Wait, Grandma Died From Voodoo?!

 

According to the dictionary, the term voodoo is defined as a West African religion origin practiced chiefly in Haiti and other Caribbean countries, based on animalism, magic and elements of Roman Catholic ritual.

Voodoo is characterized by belief in a supreme God and a large pantheon of local and tutelary deities, deified ancestors and saints. These deified ancestors and saints communicate with those whom believe in voodoo in their dreams, trances and ritual possessions.

Growing up in a semi-Christian/Muslim household, my family was aware of the ultimate power that voodoo can have a person’s life. My family knew that voodoo was very much real and anyone in the family that practiced this taboo religion should be disowned and deemed as an outcast of the family.

When I was turning seven, I wanted a Victorian styled, purple and black witch costume and an authentic magic book for my birthday. I mean, what’s the harm in a seven-year-old girl that wanted to spend her time pretending to be a witch? It seems harmless and innocent to anyone outside of my family, but family looked as this as the devil’s work.

Back then, my family and even I knew there was something weird, maybe even off about me. I didn’t like the stereotypical things that a seven-year-old girl would or should like. Instead of taking a liking to dolls, make-up and acting like a bubbly seven-year-old girl, I took a liking to magic, the Victorian era and acted like Wednesday Adams from the Adams Family. I spent my time trying to make cute and innocent looking teddy bears into dark, teddy bear monsters so to speak.

After being denied this Victorian styled witch costume and an authentic magic book that I had my eyes on for a year and wanted as a birthday gift, my mother made me swear that I would never get involved with any type of magic whatsoever.

After many attempts of doing better in school, and bribes like doing all of the chores in the house to get my mother to change her mind, I was brutally conquered and never got the costume or book.

As my birthday came closer my mother took me to Toys R Us, to let me pick out my birthday gifts. While looking around and trying to persuade my mother to buy the witch costume and magic book, my mother’s patience with me jumped out of the window.

“Look Nunu, I know it’s your birthday and you want this costume and book but you’re not   getting the damn costume or book. So you better pick something else or you’re not getting shit for your birthday! Now let’s go, pick something else out!”

Needless to say, because I was a stubborn like my mother, I refused to pick out anything other than the witch costume and the magic book. And we left Toys R Us empty-handed.

On our way home, I sat in the back sit of my family’s car pouting. As my mom looked at me and sarcastically chuckled, she told me an eerie story that I will never forget and often dream about.

“Nu, I want to tell you a story, don’t talk just listen ok.”

I slowly nodded my head eagerly, ready to hear this story my mom had to tell.

“You know that some of my family members are from Cuba, right? Well, when my grandma was alive, she met a manbo and became friends with her. As time passed my grandma pissed off this manbo; do you know what a manbo is?”

Manbo? What the hell is a manbo?

“A manbo is a lady that can kind of cast a spell on people. Almost like a Black witch. But she doesn’t do witchcraft, she does voodoo. And in places like Cuba, they believe in voodoo some people even practice it.”

Whoa, grandma met a Black lady that’s almost like a witch? That is so cool! I already like this story.

As my mother continued, she said “so when my grandma pissed off the manbo, the manbo did a ritual that slowly and internally killed grandma.”

Wait. Hold up one minute, grandma was killed by a manbo??! Sweet mother of God.

As the last part played over and over in my head, I began to feel a wave of extensive fear and nausea hit me. My mother must have seen the quick and drastic change of my facial expression.

“That’s why I want to promise, no better yet swear to me that you would NEVER, EVER get involved in witchcraft and especially voodoo. I want you to promise me right now,” said my mother.

“Ok, mom I swear that I will never any of that stuff, I don’t want to kill anyone. That sounds really scary and I don’t want to go to h-e-double hockey sticks for killing anyone.”

“Good, see why I didn’t get you that damn costume and book? It’s the devil’s work and in our family we don’t do the devil’s work! Now when we get home, we’re going to listen to nothing but gospel music to get that demon out of you.”

“Yeah, good thing I didn’t get that stuff, I don’t want to be like that manbo that killed grandma.”

From that day forward, I made a promise to myself that I would never use voodoo. No matter the situation might be.

 

 

(This is going to be a journalistic piece about getting inside the mind of New Yorkers who are leading all different types of lives and looking at how they all come together )

“Mass hysteria is a terrible force, yet New Yorkers seem always to escape it by some tiny margin: they sit in stalled subways without claustrophobia, they extricate themselves from panic situations by some lucky wisecrack, they meet confusion and congestion with patience and grit–a sort of perpetual muddling through,” E.B White, Here is New York, 1948.

In White’s “Here is New York” he gathers that in this city, the connection and separation of two lives is found eighteen inches apart.
A lawyer, a supermodel, a college student, a musician, a mother of two and a homeless man all assemble tightly side by side at 8:00 am on the 6 train uptown. One head stares up in relief of making it on in the nick of time, one head down in distress of the day ahead, one pair of eyes closed, one set of headphones in, one book, and one big bag of God knows what. If they are lucky they could find these eighteen inches between them to relax their shoulders for just a few minutes before they march out into the streets and face the demands of the day.

Between these eighteen inches are endless stories of victories and tragedies. There are moments of breakdown and breakthrough. There is loneliness and fellowship. There is a constant influx of bright-eyed dreamers and the departure of beat-down visionaries.

Being a New Yorker comes with a different type of brain chemistry; in turn, a different way of handling life, or not handling life. Researchers led by Dr. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, have found that growing up in the city doubles the risk of psychosis and other mental health issues later in life.

“I am so stressed out,” says Sabrina C., a student at Baruch College in Manhattan. “I have like 5 papers due this week and my sister is about to have a baby any minute. I have so much going on and my professors are giving us a whole book to read for each class on top of regular assignments that are due. It’s like they think we have nothing else to do except schoolwork. And on top of all that I have to work, too.”

Apparently when I was three I rolled my first joint.  I don’t recall it but my mom does.

“I don’t know how you did it.  I guess you watched me do it so many times you just learned,” my mom told me.

“It wasn’t actually pot.  Just seeds.  But you put them in a paper and rolled it up like you were going to smoke it.  We all laughed and thought it was so cute.  But it’s not funny.  It wasn’t cute.  I’m sorry.”

That’s how a lot of conversations between my mother and I have unfolded.

“I thought it was funny.  I thought it was cute.  I’m sorry.”

Actually, these days apologies are few and far between.  A couple years ago when my mother told me that story, she was sorry for having exposed me to everything so young.  I’d be surprised if she were able to remember that story today.

She used to demonstrate a desire to be clean.  Even when she was using meth all night while I tried to sleep, I knew she wanted to be clean.  It’s all she would talk about when she came down.

If it were a school day I’d probably be late.  I’d probably show up hungry.  Most times I’d make it to class, though.  My mom needed to sleep.  Sometimes she’d sleep too much.  I’d be the last kid on the lawn of the elementary school, talking to the crossing guard.

“I forget things all the time,” the Santa Clause look-a-like told me from his lawn chair, stop sign in hand.

“I used to tie a string around my finger to remind myself of something.  It worked until I forgot what the string was for in the first place,” he laughed.

Sometimes my mom’s white mini van would show up.  If it didn’t, I’d walk to my cousin’s house and wait there for her.  She almost always showed up eventually.

I want to preface this story by saying that everything is okay now – I was debating writing about this topic because it’s really intense and personal to me but I think it will produce the best writing and all issues have been resolved. This is the beginning of the piece:

I’m sitting in a dimly lit church basement on Schermerhorn and Third Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, surrounded by a crowd of older black men and women. I look around while I take a sip of my tea from the free refreshment table and realize I am the only white person in the room. I am also the youngest aside from two small children. I say hello to those who look at me, I hug those who want a hug, but mostly I keep quiet. Some men are missing teeth, some have canes and struggle to walk, some are donned in chains and others with raspy voices. I try my best to not look as out of place as I feel. What would my parents think if they knew I was here? Should I even be here?  I push these thoughts aside, recite the Serenity prayer and tune into the beginning of the meeting: “Hi family, I’m Melvin, and I’m an addict.”

—

It took me four months of being with my boyfriend to realize that he is a drug addict. “You look skinny,” I’d tell him. “There’s a reason for that,” he’d say. You always fall asleep when we’re together. Why aren’t you answering my calls? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. I didn’t and still don’t really know what a drug addict looks like. I always attributed the signs of usage to something else, something innocent. Oh, he must be tired from work. He probably just isn’t eating enough. I’m sure he’s fine. I know now that he wasn’t.

We met at a bar in my neighborhood where I was out with friends and he was DJing. I complimented the music and the second he smiled at me I knew where I was sleeping that night, and every night after that. He’s this 6 foot 2, dark skinned, tattoo covered DJ with the kindest smile. He makes me laugh until I cry and love until it hurts. He is ex-Navy and could never do me any wrong. This is it, I thought, this is who I’ve been waiting for.

For months I felt on top of the world with him. I just wanted to know more and more about this man, and slowly I did. He told me about his mother passing, about traveling the world in the Navy, and about eventually getting kicked out of the Navy for smoking weed. He told me about clubbing in France, living in Hawaii, being arrested in Florida. I knew I was falling for him because the good and the bad both felt like a dream. And all I wanted was more. He always told me he could never fully open up to me though, because there is some stuff that I might not be able to handle. “I can handle anything,” I told him. And I thought I could.

I would like to  provide a trigger warning, that this post gets graphic and contains details surrounding a sexual assault. A little explanation from my previous piece may also be helpful. I wrote about the chronic, undiagnosable vaginal pain I have had for seven years, this is the second part of that piece. 

 

Before I can sleep with a man, I have to explain all of the complicated issues about my vagina. It’s only fair that they know the mess they are getting into, Both literally and figuratively. A man I’m going to have sex with deserves to know that it’s a possibility for me to start crying in the middle of it because the pain is too much to handle. This conversation is always uncomfortable. My issues are very difficult to explain, just ask the dozens of doctors who have tried. One question I get often is “Can I catch it?” Which granted is a fair question. But watching the fear in their eyes as if I’m some gross enigma always cuts deep.

This conversation puts me in an incredibly vulnerable position. If you’re not in a relationship, and you’re trying to engage in a less intimate sexual encounter you normally don’t have to share something so deeply painful and personal. But that’s not my reality. It has also forced me to learn how to be extremely vocal about my sexual history, partners, likes, and dislikes, etc. before engaging in sexual activity with a partner. It makes me do all that adult shit before having adult relations. I was 20 years old when a man I had been sleeping with consensually used my medical issues against me to make me believe it was my fault that he sexually assaulted me.

I was dating a man named Michael that was 27 and was way more interested in me than I was in him. Looking back, this should have been the first red flag, but at the time it made me feel desirable. My messed up vagina makes me feel less feminine and I hadn’t felt desirable in a very long time (my inner feminist is screaming at me for that, but it’s the truth). I’d always been the one pursuing the person I was interested and this was a nice change.

On our first date he was very physical. He held my hand. He grabbed my waste. He kissed me deeply in the middle of the street. I’m not typically one for so much physical affection right away, and it made me uncomfortable. But again I ignored it because I so desperately needed to feel wanted.

Everything moved very quickly from there, we started sleeping together on our third date, but before anything happened I sat him down for the uncomfortable talk. I told him about my issues, the pain, my tendency for urinary tract infections, and the things that were a no go for me. Top on the list was anal sex. He told me he was fine with all of that and we began being intimate.

The second red flag I should have seen came a few weeks later. We weren’t exclusive and he saw that I had been talking to someone else on Tinder. He got irrationally angry with me. I tried to explain to him that he and I were not exclusive and it while he may not be entirely happy about it, he had not real reason to be angry with me. I was sure I was right, but somehow by the end of the conversation I wound up apologizing. He convinced me that I was being cruel and inconsiderate. I also wasn’t ready to be exclusive with him yet, but by they end of that night I was.

I decided to try to be positive about the whole thing. Maybe this would be a good thing. He liked me and it felt nice to be wanted. I would give it a shot. The morning I decided this I was heading to his apartment. I figured I would do something nice to Michael and pick him up breakfast to make up for the fight I had allegedly caused. He was grateful and it seemed like everything was fine. We were watching Breaking Bad, and the inevitable shift occurred that happens when two people who are together are laying in bed watching Netflix. We began to have sex.

It was fine at first, even borderline good. Or rather it was as good as it can be for someone who has constant vaginal pain. But then he decided he was going to have anal sex with me. He tried to enter me in a place where I had explicitly said he didn’t belong. I told him no. I told him to stop, but he kept trying to enter me there. I had push him twice to get him to stop trying to force himself inside of me. After he finally stopped trying to have anal sex with me, he pretended like everything was fine and tried to re-enter my vagina.

I was clearly upset. I  didn’t want to have any kind of sex with this man. I had never had to use physical force with anyone, let alone in a situation as intimate and vulnerable as sex. I was scared, confused, and upset and he just tried to continue. I needed him to stop but he didn’t. Finally I yelled that he needed to stop because I was going to get a urinary tract infection (which I did) from the transfer of bacteria. Not because he had just violated my trust and my body, but because I was going to get sick. It didn’t make sense, but in that moment nothing made sense. I could not even begin to grasp what had just happened.

He finally exited my body, but he didn’t get off of me. Instead he yelled at me. He told me how it was my fault. My vagina was fucked up and he shouldn’t be punished for that.I was being crazy and irrational. I gave him mixed signals. My body was too broken for him to really understand that my telling him to stop meant he should really stop.

I’m not one to sit quietly while someone is yelling at me and treating me unfairly. I always yell back and louder. But I said nothing. I just cried. He finally got off of me and told me how crazy I was. I put my clothes on and tried to talk things out with him. I actually tried to apologize for my body’s disfunction making him assault me. He ignored me as I left, as if he was disgusted with my mere presence.

I rode the bus home with a sinking feeling of shame that I couldn’t place. Maybe I was ashamed for overreacting. Maybe I was ashamed for my body being broken beyond repair. Maybe I was ashamed for having sex at all. All of these were racing through my mind, but none of them quite fit. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I couldn’t pin point exactly what it was. When I finally got home and crawled into bed, I started sobbing but still wasn’t sure why I was so upset. I couldn’t identify what had happened between me and Michael, but I knew it felt weird and unsettling.

A few hours later my friend Namit came to my room to borrow something from me. I think it was a stapler. He asked me how my day was and I had no intention of telling anyone what had happened, I hadn’t even figured it out yet. Let alone telling Namit, he and I were friends and coworkers, but we weren’t really close. But the second he asked about my day I simply exploded. 

“Um, something kind of weird happened. You know that guy Michael I’ve been seeing? Yeah well we were sleeping together and then he tried to do something I wasn’t okay with and I had to try and push him off of me, and then he yelled at me and wouldn’t let me get up. I don’t know, but I didn’t like it.” I rambled.

In hindsight, I think I told him because he and I as RAs both sat through the same training about sexual assault disclosures. He and I are no longer friends, but a part of me will always love him for how well he reacted. I was very lucky, he was everything I needed in that moment. He told me that what Michael did was not okay, I did nothing wrong, and that I had nothing to feel bad about because I was sexually assaulted. I started crying when he said those words. He gave a name to what had happened and things started to make more sense. He hugged me and told me that everything would be okay. I had been trained to deal with sexual assault in others. I knew exactly what to say, who to notify as a responsible employee of Baruch College, and what the protocol was. But they can’t prepare you for when it happens to you.

The next two weeks are a blur. Michael had taken a trip to Israel, so I knew I was safe and he was half a world away. I tried to move on, I told my closest friends what had happened and they supported me. I wasn’t okay, but I was dealing with it. Then Michael got back into the country and back into cellphone range.

He began calling me and texting me constantly. He texted me things like how he missed me, how he was sorry I misunderstood him and overreacted, how I was just scared of how much I liked him, and other things that given the situation was delusional and scary. I wanted to block his number, but I also wanted a record of everything he said, just incase something happened to me. I never answered his calls or responded to his texts.

One morning I got a call at 9 am from and unknown number. I figured it was probably one of my many doctors offices and answered it, It was Michael. Hearing his voice made my entire body freeze. He began rambling about all of the same things he would text me, but he said if I didn’t talk to him he was going to wait for me outside of the Residence Hall and make me talk to him. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Once again my voice was locked deep within my throat under a thick layer of terror. The only thing I could choke out was for him to leave me alone and I hung up. I laid in my bed all day, I couldn’t bring myself to get up and go to class. He knew where I lived and where I went to school and I was scared he would show up to hurt me.

Later that night I turned to Namit and asked him what I should do, he knew the campus resources available to me just as well as I did, but he didn’t have the same fear clouding his judgement. He told me that I had to tell my boss Amanda. He had been encouraging me to report him to the police, but I didn’t want to. I knew that it wasn’t my fault logically, but I still felt guilty and ashamed. It also wasn’t a clear cut rape case, so I knew what the odds of being believed were. But he told me Amanda could ban him from the building so I could be safer.

I spoke with Amanda the following morning and told her what had happened. I stumbled my way through the story and asked if she could ban him from the building without getting the Title IX office involved. She agreed, but not without giving me a lecture. She told me that she hoped I learned something from this experience, she hoped that I would be more careful of who I had sex with in the future. I had already felt this irrational guilt and really didn’t need to have it told to me by my boss. Looking back, I realize how ridiculous this was. I should not have been blamed for his actions, but I was. And this wouldn’t be the last time.

Hi class, here is part of my story on undocumented immigrates. Looking forward to hear your thoughts and suggestions. – Xiaoting

 

Irvin

        How does one make sense of life? How does one, wafting through existence, making sense of the tangible and the surreal, the factual and the fantastical? How does one, remain sanguine when facing the arbitrary, the absurd, and sometimes inequitable disposition of circumstances?

Perhaps life is something bigger than the self ?

To Irvin Morazan, there is a lineage of humanism, however defined, will carry on and through in any form, any life, any individual.  “A healer once told me, if I overcome this (cancer), I will heal my family from seven generations back and beyond.”  To him, cancer is a manifestation of traumatic childhood experiences, a karmic tribulation inherited from the past lives that has very real consequence if left unresolved, clings on.

 

“Volver, Volver”

Life is a dance of reality and dreams, spiritual practices are intuitive like artistic creativity. The sacred rituals of the ancestors can be used to create art that in turn, will heal the spirit.

The second floor space of the Bronx Museum of the Arts is like a chapel reimagined by a cubist. The four panels of wall facing the street, tilted and staggered. Lights pouring through long strips of colored glass, creating blocks of light that will please Mondrian. It is a Sunday afternoon in the Bronx. At 3 pm, the place is filled with curators, art students, friends, volunteers. Mingling people holding cocktails, people serving food. Some already sat down on the concrete floor, forming an organic stage. A noise from the stereo signaled that something is on, the crowd quieted down, anticipating.

A group of twenty people, their faces covered by zebra-print balaclavas. All of them wearing identical white cloaks, each with a white pillow tied to the waist.  One wore a hairy costume like yeti fur. They marched into the stage. Carrying with them, a gigantic out-of-this world headdress made of foam, foil, zebra and mythologies. The oldest man among them, wearing sunglasses and a sombrero, carries a guitar. As the last zebra man came on, they chanted: Aaaaaaaaaa-Eeeeeeeeeeee-Ooooooooo-Uuuuuuuuu.

This is Irvin’s dream, in this dream he is omniscient. White smoke was blown onto the yeti man, waking him. Irvin walks to the center stage and started playing a harmonica. Thin strands of sound glides through the room, revitalizing. The old man whispered in response, “Volver,……. Volver……”

He puts on the headdress, transformed into a living sculpture. Then he grinds a small slab of granite with a pestle, creating bird call as he started to unwind time. Or was it the sound of an winding tape? As he count the hours, the zebra people went about their daily activities.

Twelve O’Clock! He announced,

Happy New Year! The group cheered as they hugged one another, someone hugged a baby in the audience.

He continued to count the hours, another twelve hours passed in seconds. The yeti waltzed to the center, overtaking the dream. The group untied the pillow from their backs, gently embraces it. The old man started to sing.

Este amor apasionado, anda todo alborotado, por volver…

The group danced with their pillows, lovingly and tenderly. Dancing with their lovers, their mothers, their brothers.

Voy camino a la locura y aunque todo me tortura, see querer…

Unperturbed by the events, a couple sitting on both side of the musician, conversing in sign language. Two masked figures massaging the couple’s backs, as if to console this silent chatter.

…Y volver volver, volver a tus brazos otra vez, llegare hasta donde estés, …

Our melancholy baritone sings: Yo se perder, yo se perder, quiero volver, volver….

“Volver.”

As the song finishes, Irvin took off his headdress. He lied it down as six people carried it off stage, followed by the rest of the group. The audience cheered as old man exited last.

Performance art is shamanism, it’s theater too. In this interconnected reality, even the whimsical possess significance.

Conny

In museum’s third floor conference room, performers chattered in excitement. Elated it was over, surprised of how short it felt, ranting about the sound guy. Wrapping up with their props, tucking equipments away.

Irvin is surrounded by his students, who came all the way from Richmond to see he perform. These twenty year olds have a pious adoration to their eccentric art professor. For the very first assignment of the school year, Irvin told them to write their own obituaries. They made Donald Trump-shaped piñatas filled with bacon in their sculpture classes.

The one left alone in the hallway was the old man. Still wearing a hat, he changed into black suits and dress shoes as if just came from a wedding. Clearly an outsider from the loud-mouthed, multi-colored youth. I walked out to congratulate him on the performance, he smiled but didn’t say a word. Alejandro doesn’t speak english. This stocky, grizzly bearded man looks in good shape, but heaves painfully when he walks.

Hiring Alejandro to sing “Volver Volver” wasn’t Irvin’s initial thought. Irvin’s first choice, a Mexican and a friend collaborator who recently moved to Florida because his son just got a job there. As an undocumented immigrant he feels a lot safer in the south given the uncertainties of the political situation.  So to make it up to Irvin, he referred Alejandro of Bed Stuy who came from Nicaragua. He has a voice full of stories and plays a beautiful hand of guitar.

As the project started coming together, Irvin has gotten to know a little about Alejandro. He learnt that they came to the States roughly around the same time and crossed the border in similar ways. Although Alejandro came as an adult at the age of twenty six while Irvin was just eight years old. He also learnt that as himself became naturalized due to young age, Alejandro remained illegal. One of his sons who lives in Costa Rica haven’t seen him for over twenty years, he never get to hold his grandchildren.

He also learnt that he initially came to this country for a girl named Conny. A girl that he wrote a famous song for, his first love. He was sixteen and she was fifteen when they fell for each other. Her military officer father didn’t like him because he is from a lower class. To break off this relationship, the father moved the family to another city. Leaving no means of contact.  His first love is thus gone. Like other Latin American countries, this country was divided by race and class that often goes together which perhaps explains why a Nicaraguan military man would give his daughter an Irish name.

The story did not just end there. Heartbroken, Alejandro picked up the guitar. He was taught by his musician father when he was young, but had never thought to sing. His first song was wrote for her. He sang “Conny” to himself at first; then to families and friends, to strangers. To anyone who will sympathize with a broken heart. He sang it over and over until the whole town knew the song. It became so popular that some even tried to find her.

The years after saw an intensified political situation, it was a time where almost every civilian was involved in politics left and right. Alejandro also became heavily involved with the left-wing Sandinistas. Ten years later, they met again. She was recently widowed. Her husband and the father of her two children was killed in the civil war. He was a military man like her father. Ten years later, Conny and Alejandro got back together again.

1985, six years since the Sandinistas National Liberation Front overthrew the last Somoza dictator of Nicaragua. Unsettled by the burgeoning communist influence in Latin America, the Reagan administration secretly funded and trained right-wing Nicaraguan militant group the “Contras” to further sabotage the young regime. Years of civil unrest, war and corruption had left the country in a state of destitution, malnutrition and environmental devastation.

It was the same year Alejandro came to the States. Things became difficult and he couldn’t find work back at home. He wanted make money to support her and her two children.  America was sold to him on the idea that it is the place where money was made, besides it wasn’t really a choice to stay. Yet after he came here he was presented with a different set of reality.

Being an undocumented minority who doesn’t speak English. There were not many job opportunities and with the few left that are legal, neither were they dignified nor well paid.   Making ends meet became a daily struggle, let alone sending money back home. He was stranded in a country with limited means to support himself. Thirty-something years later, after all the odds jobs he did to support himself, Alejandro couldn’t work anymore because of bad arthritis. He still lives in the project housing in Bed Stuy. He could not get welfare.

In violation of several International Laws by aiding anti-government rebels, the International Court of Justice ordered United States to pay billions of dollars in reparation to Nicaragua. United States refused payment to this day.

In the car ride back to Brooklyn, we begged him to sing “Conny” for us. He said he was ashamed to keep in touch with her because he was not doing well. He said the relationship faded with time, he hadn’t heard from her again. Time had passed and all there left was a song, but Alejandro still chokes up when he sings about her.

Letter to me: a 6-years-old girl from Yakutiya.

My family lived in the village called Novii (English: new). It was located in Siberian part of Russia, Sakha (Yakutiya) Republic. Winter usually began in September and snow began to melt in May. Wind did not prevail in that region. Therefore, when temperature dropped below 50 Celsius, it still was bearable to walk outside.

After exiting a warm house heated with Russian stove (type of a masonry stove), freshness of crispy air would take a breath away, and eyes would suddenly be blinded by mountains of snow. Every house in the village would look like a white snowy tower.
The night would cover the village around 5 p.m. When the first stars would appear above the roofs, and bright moon navigated the villagers to their homes, snowflakes as diamonds began its shimmering dance in the moonlight.

I remember, in the kindergarten we would shovel for our “diamonds.” Under layers of snow, we would find crystallized snowflakes. They resembled gem stones for us — children. I would look at those sparkly gems in the sun while they slowly melted in my tiny mittens.
Our kindergarten teachers always warned us, before we would go for a walk, do not stick tongues to the metal poll. They would say that something bad may happen. Most kids behaved well. The only thing they would stick their tongues to was snow. Oh, we loved eating snow. We would imagine that it’s sugar and somehow the imagination reflected on a snow’s flavor.
Only once a child did stick a tongue to the metal poll. I remember a lot of screaming, and faces of panicked teachers. All the children immediately were sent inside.The loud screams of the child stayed in children’s memories. Nobody ever, at least while I was in the kindergarten, made an attempt to even come near by the metal poll during the winter.

There’s a First Time for Everything, Right?

THREE…TWO…ONE… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

January 1, 2012 was probably an important date for a lot of people. I imagine a mass of people making silly resolutions that they’ll never live up to like to quit smoking, stop eating fast food, or hell at least give up drinking for about a week or so until the irresistible temptation hits them less than three days after New Year’s.

But for me, this was the day my boyfriend, my first boyfriend made a resolution to change his life by not having me in it.

“Yeah, babe I don’t think this thing between us is gonna work out,” my now ex-boyfriend Hanif told me fifteen minutes into our phone conversation.

Wait what? I know he didn’t say what I think he just said. And who’s giggling in the background? What are they saying?

“I’m sorry Hanif, I didn’t hear what you just said. Can you say it again?” I said as I started to pace back and forth, around my living room.

“Yeah, I said that I don’t think this is gonna work out. This year new year’s resolution I made is to change my life and to be honest you’re way to awkward and weird to be in my life,” Hanif said in his thick Haitian/New Yorker accent.

Hanif is what some would call a super junior. Nobody knows how old he really is, since he’s been at John Dewey High School for what it seems like forever. Standing 5’11, he was the cool, stereotypical rebellious boy that all the girls want to date and all the guys wanted to be secretly. And judging by my looks I was considered lucky to be with him.

I’m what you call weird, emo nerd. I walk the halls of John Dewey High School wearing all black, eyes covered by my jet black horse-shoe bangs that desperately needed to be cut and caught typically laughing by myself. I don’t have many friends and have only been seen talking twice out of the entire school year. When you see me with Hanif, normally people would never think that we were dating. I didn’t mind it though, because I knew that I was able to get him to be my boyfriend.

Or at least thought so.

Snapping back into reality, I stopped pacing and looked at my black iPhone 5s with my face scrunched up as if someone told me that George Washington Carver was the first president.
Wait a minute, did this guy just called me awkward and weird? Coming from the guy with cheetah print hair, that pretends to be British when we’re in school and in public? Nah, this can’t be real life right now.

Before I can get another word in edge-wise, Hanif hung up the phone without any warning and the last the last thing I heard was “baby,” and the person giggling. After many attempts to call him back, I throw my iPhone 5s across the living room and stormed out of the house.

And still to this day Hanif avoids me at all costs.

After days of me being a total teenaged drama queen, my mother came into my room and just stared at me like I was a pathetic excuse of a human.

As she lights her Newport cigarette, inhales and blows the smoke in my face, my mother says “my god, what’s wrong now?” with a face that screams out ‘I can’t be bothered.’

After I told her that I just been dumped by Hanif, my mother says “oh please ok, shut up and get over it like the rest of us,” and leaves the room.

WOW, thanks mom. Hmph, who the hell does he thinks he is?! After everything that I did throughout this relationship! I was the one that came up with his bail money, gave him money for food and anything else that he wanted! It was me and this is the thanks that I get! Just a “you’re too weird and awkward.” Hmph, ok I’ll show him…

I would like to preface this by apologizing for how extremely personal I’ve gone with this post. I should also provide a trigger warning, that this post gets graphic and contains details surrounding a sexual assault. A little explanation from my previous piece may also be helpful. I wrote about the chronic, undiagnosable vaginal pain I have had for seven years, this is the second part of that piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I can sleep with a man, I have to explain all of the complicated issues about my vagina. It’s only fair that they know the mess they are getting into, Both literally and figuratively. A man I’m going to have sex with deserves to know that it’s a possibility for me to start crying in the middle of it because the pain is too much to handle. This conversation is always uncomfortable. My issues are very difficult to explain, just ask the dozens of doctors who have tried. One question I get often is “Can I catch it?” Which granted is a fair question. But watching the fear in their eyes as if I’m some gross enigma always cuts deep.

This conversation puts me in an incredibly vulnerable position. If you’re not in a relationship, and you’re trying to engage in a less intimate sexual encounter you normally don’t have to share something so deeply painful and personal. But that’s not my reality. It has also forced me to learn how to be extremely vocal about my sexual history, partners, likes, and dislikes, etc. before engaging in sexual activity with a partner. It makes me do all that adult shit before having adult relations. I was 20 years old when a man I had been sleeping with consensually used my medical issues against me to make me believe it was my fault that he sexually assaulted me.

I was dating a man named Michael that was 27 and was way more interested in me than I was in him. Looking back, this should have been the first red flag, but at the time it made me feel desirable. My messed up vagina makes me feel less feminine and I hadn’t felt desirable in a very long time (my inner feminist is screaming at me for that, but it’s the truth). I’d always been the one pursuing the person I was interested and this was a nice change.

On our first date he was very physical. He held my hand. He grabbed my waste. He kissed me deeply in the middle of the street. I’m not typically one for so much physical affection right away, and it made me uncomfortable. But again I ignored it because I so desperately needed to feel wanted.

Everything moved very quickly from there, we started sleeping together on our third date, but before anything happened I sat him down for the uncomfortable talk. I told him about my issues, the pain, my tendency for urinary tract infections, and the things that were a no go for me. Top on the list was anal sex. He told me he was fine with all of that and we began being intimate.

The second red flag I should have seen came a few weeks later. We weren’t exclusive and he saw that I had been talking to someone else on Tinder. He got irrationally angry with me. I tried to explain to him that he and I were not exclusive and it while he may not be entirely happy about it, he had not real reason to be angry with me. I was sure I was right, but somehow by the end of the conversation I wound up apologizing. He convinced me that I was being cruel and inconsiderate. I also wasn’t ready to be exclusive with him yet, but by they end of that night I was.

I decided to try to be positive about the whole thing. Maybe this would be a good thing. He liked me and it felt nice to be wanted. I would give it a shot. The morning I decided this I was heading to his apartment. I figured I would do something nice to Michael and pick him up breakfast to make up for the fight I had allegedly caused. He was grateful and it seemed like everything was fine. We were watching Breaking Bad, and the inevitable shift occurred that happens when two people who are together are laying in bed watching Netflix. We began to have sex.

It was fine at first, even borderline good. Or rather it was as good as it can be for someone who has constant vaginal pain. But then he decided he was going to have anal sex with me. He tried to enter me in a place where I had explicitly said he didn’t belong. I told him no. I told him to stop, but he kept trying to enter me there. I had push him twice to get him to stop trying to force himself inside of me. After he finally stopped trying to have anal sex with me, he pretended like everything was fine and tried to re-enter my vagina.

I was clearly upset. I  didn’t want to have any kind of sex with this man. I had never had to use physical force with anyone, let alone in a situation as intimate and vulnerable as sex. I was scared, confused, and upset and he just tried to continue. I needed him to stop but he didn’t. Finally I yelled that he needed to stop because I was going to get a urinary tract infection (which I did) from the transfer of bacteria. Not because he had just violated my trust and my body, but because I was going to get sick. It didn’t make sense, but in that moment nothing made sense. I could not even begin to grasp what had just happened.

He finally exited my body, but he didn’t get off of me. Instead he yelled at me. He told me how it was my fault. My vagina was fucked up and he shouldn’t be punished for that.I was being crazy and irrational. I gave him mixed signals. My body was too broken for him to really understand that my telling him to stop meant he should really stop.

There they go again…is all I can think when I heard my parents arguing outside my bedroom door. Sometimes it was about money, other times it was about my mom’s insecurities and every time I just wished they could get along. Every day my mind paced back and forth like a family member at the hospital waiting to hear back from the doctor about their loved one, except I was thinking of a master plan to get away from mine.

The first part of my plan was to hurry up and turn 18 already with only a year away even that seemed just a bit too far. I had to think quick on my feet I was growing, learning, and realizing that happiness was all I wanted. I wanted to explore what life was like whether I made mistakes or not, I was curious to see what my dad was keeping me away from. Most importantly I was over the bickering and the arguments my mom started whether it was with my dad or me.

I applied to a SUNY school and it was the best decision I made thus far, it fulfilled the curiosity I had inside of me and I was finally free to spread my wings. Its time to go and my mom wasn’t there to witness my first few steps as an adult but all that mattered to me was that my dad was there and I knew as long as he knew where I was and that I was attending school was enough for him.

• So I am having trouble on trying not to think about jumping from one idea to another because I’m focused on making my story interesting. Like for example I’m writing on the most difficult times of my life by chapter and I’m beginning from when it all started which was when I graduated high school. I want my story to bring the reader in but I don’t want to give away the good stuff right away, get me? I’m going to get into slowly discovering my mom had a serious illness for longer than I even knew and the separation of my parents after being together my entire life and the changes. Help