I need to start writing letters to people, where I try to pull off the self-illusion that nobody (mostly they) will not read it. How else will I try to translate this intangible web of feelings & emotions inside of me? If not to them, it is to myself. For myself. I experience/My experience of the the world is in pure abstraction, and I can go my whole life not knowing, not unpacking, leaving the sensations of my life slip past through the sieve of my being; unprocessed, lost to time.
Tapi aku ngak mau hidup kayak gini. Every time I remember I’m a person, physical and real, I always get stunned. I want to spur myself into action. I don’t want to be left not knowing, forever static, not having vigor or vitality. I don’t want to be incurious to the world. I want to be flayed open and stung and be healed back to do it all over again. Kapan lagi aku dapet kesempatan ini? My one wild and precious life. Kapan lagi bisa kurasakan kerlip hidup ini? Adanya stimulus & response? Dimana lagi aku bisa menyerukan isi hatiku dan bisa ada gendang telinga yang menangkap dan mengartikannya?
Ayo, kapan lagi?
(expanded journal entry, 09/10/2023)
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I met with my university counselor, Miss Sisil, in the beginning of this week. I kept saying through our conversation: I can’t believe this is my life. How is this my life? The glimmers I only had a chance to momentarily grasp; this ease and pep-and-step in my stride; how comfortable I am striking up a conversation with the barista in the new coffee shop I just went to — all of them are just part of my daily life now, of who I am. No more of being chained to the notions of what my “image” was (this quiet inward introverted girl), of who I should be acting like.
To hell with pretension. To hell with “jaga image”. To hell with cloaking your own earnestness with a layer of distance, of aloofness. I’ve always been earnest to a probable fault, and maybe that’s something that I will always carry with me.
Not once in my life have I ever thought of my vulnerability as a weakness. It is a strength to offer your chest out and be open to the possibility of hurt. The alternative is shutting your being away to people who are as desperate to reach out to warm hands just like yours — and is that what you want? To be secluded to the red interiors your own mind long before you even try?
I will refute the inability to communicate.
I refuse being locked inside of my mind.
*
Sudikah kau bersinar, Matahariku?
Meski tua, lelah, sengatmu hapus jelaga
*
Almira said I glow in my pics recently. I believe her, it’s true! but I just find it crazy how naturally my physical appearance reflects the buoyancy and joy I feel inside. That feeling of (a lot of it financial) stability taking hold, the weight being sloughed off my shoulders.
This particular newsletter is me translating the love, but also the anger that I feel that I am experiencing the best that this universe can offer me while on another side of the world the people of Palestine are killed and denied of the chance of experiencing all of this.
Huge numbers don’t make any sense in the human brain. An entire planet, a life, a solar system being snuffed out by the Zionist state and its allies in the Axis of Evil is something I will never accept. Now try taking that to the thousands.
Insya Allah, within our lifetime, they will drop dead to the ground. But that requires us organizing and mobilizing. That requires knowing that the work we do doesn’t end with us.
*
My people are the foundation of my actions (hi Foreword Flunkies, I especially am indebted to you). Lofty goals are that — lofty — but they can only fly if you feel like they can land safely & softly if there are any disturbances in the wind. The assuredness I have of who I am come from my comrades in life — an everlasting feedback loop, where they confirm to me who they are and I do the same. Humans are constantly (re)making themselves, and what exactly the criteria of what constitutes their identity is defined by that self of yours without any self-illusion.
You are the one that needs to find your own north star. Not your parents, your “aesthetic”, not society — that responsibility is wholly yours.
What a terrifying, exciting task.
with warmth & fire,
Madina ✧
'Humans are constantly (re)making themselves, and what exactly the criteria of what constitutes their identity is defined by that self of yours without any self-illusion.'
your poetry is one of my many lifelines, like how a sky feels empty without the crisscrossing electricity and phone-lines feeding life and connecting lives <3
i'm so happy and eternally grateful to have you in my life
"The assuredness I have of who I am come from my comrades in life — an everlasting feedback loop, where they confirm to me who they are and I do the same. Humans are constantly (re)making themselves, and what exactly the criteria of what constitutes their identity is defined by that self of yours without any self-illusion."
i love you, madina