i had a dream about you

content warning — mentions of s*xual v**lence

/

i had a dream about you last week. in the dream, you were one of the main ring-leaders of a huge sex trafficking ring in the music industry. i think it was maybe a mixture of the knowledge of the fact that one of my favourite k-pop stars from when i was 17 years old in autumn 2007, somebody even younger than me at the time — 16 years old — was outed in 2019 as being involved in a huge "sex crimes scandal" (strange phrase, to me. rape is violence, not sex, & i'm definitely not the only one who says this) in south korea. & of the fact that i recently found out that one of my favourite singers is quite clearly [with years of evidence] sexually & emotionally manipulative & abusive towards his fans who are girls & women, especially his younger fans. in my dream, i also dreamt that i spoke to him directly in my head, & convinced him to stop abusing women. i dreamed that i was psychically saving korean girls in 서울 from being raped by pop stars, by speaking my shitty korean to make them laugh, & playing the rapists' own pop music to distract the rapists.

in my dream, i spoke to you in my head about your biggest fear. i asked you if your childhood dream was to become a rich sex trafficker. i dreamed that you developed a heart disease after the last time i texted you. because *i* did. i developed a heart condition after you said what you said back then, a single whole chinese zodiac cycle ago.

no, i am not over you. & i feel a lot of shame about still being in love with somebody i haven't talked to in years. so much shame that it makes me want to kill myself.

it occurs to me that despite all i can do to try to fight my internalized capitalism, i still feel like a failure & worth less than other people, because i spent over a decade housing-unstable / homeless, not doing much but feeling frozen & unable to get out of love. lol that was a brain typo

& unable to get out of bed.

{ and it wasn't "just mental". at *all*. }

i feel worth{ }less than other people, because i've been too disabled to work for a long time.

the beautiful{/sarcasm} thing is that other people also treat me like i am worth{ }less, because/when i'm too disabled to work.

i've been crying to strangers lately, & it occurs to me that i need to write about everything that happened up until now, otherwise it will always be trapped in my heart. otherwise, i will still want to die.

the years of my life fold onto themselves — i don't remember much.

i don't want to be here.

when i started learning more about rape culture when i was 21, it saved my life. it also made me even more deeply depressed for 12 years. learning about rape culture did not stop men from raping & assaulting & abusing & harassing me, because other people choosing to harm me is not my fault.

what i eventually learned about ableism {is} capitalism over the years, from connecting my own horrific experiences of disability & a violently ableist society which completely included the people i loved and trusted most in my life, with what i was constantly teaching myself about social-political-cultural injustices, saved my life. the way i've viewed myself has changed over the years. i have always struggled with feeling like a failure, especially a failure of "an asian", especially a failure of "an asian immigrant", especially a failure of "a good chinese immigrant". because no matter how determined i was, no matter how much i knew i *could* be good at what i was trying to do, i just couldn't do it because my brain + body wouldn't work properly, no matter how hard i tried.

so i don't go outside. & i don't talk to anybody in person, because i don't know how to "act normal".

i write on the internet, & people think i'm cooler than they would if they first met me in person.

i had a dream about you. in the dream, you were corrupted by money, but you still loved me.

2023 june 21st, excerpt from a yet-to-be-published draft —

i am looking for a way out of my constant pain & panic. the world breaks my heart every day. it grates at my skin. violence.

one of my favourite songs last year was performed by an anti-autistic activist [don't take this out of context. i didn't say the song was anti-autistic, did i?]. (but most people don't even care about that, when they consume his media. which is exactly how he got onto this song that was seemingly not about ableism. the song was about harming others, & being anti-autistic & ableist is harmful.)

one of my favourite songs of all time to listen to to feel sad about sexual abuse trauma, i learned recently that the singer is emotionally abusive towards girls / women / his younger fans.

i stopped listening to a certain artist after a certain year once it came out that he DMed minors.

i need people to care more. so will you?

but i hate this narrative so much, it makes my soul boil: just call the suicide hotline, & a hotline worker you've never talked to before who may or may not actually have any shared/lived experiences of being suicidal and/or trauma and/or "mental illness" in the middle of the night will convince you to live.

"you have so much to live for."

do i?

/

"exit music"

november 23rd, 2009

in a dream some nights ago, she walks towards me slowly. both calm. she takes my hand,

soft skin {on her part}, sinks her canines into my fingers, digs deep, hits tiny vessels.

blood drains from entire corpus. as i die, i wake up into a soi-disant "real world". what's

real?

/

i think i was more honest, years ago. "growing up" is learning how to lie.

we tell ourselves we need to lie in order to survive. & in our right now world, that's the truth.

i think i was more honest, years ago. "growing up" is learning how to lie. to survive.

i think i was more honest, years ago. "growing up" is learning how to lie. we tell ourselves we need to learn how to lie in order to survive, & that's the truth.

i think i was more honest, years ago. growing up is learning how to lie. we tell ourselves we need to lie in order to survive.

i think i was more honest, years ago. "growing up" is learning how to lie.

i think i was more honest years ago. growing up is learning how to lie.

growing up is learning how to lie

growing up is learning how to lie

growing up is learning how to lie

growing up is learning how to lie

growing up is learning how to lie

which is why i never learned how to lie