good damage

How and why do I feel so miserable? My period app says I’m due to start bleeding in about four days, so that might be why, but I just feel off! I’m unhappy, unsatisfied, annoyed, and restless. I wish I had more in me—I wish I was successful, well-off, and talented. I feel wasted, rotten, and unremarkably unimportant.  

The weather has been so hot too, and it makes me want to claw my skin off. I sweat so easily; it’s so gross and unladylike…  

I used to not care about gender roles. I’ve always prided myself on being a liberal child, even in the conservative household I grew up in. From a very young age, I remember challenging my parents’ beliefs, proclaiming my judgment-free convictions. I didn’t mind looking like a boy. I didn’t mind letting my leg and armpit hair grow out. I was more independent—and less fat.  

Every time I write the word fat or even mention my weight, it feels like I’ve detonated a bomb. The awkward bomb, like casually dropping a slur in the middle of a chill conversation and watching everyone go silent. That’s how it feels to admit, even to myself: I’m fat. Or I feel fat. Or I’ve gotten fat.  

When I let myself say it, it’s like everyone in my head stops what they’re doing, goes silent, and stares at me. I can’t seem to admit it—not fully. I’ve buried it so deep, avoided it so vehemently, that even when I try to address it, there’s this bleak, unnerving silence. If I admit it, then it becomes true.  

But it’s already true!  

I miss having my Instagram account. I miss the attention and validation it brought me. Like a past relationship, I know I’m forgetting the bad parts—the fear of posting something my parents might scrutinise, the panic over comments about suggestive angles. Growing up felt like jail. I shouldn’t have had to feel that way as a child. That child shouldn’t have grown older only to make fear its home.  

There were other bad parts, too. Worrying about posts that didn’t get enough likes, stories with too few views, follower counts going down, or someone else’s account growing faster. There was always something to keep me up at night.  

And yet, all I can think about now is how good I felt about myself when I had aasthameow.  

I want to unfollow Melbourne influencers who make me feel awful about myself. They have platforms, opportunities—access to things I wish I could experience. But I don’t want to be like that. I know they’ve worked hard, and they’re reaping the rewards. Still, it stings to click on a story and see someone my age, in my industry, a friend of a friend, being invited to concerts with after-party entries while I stand in line for eight hours, wait another four for the performance, and leave without the signed poster all VIP ticket holders were promised—because customs.  

I feel hateful. Furious. And I don’t want to write anymore.  

But where do I go? What do I do with all of this? It’s lodged inside me, spreading like a stain. If I walk away from typing this, the thoughts won’t stop. And if I don’t document my misery, what’s it worth?  

Two things are on a loop in my mind:  

1. Diane Nguyen Good Damage monologue from BoJack Horseman: “Because if I don’t, that means all the damage I got isn’t good damage, it’s just damage. I’ve got nothing out if it, and all those years I was miserable for nothing.” 

2. A quote I read on someone’s Instagram story: “Art isn’t good or bad; it’s just profitable or not.”

I’m clinging to that second one, hoping it helps my mental health because right now, it’s not looking great.  

Not everything has to be tied together, you know? I could be happy with myself without feeling like it would deteriorate my work. Self-worth and productivity don’t have to hold hands. I could be free from my demons. But I’m competitive—and my own worst enemy. I wouldn’t even let anyone else win that title.  

Btw I started a Substack. So if you like to read, there's material there too. 

Spoken in Slams

On 16th November 2024, I performed, for the first time, my poems in front of an audience. It was a nerve-racking experience but I knew it was something I had to do for myself. Both these poems were written about two years ago. In that time I submitted other poems from the collection these two come from, but never sent On My Own Since 2009 and I Am anywhere to be considered for publication. I knew they needed to be heard, not read. 

On My Own Since 2009

It’s 2009, I’m fat and my mummy still has reign over how I dress, do my hair. I am naïve, born a blank page. Easy to blemish. And the earliest ones leave the greatest impression. Brown-bodied, I stand out. Brown raised, I act so. Oil in my hair, it’s split into two, braided tightly. Roti rolls with aloo ki sabji wrapped in aluminium foil sit next to new books blessed by Saraswati Ma and my ma; sindoor on her right ring finger make swastikas on first pages of new notebooks and on my wrist, tied are saffron, amber and maroon threads.

It stains. All of it.

My silence is taken for compliance. A little brown girl, slightly overweight, at moments her brain attempts to compensate for she cannot communicate nor fully understand the language in which they tease and ridicule.

It’s the language in which I write and speak today.

Devanagari, oily red smudges and the scent of tadka. I erase it, with all the might of a nine-year-old, but the र etched and creased my page, the oil made it opaque and heavy-handed imprints stood their ground so I dowsed it all in correction fluid. Its smell rendered me light-headed; but the sight and scent of white could make me a companion, I could become familiar.

Instead they smeared the blank slate with charcoal, the colour of hate. Ripped off the threads on my wrist and used it to measure my waist. I would go home and mummy would scold, not knowing what I had endured. 

And so, with my mutilated page, since the age of nine, I’ve been all alone.

I AM

I am hairy-legged, spice-eating, bad at math—

which might be disappointing, but...

I am multi-language speaking, bright shiny clothes wearing, after-school tuition going, more than just male loving—

which could get me disowned, but...

I am colonised country born, Holi/Diwali celebrating, oldest daughter in brown family, generational trauma ridding—

which is okay, I’m capable...

I am model minority, relatable but unique, token brown friend, bondable over shared histories yet alone when in need, too emotional for your ease, not desi enough to understand slang, too brown they tell me to go back to my land

 I am no one you’ll ever think me to be...

I am trapped inside my own head, bound by traditions and culture, the same that give me reason and structure, I am migrant child with feet for sake of stability, a nowhere home and a lack of linear identity.

I am

me.

Dream Girl and the HE-brain

I’ve been having dreams about this girl. No, not in that way. I meet her, and we talk. I tell her how I’ve been talking about her, singing her praises—all while the knot of not hating, not being able to hate her, tightens in me. I aspire to be like her. I never aspire to be like anyone; I just start despising them. I grow angry and resentful that someone has it better than me.

When I was younger, even up until a couple of years ago, I truly did believe I was destined for greatness or something. I just felt special. It was probably something undiagnosed or delusional, but I just knew I’d ‘make it.’ Not anymore though—that feeling has died out. Not that the mental illness has died out; it’s just been replaced, suppressed, overtaken by something worse, something parasitic.

But wanting to be her—to be someone else—out of admiration has been grounding. The absence of my hatred must mean I’m not that bad. Not that bad of a feminist. Not that bad of a team player, bad sport, bad person. Just bad.

Is that enough? Should I let it be enough? Should I be satisfied with the sufficiency of this enough? Cue Naomi Wolf, holding the hourglass pictured on the front cover of The Beauty Myth. The sand trickles down. "You haven’t picked me up in years. You know you need to, before you become a cautionary stat. You know I spoke about women like you—jealous, competitive women overtaken by the patriarchy. Women who will never be happy, nor free." I know, Naomi, but it’s hard to get rid of old habits, I’d reply. I wonder if she’d look at me with disgust then. A fat, lazy piece of shit who can’t even do this much—for women! For humanity! For herself! (Tbh, I’d probably assume it was because I'm brown. See: I won’t kill anymore.)

But it’s true. Old habits die hard: forgetting to floss, gossiping, overeating. I know that much. I wonder if she, the Dream Girl, has vices, things she knows aren’t good for her but can’t stop. Things she knows will inevitably cause her downfall. Or maybe she exercises her free will. Where does that come from though?

I used to have this so-called free will. But nowadays, I’m just my brain. I feel HE can only be addressed with such pronouns when speaking of HIM. HE is dominant, off-putting, egotistical. Unlike the she-brain, which wanted to believe, prayed for tranquillity, and was drenched in the indisputability of greatness and success, this current HE-brain is gluttonous and dream-shattering. I’ve had pretty good male role models in my life, so I don’t know how HE made his way here, infiltrating every aspect like an abusive partner. He crept up on me like narcissistic men creep up on vulnerable women. There may be a remedy, an evaluation, or an eviction process for the HE-brain within the pages of Tolle’s work. But HE knows that’d be detrimental to his survival.

Does Dream Girl feel anything comparable to this? I can only imagine she does, but in a much more nuanced manner. It would be informed and valid. It would have good reason and cause. It would be humanitarian, deep, and Pinterest-y. Some girls get sad and become Sylvia Plath; I get depressed and end up fat. How is that fair? It can only be self-error induced. What’s the point of blaming it on trauma, PTSD, class, colonisation, or some diagnosis? In the end, when I submit my piece, all that matters is if I did something with all that sadness—something monumental, intersectional, and all-encompassing in a subtle, incomparable, non-replicable way is what I need to achieve. Instead, I ignore the incoming call from my friend’s mum from the hospital, asking me if I want to talk to her clinically-dead-for-15-minutes-and-now-recovering-but-hasn’t-been-the-same (no shit) daughter.

In the end, when someone on the other side is sitting and reading this piece, deciding whether: 1.) My choice of words is distinct and impactful; 2.) The order in which I’ve arranged those distinctive and impactful words is distinctive and impactful in and of itself; and 3.) No one else has arranged their distinctive-er and impactful-er words in a more distinctive and impactful way—it won't matter whether I’m in pain or suffering. I can still write about it, so it must not have been that bad. Art only takes on value when the cause of it results in death, marking the end of a hypothetical recovery. In death, we (and you) strive to find reason and meaning.

Exhaustingly yet unsurprisingly, the egotism, selfishness, and self-serving lens of the HE-brain have taken over again. Above, we can witness the infestation of HE-ness (sounds similar to heinous). The HE that, in a world of tragedy, focuses on greatness for the self and the sustenance of personal dreams. It’s disgusting, honestly. Of course, Dream Girl deserves my dream life because Dream Girl cares about life. Plath cared about life, right? Until she didn’t. But that’s when we started caring.

See, I just don’t get it. I have all the components, all the right pieces, to construct and become and enjoy the embrace of my HE-brain aspiration puzzle. The pieces just don’t seem to fit together, though. Their edges have been sanded down, manhandled, manipulating the ease with which they would otherwise fall into place.

I can see it as a product of lacking the she-brain touch. The lack of she-brain sensitivity, which made Plath stuff towels and cloth in the gaps between the doors and floors of her kitchen before she placed her head in the oven. The she-brain gentleness of allowing myself to believe in good. The she-brain generosity of Dream Girl.

Imagine if this whole thing was simply just gay panic… a do I want to be her or do I want to be with her dilemma. It’s probably in the making, up there. My she-brain puts HIM to what never felt like work to her.