Perpendicular Universe

There was a post on Instagram at the start of this month that asked, “What would the world look like without domestic violence?” Such a simple question but it made me stop and write. What would the world look like without domestic violence? What would my world look like? What would my community look like?

It wasn’t really serendipity—this month is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, after all—but it did inspire the way I would shape my awareness campaign this year. Since the pandemic, I have been more deeply focused on understanding community culture; how it develops, where it fails, how it balances with growing individualism, the impacts of gender and the patriarchy on norms, and much more. I took this focus with me to my doctorate program and have been developing projects that center around the Muslim/Muslim Arab communities, particularly areas where they could step up for their members, especially their women. Domestic violence is most certainly one of those areas.

I’m not the first survivor and it hurts to know I won’t be the last, but I kept thinking about that Instagram question and realizing I cannot imagine a world without domestic violence without understanding its core causes. And what better way than to learn from the narratives of survivors?

The first week of October, I asked survivors to share what they wish they had during their experiences that would have helped them. I was really honored that many survivors were willing to open up and share their vulnerable confessions, but I have to admit, it was also disheartening to read them. Not because they were triggering but because they illustrated how painfully disappointing the community has been to its members, especially its women, and nothing concrete changes.

Each year, I pick a certain theme about domestic violence to focus on during October. It’s usually more personal reflections to differentiate from the education and awareness on DV throughout the year—quotes from my poems, firsthand examples of the types of abuse vs. definitions, red flags and lessons learned, and the community’s role in the whole cycle, which is this year’s theme.

What struck me the most from the responses I received is that each survivor expressed the same final point: they wish they had community support. I want to give space to their other responses first, because they are important, but after I read through everything, I found that they all do in fact link back to community. Survivors wished they had access to better financial stability and support to sustain a living after leaving. They wished for more diverse and culturally aware therapists who could understand their backgrounds. Other survivors wished that religion and culture were not manipulated and used as a fear-mongering tactic to keep them in their relationships. That shame and concerns over community reputation wasn’t so heavily used as a threat. That they would be believed and not judged or betrayed.

By the end of the responses, I felt heavy but in a way that reinforced my plan to launch my AFTER THE UNMAKING video series on community’s role in the perpetuation of domestic violence. In a total of four short episodes, I am hoping to illuminate the same pain points of these other survivors (that I too suffer from) and carve a pathway for foundational change. Storytelling has always been one of the most effective teachers (hello, Hakawati from Syria!) and as a writer and poet, it’s my forever go to. I found a calling in my survival and if sharing my experiences can bring a sense of solidarity and a sense of awareness to the spaces that need them, so be it.

While there are so many beautiful and valuable traditions we should honor and uphold from our ancestors, there is no need to pass down the culture of silence that keeps nurturing the seeds of abuse, violence, and sexism. We deserve better and can, most certainly, be capable of it!

 

After the Unmaking

photo collage of moments in my own aftermath of unmkaing over the past seven years

 

"Nostalgia is denial—denial of the painful present…. The name for this denial is golden age thinking. The erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in. It’s a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present."
 
Every time I watch Midnight in Paris, I'm struck by this quote and I can never pinpoint if I absolutely love it or if it's a painful coercion to face something I don't quite have a grasp on within myself. Then, on the other hand, Hanif Abdurraquib tells us "Nostalgia is a gift for the living," and I find myself asking, Is nostalgia really a gift for the living or is it a curse? And how do we define “the living”?

As I was putting this piece together, I remembered the last relationship I was in and how he often called me “nostalgic girl”—among other things. After I ended it this past Spring, I tried to retrace my thoughts and behaviors to hone in on this so called nostalgic nature. (Should I call that irony?) I think he was right (as was Paul from Midnight in Paris in the quote above). I spent the final few months of the relationship in a state of agonizing nostalgia because of how suddenly it shifted from a hopeful, inspiring connection to an anxiety inducing and emotionally manipulative bond. Once I had reached a state of dread, eerily familiar to the one I experienced when things got serious with my ex-husband eight years ago, I ended it and started to see what Abdurraquib is telling us.

Something I believe every survivor knows is that nostalgia becomes embedded in our newfound DNA. I may not be a scientist but even in my current studies we are reading about the powerful impact culture, environment, and biology have on genetics, and I cannot deny the physical and metaphysical change I have undergone since surviving domestic violence and sexual assault in this past decade. We change—quite a bit—and some may see it evidenced vividly, others misinterpret it. By default, then, it makes sense that we carry a small briefcase—let’s call it, instead of baggage—of nostalgia wherever we go, because we will forever mourn the pieces and whole selves we were before the trauma. Before the unmaking.

I recently launched my annual Domestic Violence Awareness campaign on social media and I started with a photo of one my favorite poems, “Me (Part Duex)” in my latest poetry collection, Contortionist Tongue. It’s an homage to bridging the gap between who we were before, and who we’ve become/are becoming after the unmaking. The journey is messy, painful, shocking, eye opening, just to name a few. Sometimes you think you reached the final destination and two years later you realize, you in fact, did not. Sometimes you try really hard to evoke your old spirit back into you only to discover doing so will only bring a ghost to haunt you. That those who have passed should be left alone now and that who you have left of you, who you are slowly nurturing back to health, is just as valuable as the one from the past.

Am I a nostalgic girl? Sure. I do think that there are many things of the past times that are better than we have now, but it doesn’t mean I am incapable of living in the today. That’s probably why I couldn’t make sense of that ex's commentary. My yearning for the good of how it started, just months prior, was in no means, a contribution to its demise. It was a coping mechanism, a form of protection through meditation and reflection of where I was, where I am, and where I want to be. This is the beauty of embracing the unmaking and the first step in the aftermath.

As I begin formulating my doctorate work and bridge together so many ideas, I keep finding myself coming back to the idea of community. What it means, what it does, what it should be doing, what it shouldn’t be doing, and specifically for women in marginalized communities. I think of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Of the perpetuated cycles of abuse in work places, houses of worship, schools, homes. I think of what I needed when I became a survivor seven years ago and embarked on the first steps of my unmaking.

This semester, I’ve decided to focus my projects on women survivors and their various roles. I have three classes and all are requiring I partake in research projects to explore culture and the re-imagination of our futures. The process of re-imagination is messy, especially for us perfectionists who like certain structure, but I decided to embrace this mess and launch my project AFTER THE UNMAKING with an introductory cento poem of the same title.

The cento is a poem is a collage poem, crafted of different quotes from other literary works. I was so moved by the various works I’ve come across in class—including texts I did not agree with or like the endings of—that I pieced together some of the lines that struck me most into this cento. Each source is credited below and links are made available where possible to find the full readings for reference.

I struggled to figure out how to introduce Unit 1 of my project because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted more time. I wanted to cover every angle of a re-imagined future. Then I realized I needed to accept the mess, the disorientation, remembering that when I left my ex-husband, I was 25 and working in a corporate HQ that required a 4-hour daily commute, that left me exhausted at the end of the day playing a mental Russian roulette to decide whether that night I would eat or shower or fill out divorce papers online before I had to do the routine all over again. (Crying was a given with each option.) The unmaking is ugly and stressful, but it’s the pressure we have to get through in order to reach the starting point—after the unmaking—and this is what I hope to present in this cento. An acceptance of what has happened and a preparation of what we will do next.










A F T E R   T H E   U N M A K I N G

How does one mark time / think historicity / engage the iterability of the performative / if nothing ends / Aims to inform / inspire / invoke change / Every piece of art is someone / communicating / an idea to you / A thumb drive becomes a key / to post-apocalyptic safety / and self care becomes / not self-indulgence / but self-preservation / An act of political warfare / Is this too much reality / No wonder we so often project alienness on one another / When one looks at people / healthy or ill / and wonders / what kind of young they could produce / And another sees the sick / problems she had not seen before / and wonders / whether she could defeat their disease / But man thinks her spoiled / for having known too much / freedom / with nothing to do but study herself / and try things not thought of before / Why not see / this offering / as a shaping / As a water joining the river / As a lesson in moving beyond / beautiful deconstruction / and finding a teacher in reconstruction / Let it not be death / the leveler / And the revealer / Nostalgia is a gift for the living















SOURCE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“The Comet” by W. E. B. DuBois

“Death, the leveler!” he muttered. “And the revealer,” she whispered gently….”



“The Monophobic Response” by Octavia Butler

“Is this too much reality?”

“No wonder we so often project alienness on one another.”



“The Crown Ain’t Worth Much” by Hanif Abdurraquib

“Nostalgia is a gift for the living.”


 

Speculative Placemaking Collaborative (Class Document)

“Creative Constraint: A thumb drive as a key to access various levels of post-apocalyptic safety.”
 

“…aim to inform, inspire, and invoke change.”
 

“Every piece of art is someone communicating an idea to you.” —Boots Riley
 

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare" Audre Lorde



Emergent Strategies by Adrienne Maree Brown

“I see this offering as a noticing that can shape our next steps, as more water joining the river.”
 

“…how do we move beyond our beautiful deconstruction? Who teaches us to reconstruct?”



Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

“Doro looked at people, healthy or ill, and wondered what kind of young they could produce. Anyanwu looked at the sick—especially those with problems she had not seen before—and wondered whether she could defeat their disease.”
 

"She was spoiled. She had known too much freedom. Like most wild seed, she had been spoiled long before he met her.”
 

"You made me learn very much. Much of the time, I had nothing to do but study myself, try things I had not thought of before.”



“The Social Life of Social Death” by Jared Sexton

"But how, then, does one mark time and think historicity, how does one engage the iterability of the performative, if nothing ends?"