Sharp Pain

She woke up with the same chest pains that prevented her from sleeping comfortably throughout the night. One to create a symbol out of nearly everything, she tried not to symbolize the fact that she couldn’t sleep on her left side. What did that mean about her (figurative) heart? Did it have something to do with love in her life?

*sharp pain”

She had to remember not to breathe too deeply (which was counterintuitive for her), or move sharply (which, too, was counterintuitive). Welp, all there was left to do was sit on the toilet and sulk about how she felt physically and circumstantially while vacillating between WebMd and not looking at her phone at all. WebMd won. And the nearest hospital was called shortly after. There was no way she was going to sit around just waiting for her chest pain to dissipate when she could be having pericarditis, myocardial infarction (aka a heart attack), or a mitral valve prolapse. What?! And because she was due to spend time with a potential boo thang later that day, she wanted to get her shit sorted.

In her head, she was crawling on her knuckles and knees in the hot middle eastern sun, with her protracted heart attack, and sweat filled face mask to the hospital for her 10am appointment — in reality, she was walking, one foot in front of the other, two meters away from anyone who looked like they wanted to infect her with their own personal brand of COVID-19, because, lest we forget, ain’t nobody supposed to be leaving their houses and walking willingly into the hospital.

After the standard 40 minute-after the scheduled appointment time-wait, she was able to see Dr. I’m A Nice Guy Let’s Get You In And Out Of Here Don’t Mind All Your Questions Here’s Some Paracetamol. She cursed her former self for wearing a dress to an appointment involving her chest. Now, not only did she have to expose her breasts, she had to expose her entire body for the poor South Asian nurse and doctor to see and prod. How many times had they worked on a black body —seen a black body?

*sharp pain”

Why did doc make her breathe like that? Who cares if he was doing his job as a car-di-ol-o-gist. She thought she clearly explained to him that she was “experiencing sharp pain when I breathe deeply - no actually it’s when I exhale, so breathing is hard *awkward laugh*.” She resolved that next time she won’t smile when she had serious news to tell someone. She should have remembered this tip from the time in Mumuso when the salesgirl was practically in her ass while she was trying to decide whether to go with a snail guts or pearl set of face masks. “Can you give me some spaaaaace?” She told the girl (probably a woman, but short) with a smile that made the woman inch closer instead of backing up out of her circle. Old habits die hard, perhaps.

She felt it was useless to take a number, stand in line, and pay for paracetamol from the adjacent pharmacy when she had some at home, but these were going to be the tablets that cured her chest pain. In fact, she was already starting to feel better, starting to feel back in her body after, first, the inexplicable stabs and then being touched and handled by strangers and machines… and lube. She chucked her drugs in her half-lesbian tote bag and tra-la-la’ed back to her apartment. She even stopped to photograph some street art — or, as she would come to think upon later looking at her camera roll, crusty ass graffiti that belonged in a high school bathroom, not on this street. The day wasn’t so bad after all.

*sharp pain”

She’d had a few cars drive slowly past her before, with their windows up, and they never stopped. So she never allowed her mind to venture into the abyss of what they could possibly want, and how could she even conceivably make out who they were with their windows tinted black for chrissake!? Today, though, she didn’t need to wonder who they were or what they wanted, because he’d made that quite clear in his approach.

5/15/2020

“When you stop next to me on the road and ask me to get in your car, not only do I feel unsafe on a foundational, environmental level, I feel unworthy. Unworthy of making my own choices, unworthy of existing in my own skin, unworthy of existing - period - without being for the consumption of someone else; without existing, purely, for your pleasure. When I ask you what you want from me, or why I would get in your car, and you tell me it’s just because you like me, I really feel how greatly the society I live in has failed me. I feel how it was never for me in the first place. Here I am on the edge of tears, on the edge of breaking dishes, because the anger inside me always goes unheard. I am not your object, I am nothing to you. I am my own. Yet, I’m still meant to be graceful in my response to you as you treat me like an object. God forbid I give you the resounding FUCK YOU that you deserve. God forbid I actually exercise my voice and honor the spectrum of my layered emotions to be more than an object, but an animate, complex, human being. All this desire to be graceful in the face of UTTER FUCKERY has done what? Enabled your behaviour? Pacified your unmet desires, unmet expectations? Caused me to feel unsafe in my own body — meaning I feel unsafe in any fucking environment? So, excuse me while I don’t care if you call me beautiful or sexy. Don’t fucking talk to me, because you can’t even see me. All you see is a meaningless temporary object of your desire to be used and discarded. So, again, leave me alone while I live my life, forever journeying to a stable understanding of liberation, my self worth, deserved joy, unbounded and unfiltered love — all these things that this world - made up of these people - doesn’t prioritize for me. Excuse me as I prioritize myself.”

She shut her journal, still fuming, but coming to, she realized that she could have easily been snatched and thrown in his car. She realized that, as disempowered as it made her feel to acknowledge, she was fortunate that he only pouted and drove away when she yelled at him to leave her alone. She realized that there are countless other people in similar circumstances who, for whichever reason, aren’t able to advocate for — or save — themselves. It’s reality.

If past circumstances didn’t tell her before, she was listening now. She became acutely aware of her body that day. Medical and sexual objectification in rapid sequence forced her to remember that when she stepped out of the house, others created a costume for her to wear. Broad-day prostitute, scared young woman who doesn’t have something something prolapse, giant African siren. As cheesy as she felt it was, she also knew it to be true: she had to remember her essence and take ownership of her body at any given moment. Either that, or let the world dictate who or what she existed as.