on fatal Februaries
Army Dreamers - Kate Bush
𖦹
Army Dreamers - Kate Bush 𖦹
February 2024’s highlights: Hibernating. Sorting out personal affairs. Coming out of hibernation and going to dance lessons. Meeting friends. Uncomfortably getting out of my comfort zone. Dealing with something heavy. Etc, etc. Not much to say except that -
At the start of every February I am reminded of the earth-shattering tragedy that changed me (for the worse, unfortunately. I’m still in a taxing cycle of clawing my way out of the depression hole and slipping back in) three years ago. Does it matter that it’s been three years? I haven’t moved very far from the past. The military coup that morphed into a civil war has taken thousands of lives and it continues to do so. It is an internal conflict, I know, and one can only pay attention to so much at a time and the discussion is “too minor” to have because it doesn’t concern the rest of the world and the media has public’s attention to keep and the world spins like it always does and people in my periphery when I leave my room are unaware and their lives go on like usual. It’s a difficult thing to care about when the waves of destruction have never hit you personally. Painfully, I understand that.
And yet I am dragged back to the ever-creaking apartment, the wind howling and banging my windows, whispering the death count of the day, reminding me to not look away. The nausea-inducing guilt and fear and worry still blanket over me. I haven’t closed my eyes since. I don’t have a clue on everything else that was going on in my life that time and I don’t remember how time passed in 2021 and I couldn’t tell you what my university was teaching me then to save my life but I remember the way people begged for oxygen supplies because the virus was still lurking around in the corner and how the military used it as their weapon. I remember the way they frantically asked for medical help on social media and how fast they changed their posts to time of death instead and I remember the 19 year old girl who loved singing and dancing and I remember what her T-shirt said the day she was shot in the head while protesting and I remember her exhumation. It was three years ago but I remember it as it was yesterday. I haven’t moved very far from the past. I feel I mustn’t. I remember the stories of lovers and brothers and families and how everyone mourned over sickening tragedies three years ago and every other tragedies that continue to this day. I remember the depraved things they did to the prisoners and the things they still do.
So take this as my reminder, a plead to pay attention, to whoever stumbles upon my blog, that art and poetry and love exist in those who reside in war-torn places, who want to write, to read, to dance, to sing, to love, yet are tethered by the junta’s threats, unable to leave. Imagine a teenage soldier who barely knows how to operate a gun, wearing a camouflage, living on rations. Digging a hole to hide and call it a bed. Imagine the lives they wish they could have lived instead.
What do you want to do when the war is over? I want to go home. I want to see my family. I want to sleep on a proper bed and maybe go back to university? Or I will work somewhere. We will fight for this revolution with our brothers and sisters and we will win and we will build a new home, a peaceful one, out of this blood-stained soil and we will be happy. And we will worry about what to make for dinner and if we will get a job offer from our dream company and if our clothes match our shoes and we will have problems about the server giving us the wrong order and we will complain about some kids being too loud in the cinema instead. And we will give our heroes a proper burial, if we can find them. We will keep a list and we will swallow their names so they can never get out of our hearts. Then maybe I will be a teacher, a politician, an actress, a cook, a nurse, a model, a poet. Maybe you will be a singer. Maybe our people will come back to us. Do you think they will? I wonder if we can ever forgive them for abandoning us. Do you think we will be praised for all the sacrifices we’ve made for this godforsaken place? Do you think the world will celebrate with us? It doesn’t matter to me if they don’t. I just want to go home and be with my love and my parents and my friends and my children and I will be happy but first we need to win this war. Both my body and mind are exhausted to oblivion but sing me one more song so I can keep on fighting for us. Do you think we are close to getting what we’ve always wanted? Do you think this country can still be saved? Not a lot of people understand the weight of my cries at night, but you do, so sing one more song for me and I will keep on fighting for us.
Yes, my world has spiralled way out of its orbit since then but there is a different kind of sickness, a more wicked, irreversible form of dent in their bleeding hearts and they don’t know when it will stop getting deeper. The least I can ask of you is to not look away. Know that there are poets in Myanmar.
With that, a February report:
Reading: Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop The Spring - edited by Ko Ko Thett and Brian Haman (a collection of poems, essays, and Burmese people’s stories that long to be heard, from 1988-2021)
Eating: Rakhine Mont Ti (Ethnic dish from Rakhine State, Mandalay Region - rice vermicelli, fish broth, shrimp paste, lemongrass, galangal, pepper, tamarind, a mountain of chillies and other toppings)
Playing: Any Buddhist scriptures that followed me to Australia through a little USB stick, to remind me of my mother
Obsessing: How annoyingly bone-white the ceiling in my room looks
Recommending: Hot showers to wash the guilt off the body (temporary solution)
Treating: Searching and shopping online for anything that I can scrape the memories off of and keep with me forever this time (I still cannot go back)
*cover image by Hiroko Otake, Butterflies in Blue
