d’annam mooncake
i’ve had a hard time asking for what i want these past few years. it might have something to do with my surroundings, which have felt suffocating, stifling, and demanding as of late. i like to assume that many people have a severe form of astigmatism that warps their impression of me. when my requests are interpreted as demanding, and when my security is perceived to be a threat, i don’t always see the point in making myself known.
more recently, i’ve started to recognize the danger of tolerating such spaces and continually shrinking and biting my tongue in them. it’s not a sustainable mode of being for a lot of reasons; it leads to resentment that builds over time and then bursts. i’m learning to ask without worrying about the confusion that will likely ensue, for the sake of my wellbeing.
it’s not that i care about the skewed, racist perceptions that seem to surround me. it’s not that i want these people to like me, or even know me. i simply don’t want to go through the endless hurdle of correcting their mistakes and playing babysitter for the rest of my life. doing that is more work than disappearing, but disappearing is not an acceptable option either.
i now wonder of alternatives. for example, what if i embraced the weight of my essence, rather than attempting to perform serenity? what if serenity were synonymous with heft? with an amalgamation of potent thoughts that can only come from the dark? from being black?
i sprayed mooncake on my arm and hand a while ago, and my skin is now a weighted blanket that’s drenched in buttery syrup. i smell sweeter than i normally prefer, like garrett’s popcorn but with a touch of something that garrett would deem exotic.
for about two years, i’ve been searching for a gourmand, for a fragrance that will make me edible, and i may have found it. but more than being dessert, i am impossibly me with mooncake on my wrist.
i am the infantilized princess that some of you will continue to gripe about, by choice rather than projection. i’m bratty and decisive and destined for a dream-like journey that glistens with platitudes and promise.
with mooncake, plush slippers are worn en route to chicago’s chinatown in late october. eye contact fails to waver before bedtime. nine or ten hour sleep cycles become the average. we take ten year vacations and seven hour lunch breaks. hand mirrors and drawer chests are encrusted with gemstones that flicker at daybreak and gently prompt me to wake.
here, static is replaced with shimmer, and i am unapologetically enthused with both the real and aspirational.
miracles happen once in a while, when you are a black girl.