled with grace and fervor. While we will never commandeer time, we will live through fever dreams and we will live through days of unliving. 

So much will remain unresolved. And yet the earth will continue to inhale and exhale, and the stars will still travel to come find us. For now, that will just have to be enough. 

Until I talk to you next, Jojo. 

Namu Shinnyo, Namu Shinnyo.