By: Sahana Rudra
Illustration By: Sylvain Chan
Content warnings: mentions of intimate partner violence, allusions to mental illness
The first time they tell you it is your fault
It will feel like everything you’ve been taught to fear is coming true
There will come a day when you can look yourself in the eye without flinching
The pain will continue but you get to decide when you want to stop eating shit with a smile on your face
When you need to believe in something bigger than yourself
Go to a protest or the sea
When you need to remember where you came from
Go to the mountains
Look out into the big open space
Sometimes, it will feel like a void that threatens to consume you
A master who must be obeyed
You will learn to let the grass and the water ripple through your fingers like the wind
Holding hands with the spirit of something primordial and immortal
Even when you think you won’t survive it
You will
Do not worry about being liked by people
Who do not like themselves very much
You will be able to love others with ten times more expansion
Once you extend the same courtesy to yourself
The judgements you bestow on others
Glint in the darkness
Like a double-edged sword
There is no winning a game
That ends with your inevitable end
You do not need to make it easy for him
For the right person
Loving you will flow like water
He thinks he owns language
Use this
Ask direct questions
Do not flinch
The first time his hands meet the side of your face
Leave
The first time he gets comfortable with masking disrespect in the shrouds of humour
Remind him why you are your father’s daughter
Your diagnosis is not a life sentence
The way your brain works is not a burden
Your unique composition brings you to worlds you didn’t know existed
No one is coming to save you
The only thing that gets you to save yourself
Is all the love that allows you to breathe each day
All the love that adorns every fracture of your life
Lord forgive me
For all the years
I couldn’t see
