Blindfolded with Mouths to Feed, part 1
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Post-COVID, an amnesiac world, and me lying down in bed with my phone in my hands, chatting with my best friend of eighteen years. Eyes damp, walls down, heart on my sleeve, heartbroken again after one decade. As she typed, "Viola." And I could picture her at that time: the short hair, the red lipstick, the brain she wore as her heart. "Vi," she typed again, "have you realized that you're clever and loyal...but blind?"
For the longest time, Drey—that was the best friend, well, the ex-best friend now, actually—had been right. I suppose you are bound to understand how someone functions if you have known them since you were twelve, and we have known each other since we were barely out of elementary school; she with her incendiary temper and me with my adaptability. Friendship made in matching upbringing riddled with violent unpredictability and just enough neglect. Trauma tethers you for life. Chains, ropes, or threads don't matter much in a case of mutual survival. Or, at least, that's the theory.
That said, I have never doubted Drey's assessment of me. I do personally think, back then, I was blind. Had been, in fact, for decades. Big surprise. Kick a child while she's down enough times and she'll build a sense of self-worth as stable as a knife on a tightrope. Cheeks wet, she'll be kneeling at your feet, thankful for the slight reprieve. Oh, yes, I would know. During my childhood, I have knelt for hundreds of times.
So, Drey's assessment was not implausible. Factual evidence and past patterns support it. Reel me in enough times, make me care, and I would gladly die for you. Too intense? Sorry, I could do less, pinky swear. I would just kick the snot-nosed kid from our eighth grade for you. An act of violence as a language of love. Romanticize it all you want. People want it, that kind of loyalty, until they have to be accountable for it. Then, it is suddenly a real issue.
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I have always been the ride or die type of a girl. Easy enough to admit it now—and I'm twirling my hair as I say this—since I have taken my bipolar medications for the day. (Being medicated regularly for four years straight truly gives you perspective. I absolutely recommend it.) Growing up, I couldn't comprehend what 'within measure' meant. Back then it was always, for me, a case of either absolutely or fuck no, with no in-between. No perhaps or maybe or I'll need time to think about it. If you could step into my circle, you would be no longer a human. You'd then be the incarnation of goodness. A saint. And I'd be the disciple who would, somehow, also be the great teacher when the situation called for it.
All my life loyalty has rewarded me both love and the condition behind it. And more often than not, there was a condition. Six years old, the first grandchild of my maternal side of the family, I was celebrated. Less, I suppose, than how it could have been if I had only been born with more testosterone than estrogen, such as it was like growing up inside an old-fashioned Asian household—a house where tradition and religion were so tightly intertwined, twisted and shaped by a cult—but I digress.
(I know what you're thinking. Did you say 'cult'? As in, actual 'cult'? Yes, and also no. But this is not about occultism. This is about me being celebrated for being a part of the family. The cult thing is just a tiny detail.)
But what is a celebration other than another incentive for my self-abandonment? Sure, I was adored. The first grandchild brought with her an ancient meaning inside the cult's belief. I was celebrated for my first crawl, my first giggle, my first word, my first step, and, I guess, my first presence inside the family's ritual. Then, celebrated for being—and I'd only found out a year after, a child of seven asking her daddy why they'd had to uproot their whole life to a place where nobody knew them—a potential blood sacrifice. It was over something as clichéd as it sounded: wealth, prosperity, and longevity.
Who would understand martyrdom more than a child born into sacrificial rites? Give me just enough. Give me less than enough. Weave me a crimson cloth, hand it to me. To paraphrase it from a Mitski's song: I have been blindfolded. I am the blindfold cloth, the one doing the blindfolding, and I am the witness watching as I blindfold myself.
I hand you my heart, that beating little thing, tender and bruised, so easy to crush. Promise me things. And I would be enough of a fool to believe it.
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