Dear Shangning:

"Dear Rufus, ... Today a kitten called Jenson was returned to us because of his biting... I wished I could just talk to you to ask you what you were feeling when you bit someone... What were you trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

My Dearest Shangning:

You asked about a biting cat. I can answer, but I'm afraid I can't answer directly without first sharing a lot of things that will seem very disconnected. Or they will seem very connected, depending on your perspective.

*

First: not a lot of people know, but I'm divorced. I got married at 19. I thought I was too young, but he wanted to be married, and I thought I'd better go ahead, otherwise he'll dump me.

I wasn't ready. I hadn't finished becoming myself yet. I learned things about myself that were incompatible with what he wanted in a partner. He also lied to himself about who I had been all along. 

Obviously it didn't work out. I wanted to stay together and try to grow back together but his father insisted he divorce me.

*

When I adopted Rufus from The Cats' Cradle, you told me he'd been returned twice already. You also gave me an information sheet about his vaccination history. It said when he arrived on the 13th of April, 2019, the vet estimated that he was 1 year and 11 months old. How old is that in people years? Was he 19 yet? Had he finished becoming himself? Did he learn things about himself that surprised him, or pushed others away?

*

There's this surge of a theme online recently, an attitude for (usually) women who've been treated badly by (usually) men who can't handle them. There are tons of platitudinous quote images to be found if you google "you are not too much." They look like this:

*

My second long-term partner came to me in my mid to late twenties. We had two amazing years together before he went to war in Afghanistan. When he came back, things were much more difficult. I didn't understand what had changed or why, but he no longer seemed to be interested in me. I no longer felt wanted or desired so much as just kept around, and quite often I felt he found me annoying. I spent two more years trying to save things before one night I realized I was planning suicide and stopped myself. I put myself and my dog into my car and drove two days across the US until I arrived at my father's house. I arrived around midnight, crying at his back door, saying, "Can I stay here for a while?"

*

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the first time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle. 

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the second time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle.

*

*

I have so very many flaws. I try to work on them, even though I know I will go to my grave before I finish fixing them all. But I've made a lot of progress on my anger. Once when I was younger, I got so angry I blacked out. When I came to, my mother had been punched in the head and my hand hurt. In my defense, she'd been abusing me for over a decade at the time. I had to run away from home I was so afraid of what she'd do. When I got in touch with my sister, she told me that my mother was in my bedroom, putting my belongings into bags to donate to charities.

I know what it's like to have to heal from trauma. I know what it's like to never be completely healed. I know what it's like to have so many strong feelings that you can't stop yourself from hurting someone. I know what it's like when someone whose love you desperately need instead decides they don't want you anymore.

*

The ex-partner who went to Afghanistan is married now. I found photos online of him and his new wife, whose name is Fawn because of course it is, and they ride horses together, because of course she's into horses, across beaches in low tide and they splash in the surf and laugh at their reflections.

I guess he found his forever home.

*

My ex-husband also married his next serious partner after me. They have so many daughters at this point I've lost count whether it's four or five. She's a child psychologist, I think, or maybe psychiatrist, or counselor. Something like that. Right before he left me he told me a terrible story about childhood abuse he'd been through.

I've also lost count of how many of my exes married their next serious partner after me. Where is my forever home?

*

*

In March of 2020, I left my partner of nearly five years in Korea to move back to Taiwan. It was a happy relationship, but I was unhappy in Korea and was once again fighting suicidal ideation. I had to go back to the last place my heart remembered being happy. Corona was just becoming big news at the time. The borders of Taiwan closed four days after I arrived. In June or July I asked him to marry me, and he said yes. But by August he dumped me.

We were friends for a year and a half before we ever considered dating. He knew exactly who I was during all that time. But I think he started lying to himself about who I was when we got together. Because something that has always been a part of who I am, something he always knew about, came up, and suddenly he declared it a deal breaker.

*

When I adopted Rufus, you told me the story of his rescue. You told me he had loved the smell of a steak restaurant so much that he actually got his head stuck inside a hole in the roof and you had to go and get him out of it.

I can easily understand what it feels like to love something so much you hurt yourself trying to get to it. I wanted to stay with my ex-husband until his father pushed for the divorce. I tried to fix the relationship with the veteran who wouldn't acknowledge PTSD for two years. I think my last partner knew he would eventually dump me when I first left Korea. But I still proposed to him.

When I pictured the story you were telling me, it wasn't Rufus's head I saw stuck in that ceiling. It was my own.

*

Sometimes when I'm angry I lash out. Sometimes when I haven't slept enough, I get cranky. Also, I'm a poet, a chef, and a teacher. I'm a good listener and a caring friend. Honestly overall I'm a great person 99% of the time. But who among us is perfect? Do you know anyone without flaws?

*

Rufus teaches me many things, but most of all he teaches me mindfulness. I suspect I still have some of the ADHD I was diagnosed with in my adolescence because I've never been successful at meditating, despite trying for years. I simply cannot quiet my thoughts for any length of time, and I mean, I truly have tried it so many different ways with different teachers and texts and all sorts of approaches.

Rufus comes to me and he makes this silent, breathy, squeaky meow. And I realize I have my face in my phone and I'm not doing anything important at all. Literally nothing in any of the different apps I'm switching between has any great meaning or will accomplish anything helpful in the long run. So I put it down.

I get down on his level and I start speaking to him. He meows back in that strange, almost-silent way. And he will take as much attention as I want to give him for as long as I will stay focused on him. He never runs off. He stays right there, meowing at me for more.

I know what it feels like to need more.

*

Did you do the time math earlier? I said my ex dumped me in August. I adopted Rufus the first weekend in October. I had been looking for a place to adopt from for over a month. I needed to rescue someone because I needed to believe rescue is possible. That trauma doesn't make us worthless. That a hurt thing can be loved. That a flawed thing can be cared for. That a difficult personality can still attract someone who won't give up on them.

*

*

Another of my exes who married the next serious thing used to make me feel very strange. He was a hardworking capitalist who loved to blow money on his poorer friends. One day I was finally able to put my finger on how he made me feel. He wasn't loving me as a full, complex individual. He liked me as an accessory. Just like he would spend $300 on shirts randomly, to make himself look good, just like he adored his French cuffs with cufflinks, he liked having me on his arm. Me, the poor bartender. The poet. The activist. I gave him a sort of credibility, a boost to his personality. I made him feel good about himself.

A lot of people keep pets without loving them as full, complex individuals. To that ex, I was just a bird in a cage.

*

I work a lot. If I ever go a couple days without really focusing on Rufus for a while, and really giving him attention, I find out. He reminds me. As he's following me from room to room, like he does, at some point he'll let out a strange meow and rush past me, biting my leg on the way. I don't think it's painful, but I do have a high threshold for pain. It's more of a warning. Or sometimes on the arm, if I'm just lying on the couch ignoring him.

I know what it feels like to be ignored.

But just like me, and just like cats kept in cages, and just like dogs kept on chains, Rufus is a whole, entire, living being. He has a personality. He has desires. He has needs. 

He prefers to be watched at mealtimes. He loves falling asleep in my armpit. He adores chicken liver so much that once I forgot some on the counter and he ate a quarter kilo in one go, even though he'd already had his meal. He doesn't scare or startle easily. He always wants belly rubs and will never do the hind-leg-kick so many cats do when they ask for belly rubs. He likes his ears to be petted. He goes crazy for catnip. Sometimes if I'm eating something meaty for dinner he wants to get his face all up in it, just like that steak restaurant roof, and it's really hard to convince him to leave it alone. His ginger spots on his nose look like a funny moustache. His white-tipped ears look tie-dyed. He loves climbing and jumps like a gazelle. He truly enjoys it when I sing him lullabies.

And sometimes, he gets moody.

And sometimes, I get moody.

I wonder if Rufus ever has nightmares about being returned to The Cats' Cradle once again? I had to board him one weekend and chose the poshest place I could find. They had a camera in his cubby and every time I checked on him he was curled up in his bed, doing nothing. When I returned, they asked me to come get him out of the cubby because he wouldn't come out for them.

When I came into the room and said his name, he heard my voice and his eyes went as big as Baby Yoda's. He poured himself into the cat carrier like liquid, ready to go home.

Home. Forever. Forever home.

*

So to answer your question, "What [was Rufus] trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

I think Rufus was trying to tell you, I'm hurt. I don't understand why, or how to get better. What I really need is someone to be patient with me, and focus on me, and make me feel safe. Someone to treat me not as an accessory, but an actual living individual.

I think to help Jenson, you need someone who will give him those same things. Someone who understands a thing or two about trauma. Someone patient. Someone forever.

*

Dear Shangning, thank you for helping Rufus and me find one another.

Dear Jenson, so many of us know what it's like to feel so strongly that you hurt people. But there's someone out there for whom you aren't too much. I pray they find you soon.

Love,

Someone who was also too much.

*********************************

Rufus and me the day we first met, heading home from The Cat's Cradle:

The first time Rufus slept on my lap:

Rufus sleeping in my armpit:

Cuddling at home:

Would you get a load of this cuteness?

A couple of clowning lovebirds:

After I brought him home from the boarding place, he fell asleep holding onto me:

i meant to say

When I said I had to leave I meant:

these 13th floor windows look too much like doorways. I meant:

I'm a fish drowning in all this air.

When I said I missed you I meant:

you are my water, my ocean, my sweat,

tears and blood, meant

everything smells like metal since

we said goodbye.

When I said it had been too long I meant:

time had become a foreign language.

I meant every number rhymed

with "alone."

When I said I needed to take a lover I meant:

I know no other names but yours.

I meant: every graven idol

eventually crumbles before God.

weightchange

when one breath costs

more than your marrow

costs the world

when a meal is more

than a mountain

when a shower is a snake

and a pillow

the softest prison,

everything around becomes 

a bully.

when your head is heavy

like

an old dog is heavy

when your hair knots like riddles

when the smell

of your own sour body

is a song overplayed

when your eyes fail to focus

when your slow, dry tongue

loses how to language

when atrophied legs refuse

to stand,

you will look in the window

above the bathroom sink and see

a stranger, a sad ghost,

someone to be pitied, someone certainly

not the least of yourself.

Rambling thoughts of a recently dumped fiancee

 In June, after four and a half years together (and my record to date), I asked him to marry me. By August I was dumped. I have needed desperately to write about it but have been unable to write. So instead, I turn the recorder on in my phone and just talk it out to the open air. Below are abridged transcriptions:

Fri, Aug 28 3:17AM

Always. After heartbreak or trauma I crave a tattoo.

I think because my emotions are so strong and overwhelming that they aren't just feelings or brain synapses. They are truly tangible to me and I need evidence of that. I need physical pain to match my emotional pain, to leave a mark on my body as part of my healing and processing. 

What's interesting is that I just thought about this today. Today marks two or three weeks since we had that conversation and it's the first time I've thought about getting a tattoo. And I wasn't even thinking about getting a tattoo, I was thinking how I usually would have gotten a tattoo by now. And I haven't even thought about getting one, only just now to think about how I haven't thought about getting one.

So if that's how I process emotions, what does that mean? Does it mean I'm not processing this? Does it mean I'm numb to the emotions? Does it mean I'm not emotional about this? I have no idea what it means. I think because I have no idea how I feel about it.

How I feel about it is changing from moment to moment. So for my own sake I'm going to start documenting the things I feel from moment to moment so that I can process what the fuck is going on with me.

For example: I have become unfamiliar with my body. And this manifests in a lot of ways. I had been wearing glasses every day but I just bought some contacts... but that's a minor thing and I don't understand why I did that enough for it to be a good example of what I'm trying to say. 

I could say that I have lost eight kilos. I only know this because I have to weigh myself every time I go to the psych clinic for medicine and I was 88 kilos and I knew that I had dropped to like 83 but now I'm down to 80. 

True to form I will always find the silver lining, which currently is: the weight is leaving what I have considered my problem areas mostly, like 75-80% is coming from areas that I wouldn't mind to see a little flatter, and only a small portion is leaving my tits and ass. Like, I've still got the significant majority of my tits and ass and that's what matters, so there's that silver lining.

In the meantime, I feel like I'm eating less but I don't feel like I'm eating lose-eight-kilos less. And I should note that I have no idea how many pounds eight kilos is at all. My last shitty breakup was extremely traumatic, and I lost twenty pounds, because I was still living in a country that measured pounds at that time. 

How else can I talk about what's happening in my body? I feel unfamiliar in it. I have forgotten how to sleep. Am I a side sleeper or a back sleeper? I feel like I occasionally used to be a stomach sleeper but I haven't done that in some time. I'm unsure if it has to do with the mattress I'm on, but it's been the same since mid-March. It hasn't changed, so it's got to be me that changed. So what changed and why?

It's like I sleep better on my back than I used to. I sleep better on my right side than on my left side. And that's because when I sleep on my left side, my heart starts getting a little palpitate-y like it's struggling under the weight of my lungs? sitting on top of it? Is that what's going on? What else would make it do that. I used to sleep on my back only rarely but now I might spend most of my night on my back, I don't know.

I have lost interest in taking care of my hair. And I have naturally curly hair so that's saying a lot, other natural curlies will know. I have found it really challenging to keep up basic maintenance on my fingernails and toenails. It's like, oh they don't need attention (repeat) OMG they all need attention at once oh they don't need attention (repeat) wait exactly 47% of my nail ends need attention right now stop everything and fix it now. It's so weird it's -- but then other nails haven't grown at all. Even my breakouts are different. 

I'm trying to make this new pillow work for my needs. I'm not sleeping properly. I'm sleeping entirely too much like I'll get out of work on a Friday, let's say last weekend I got out of a meeting at 4 or 5 and I came home -- 

oh, I don't know how to DRIVE any more! I used to be a very aware, conscious driver, even a little bit aggressive, like compassionately aggressive, because you have to be a little bit aggressive to drive in Taiwan without dying. But now I space out, not even thinking about anything, I just become an empty head and I drive at a perfectly boring speed and I try to keep to the right so all the other aggressive drivers can just go around me. I see something on the drive and I realize, I just missed the last three blocks. For three fukkin blocks I wasn't paying any attention at all, oh okay, I'm here now. 

What else is weird. Eating is weird. I was brought up in a food insecure household, so now as an adult having food gives me a sense of security. When I feel depressed I start spending money on food. However, when I feel depressed, I have less of an appetite so I'm buying food because I feel the need to have food in my house because it will give me comfort to know that there's food in my house but I'm not fukkin eating it, so it goes bad, and I have to throw it away, and then because of how I grew up I have guilt about throwing away uneaten food that I allowed to go bad or spoil and that just makes me more depressed and it's this fucked up cycle.

I really can't even begin to address how it's affecting my work performance because I'm trying to fly under the radar at work right now. If I start to talk about it and catalog all the ways in which I've been a shitty employee lately then I would have to face the fact that I've been a shitty employee lately and I prefer not to do that. I have been flying under the radar. I've only turned up as a blip maybe twice, and it has been resolved, and they know what I'm going through. I'm managing to get enough work done so that when classes start I won't be behind, I'll be able to do my job and god willing there won't be any more blips.

So what's weird: My eating my sleeping my body my driving my work - that's pretty much everything right? 

I feel like I need to catalog these thoughts that I'm having just to keep them straight for my own sake, because I don't really understand what I'm going through. Maybe this can help me make sense of myself. As far as what I've been thinking... I will start with a couple of thoughts that I just had and then leave it, then come back to it and continue to add thoughts as they come to me just to show how completely all over the spectrum my thought process has been. It's exhausting. I'd rather be fucking duct taped inside the world's craziest roller-coaster for 24 hours nonstop. Like that would be easier than my thought process these past weeks.

So the thought I just had was: He knew who I was. We were friends for a year and a half. He saw me picking up a different hookup for every night of the weekend, every weekend. He knew that I was nonmonogamous. He saw me in a relationship with another person and we were both dating other people, happy with it, happy with each other, having a great time. And so when we started becoming a couple and he said what he said on that bench on that beach on that island, when he said I don't know how I feel about it but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, and I just believe that we can get through anything.... I believed that. It had been such tooth pulling work to get him to say even that much that when he finally did say that much, I just considered it a win and backed off. When instead what I should have done was right at that moment pinned him to the motherfucking ground, put my fukkin knees on his chest, pinned his arms above his head and been like, Say more about that NOW. Tell me how we're going to get through it NOW. What's your plan NOW. What's your thinking about that NOW. Now not five years from now, now. And I tried to bring it up again (repeat) throughout the years, the five years, the half of a decade that we spent together and he just kept being evasive. And I kept letting him be evasive. 

And it speaks again about the ways that the unequal burden of emotional labor falls upon women and the ways in which that fact repeatedly manifested in our relationship, that I kept bringing it up and he kept avoiding it. Even I am now saying I should have forced him to talk about it -- no he should have forced his fukkin self to talk about it, but since his ass wasn't doing that...

I keep waffling on my feelings toward him. In one moment I'm all--you know what fuck him and the thousands of dollars and the sixty fukkin months of my life that I wasted on him while he was pretending to love who he pretended I was.... and in that moment I mean it 100% from the poisonous pits of my blackened heart. And then fukkin 20 minutes later I'm saying to myself, if only I could have found a way for us to get married online on Zoom or whatever then he'd be stuck with me. And he'd be forced to work through it and deal with his feelings about it and work out a compromise that could work for both of us.

How do I feel right now right this second? Right this second I feel like if he wanted me in this moment, he oughta know what he oughta do if he wanted me, and he's clearly not doing anything, which must clearly mean he doesn't want me. And if one conversation about my needs can cause him to pivot that drastically, one conversation, then after 5 years! of me going through so many different kinds of hell just in order to stay by his side he can't be bothered to do what little it would have taken to keep me or even to get me back, then he Does Not Care At All. Clearly. That's where I'm at right now. 

Another moment and I'll think to myself, if he were to come back, I wouldn't want him. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't take him. And then in another moment my fucking heart cries out, I would take him back right now, he would only have to say one word, and I would take him back with each and every one of his faults that hurt me over the years, I would welcome all of those faults and that man who hated me so, I would welcome it all back in a fucking heartbeat. 

That's not where I'm at right now, but it's where I have been as I flit from moment to moment. I guess that about brings us up to speed.

Fri, Aug 28 7:47PM

Right now I feel like: I'm so relieved. Because I was willing to put up with a lifetime of his self-defeatism, his irrational anger, and his general negativity, but now I don't have to. I don't have to be frustrated by someone who just gives up and then complains about a situation while refusing to do anything to resolve it. 

This bedroom that I'm sleeping in right now, that I have been sleeping in for five or six months, has got the loudest air conditioner of any place I've ever lived in my entire life, and I just... go to sleep! But he wouldn't be able to spend even one night in this room without losing his mind. He would go insane he'd be so angry about it. And guess what? I'm doing just fine.

Sun, Aug 30 2:09 AM

From my perspective, nothing changed! Nothing has changed. From my perspective, nothing changed except we had a conversation. 

From my perspective, I am the exact same person right now that I was before the conversation, so... I guess I just don't understand how having that conversation means he can throw away... ME. and US. and EVERYTHING that we went through together and everything that we meant to each other, and all this is past tense now because it's been over two weeks, maybe three weeks, feels like a year, and I just keep waiting for him to fall all over himself to apologize and reach out to me and be like oh my god I'm so sorry what was I thinking I'm a fucking fool what do I need to do to make it up to you -- because from my perspective nothing changed, all that happened was we had a conversation and so I don't understand.

Because he is so defeatist and so pessimistic, I wonder if he believed before I even left Korea that we were gonna break up. Even though I never wanted to do that at any point, because he's so defeatist and pessimistic, he believed that and made it come true. That's what I wonder. I wonder if, when the conversation happened, he was just like, ope here it is, may as well just sever the cord and get it over with just like I knew nothing good could ever happen! 

If that's the case then that makes it even worse, makes it so selfish of him just to indulge his sick pessimistic fantasies and punish me, make me have wasted thousands and thousands of dollars, half of a decade, and to hurt me the way that I've been hurt just because he's such a pessimist and he just wants the worst thing to come true at all times and just insists on it. Maybe that's not what happened, maybe he never saw it coming and he was really blindsided and it just goes against all of his principles but that's hard for me to believe that because for me nothing changed! I am now exactly who I was five minutes before the conversation, during the conversation, immediately afterwards, and even five years ago, six and a half or seven years ago when we first met! I'm still the exact same person that he always knew me to be. I'm so furious for him doing this to me.

Sun, Aug 30 9:29PM

Right now if he called me up or if he sent me a message and said, I'm an idiot, I'm sorry, what was I thinking, please take me back so we can work this out, I would. No conditions, no questions. Right this second he could have me back. I wouldn't make any -- okay well we have to -- no I would just say thank god.

If I'd found out a way for us to have gotten married online then when we had the conversation he'd be stuck with me. He couldn't just say that's a dealbreaker and be done. He would have to talk it out, work it out, but because I couldn't find a way to do that he was able to just cast me aside.

Tues, Sep 1 1:19AM

I wonder if he has started cataloging all of the little quirks and traits and things about me that he won't miss. All of the little annoyances that used to piss him off but he would let it go because we were in a relationship. I wonder if now he's looking back, kindof the way I am and thinking to himself, well at least I'll never have to hear her say (whatever) again or never have to find her underwear on the couch again for example. We've all got little things that annoy us; Lord knows I'm over here thinking I'll never have to be the only one fighting to save us anymore, only have to save myself. Over here thinking at least my air conditioner isn't causing someone to get irrationally pissed off and just run their mouth bitching about it nonstop every day for hours on end. I wonder if he's over there doing that, thinking to himself, God I'm so glad to be rid of this and that and the other, never to be given a lecture on feminism ever again never to be told I'm using the word "triggered" wrong ever again... Is it shit like that? He's over there singing hallelujah? Is that why he isn't contacting me at all? 

I get -- philosophical is too big of a word for it and pensive is too small. I get caught up in my thoughts  in the rare times like these, which are times that I don't feel one way or the other about him. I don't feel broken hearted desperate that he would reach out to me and say oh my god you're the best woman i'll ever find, nor do I feel that fukkin asshole how dare he create a false pretense for five years and waste all my time and my money. I do not feel I wish we'd already gotten married nor do I feel I wish I'd never met him. Very rarely do I get caught in this I-don't-know-what-I-want middle place. I'm usually oscillating wildly back and forth like a pendulum on crack. 

When I get in this ambivalent indifferent noncommittal place it's almost more depressing. When I feel unaffected by any desires regarding him is when I feel most lost, and maybe that's because he has been an anchor for me for so long that when my purpose is tied to him (whether it is I hate his guts or please god come back to me) at least it's still tied to him. And the times where I don't know what I want, that's when I start casting out the longest fishing lines. 

I sent a letter to a director of education up in the aboriginal mountains and villages to say like heeyyy my contract will be out this time next year, are you going to be looking for anybody sure would like to hang out in the mountains... or I looked at google earth and I found the upper and lower latitudinal coordinates between which reside climates that I enjoy, and I started where I currently am on the globe and started rotating west, and wrote down the name of every even semi-inhabitable country. Like it had to be notoriously war-torn for me not to write it down (which is a surprising number of countries unfortunately). And when I got back to where I started then I scrolled down into the southern hemisphere, found those same opposing coordinates, and scrolled east, writing down the name of every country that fell within the two latitudes of the climate that I like. Now I've got a list of somewhere between four or five dozen countries and I'm writing down what is required to teach English (there some of these countries I haven't found any information on teaching English there, maybe it means they don't want foreign English teachers, maybe it means i haven't looked in the right place, or I would have to do something else or they don't want foreigners at all)...

but the ones I can find, I'm writing down cost of living, salary, whether I could save money, whether the jobs provide housing or I find it, what is the health care like... and then I'll use those things. (and there's a few other categories I can't remember) but i'm finding this on like 60 countries give or take right now in these moments where I don't fucking know what I want. That's the scale of how seriously I have no idea what I want, that I'm literally looking at the entire globe to figure out what I want. I am so ignorant, I am so devoid of any knowledge about my wants or even wants at all that in order to narrow it down and find what it is that I want I first have to start with the entire planet.

I know a few things I don't want, that's a little helpful at least for now. And I know that for now I should just keep living where I am, keep working where I work, keep saving what I can and just... keep taking my medicine, waking up in the morning, going to work, rinse, repeat... because apart from that I really don't have any wants. I have a few needs like I need to sleep, eat, shower...  But even those things become difficult to force myself to do. I'll stay up on Sunday night until fukkin 3AM putting off a shower when I know I have to wake up at 6AM to start the school week but because I don't WANT to take a shower or even work or I don't want anything ... 

I don't even want food so I just keep snacks around in the house. Because I start feeling hungry and it's the time when I would start preparing and getting ready for a meal, but when I start thinking about food my brain is like nah not interested i'm good and so I don't get anything together until the moment when I finally have enough hunger that I can't ignore it anymore. At that point still nothing sounds good so I have to just have snacks like small bread things that I can just put in my face, chew, drink water and they'll expand in my stomach and my stomach will just shut up and leave me alone for a few hours

so yeah basically i'm doing great.

Day 5/30 (we'll catch 1-4 later maybe)

With thanks to NaPoWriMo for the prompt:

This country is a child with a grandfather’s history

and here, I am a newborn.

So the light blinds, life’s soundtrack deafens, each new smell becomes

an instant shared taste while phantom electrics prickle my flesh.

I feel the smells. I taste the lights and the sounds

dance in the air.

In Táiwān, my name is Freedom. Zìyóu. from the motto of Clan Wallace,

and here, I am a grandmother.

Who on this earth loves their chains?

My whip is only three or four horses;

because of this I am always outdoors.

“Nǐ hǎo,” they say, or if they really mean it, “Lí hé.”

The genuine greeting of a people mixplaced.

Snaking roads take you straight to where you should be

and I fly with my horses to every home I find.

Zìyóu and her tiny team of horses

will never tire of traveling here,

this raucous country, these patient beaches, these smoking hills.

Born 150 degrees from here but this is my home.

Lí chia̍h pá bōe? Chia̍h pá-ah!

My three horses together are one humble scooter, carrying me like a newborn,

a grandmother, feeling the language on electric skin.