How Do We Reclaim Emotional Intimacy, Reclaim Courage, Reclaim Transparent Relationing When There Are Intentionally No Spaces For Us To Heal?

a poem series about healing as a person of colour

Monday: How to reclaim emotional intimacy (authentic sharing of thoughts and feelings)

Wednesday: How to reclaim courage (strength in the face of pain/ grief)

Friday: How to reclaim transparent relationing (honest, intentional communication)

how can we authentically share our thoughts and feelings when those thoughts and feelings are repeatedly gaslit,

and told that the bias we observe, the inequalities that cut and sting, are thoughts and feelings to be “reframed” as if those experiences are not real, as if to close our eyes how system that performatively encourages sharing, and deep down continue to shut down these narratives?

how do we reclaim courage when courage and resilience is all that is sustaining our survival,

that change is not coming because the change they envision is to ask us to “be more resilient” in face of inequality,

the audacity to ask us to endure yet more pain and grief because they are unwilling to listen, to learn, to give up their own comforts so that another can live, and perhaps, to finally thrive?

how do we reclaim transparent relationing when we are one voice amongst many,

many, whom when faced with honest, intentional communication cry tears of guilt, centering their own shame, and washing away our pleas to be treated as human?

where may I ask is the space for us to heal?

Tuesday: Colouring outside the lines of rigid plans

Thursday: Penetrate the part of you connected to the whole

Smudging crayon behind the neatly printed lines, I remind myself, this is an exercise in stillness, and that I am not being penalized for neatness, that there is no grade for perfectly obeying what the printer has set out to rule.

I don’t need to be perfect to survive; though maybe I do?

Logically, perfectionism makes sense in my immigrant blood. We had only made it this far by being severalfold “better” to be treated with a fraction of the respect.

I monetize my every hobby just to survive, while I pretend to thrive, afraid that pieces I create won’t resonate, which in turn could suddenly mean I’m not good enough to have food on my plate.

How ironic that then, the thing that brings me peace is to forgo these fears for a minute or two;

because I can upon the privilege I now have built on the foundation from parents who could not stop;

they ask how I could be depressed when I have food on my plate and shelter above my head, and it is with privilege that I have the audacity for the need to find emotional meaning beyond scrounging every living resource just to physically survive.

Submerging myself in this silence, immersing wholeheartedly in the simple act of shading in beautiful flowers, fully present, fully aware, fully intentional in my existence.

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and once again I’m grateful to Diana C. for these lovely weekly prompts, which you can find here and here.

Hop down the rabbit hole? 🐰🕳

^ by Imad