a small resurrection
she looked at me and said, "i don't think you lost yourself. i think you have just been in pain for so long that you forgot what it felt like to be you. but that is different from being gone. you are still there. i can still
all my little deaths
i have survived the fire, and now i am learning the strange grief of not burning. no screaming. no collapse. no grand ending to point at and say, there, that was the moment i learned that not every death makes a sound.
main character malfunction
i get it. you see me in the spotlight, and you must think, this is one hell of a woman. maybe you saw in me everything you were told you were not allowed to become. but you forgot that powerful women still bleed. we still break. we still come home,
minor resurrection
these past six months, i have been learning not to demand brightness from myself while i am still quietly mending inside. i am just slowly picking myself up, piece by piece. what is broken can remain as a new scar. what is still whole, i will keep, nurture, and learn
postcard from Villa Minozzo
for the slow conversations, the familiar faces, the quiet kindness that turns a small town into something you miss before you even arrive.
seven
the loudest noise is the one inside your head. i hope you survive all the things you have had to carry alone.
but at what cost?
what doesn't kill you makes you: * lose your innocence * stop trusting anyone * wonder what makes you so unlovable * live in a constant state of survival * question everything you thought you knew * replay all the ways it could have been different * ask yourself if it is worth going on
postcards from Mondim de Basto
soon, i may have to start calling Portugal something closer to home.
small chapters
1. Fishy and her sister came visiting from Saigon, carrying with them a little piece of justice. her sister's rapist been thrown into jail, and somehow, with my help, the world corrected itself by one small inch. it felt like watching the universe return one stolen thing. not
six
note to self: healing can be so hard when your inner child wants love, your teenage self wants revenge, and your adult self only wants peace.
money, money, and money
the version of me in my twenties believed that life had three missions: knowledge, lifestyle, and love. only after growing older did i realize that was not enough. because out in the world, the three words people worship most are money, money, and money. and it is strangely hard to
after the parade
i tried to become a good person. i tried to shrink myself into something your love could keep safe. but here, they turned my pain into a carnival. they paraded me through the streets like a monster they could not kill. and i kept bandaging the same places they had