Child of the Moon

by Jessica Semaan

  Some men repeated the names of the victims. His was the last of the six.

  There was a shooting. He was outside a club. He was not part of the fight. His best friend was shot, too, and passed away minutes after.

  How do I tell my mother her only child died?

  “Her only?” My therapist interrupted.

  It was these two words that finally removed the veneer, and explained the ending.

  I rushed to my mother holding my grief of losing my beloved sibling and the protective instinct that wanted to rescue her.

  She shut me down. She did not want to talk about it. And just like that she went to sleep.

  And I woke from the dream.

  Healing #1

  Healing is not

  Fast

  Rational

  Easy

  Only about you

  A tropical destination

  Painless

  Linear

  Measurable

  Sexy

  Comparable

  A side gig

  Healing #2

  Healing is

  Generational

  Compassionate

  Challenging

  Complicated

  Courageous

  Raw

  A group effort

  A choice

  Endless

  Worth it

  Some of the most important work you can do in your lifetime

  Healing #3

  To heal is to sit in full presence with what aches. Once it feels seen, heard, honored, it will retire to the backseat, and only then can you drive

  Healing #4

  You cannot undo generations of pain with one self-help book, one dose of Molly, one long prayer

  Healing takes time because it commands the respect of the many who came before

  Healing takes time because, like every timeless art piece, it must last for generations to come

  No one will give you the love you did not get

  Because that love is dead

  Between mourning and the love you find

  You will get very far

  Tattoo #1

  He walked real slow and smiled gently

  I did not have to explain much, he got it

  He told me he struggles with PTSD

  The oceans between Hawaii where he comes from and Beirut where I come from were suddenly one

  Turned out we both survived wars

  Him as a veteran, and I as a civilian

  The tattoos branded both of us

  Trauma does not separate

  Trauma brought us together in its ruthless yet humble way

  I wanted a tattoo of my little girl on my left arm, the side of the heart

  My tattoo artist inked my arm and taught me that pain does not separate

  Tattoo #2

  I got an arm tattoo

  You hanging on the edge of the moon

  Staring into the depth of the unknown

  So when you are ready

  You can look up

  See you are not alone

  And finally jump

  all I have been is a heart

  pretending to be a wall

  The new voice

  I am needy, I am unpredictable, I am too emotional,

  I am lovable

  Forgiveness #1

  And then I saw the child in you and you

  Mama, Papa, you are hurting, too

  Forgiveness #2

  Forgiveness lies at the bottom of a mourning well

  Forgiveness #3

  I cried a sea to bring you back to the shore

  It takes one human that makes us feel seen, heard, and safe

  For us to get up and move the mountain in our way

  Everybody needs somebody

  Behind the moon there is a sun

  News

  The bad news is you can only heal yourself

  The good news is you can only heal yourself

  Underneath the trauma

  I saw her aura

  Bright like a desert sunrise

  Colorful like a coast sunset ride

  Nothing can dim her light

  I tried

  Nothing can mask her light

  I tried

  In her light

  I saw the gift of trauma

  To be of service to those like her whose light was buried

  Always remember

  Whether you get married or you don’t

  Whether you have children or you don’t

  Whether you buy a house or you don’t

  Whether you go to college or you don’t

  Whether you do work you love or you don’t

  Whether you build wealth or you don’t

  Whether you stay loyal or you don’t

  Whether you have your shit together or you don’t

  Whether you maintain healthy habits or you don’t

  Whether you die old or you don’t

  Whether you make your mama proud or you don’t

  You still deserve to love

  You still deserve to be loved

  Always remember

  I lost my faith during a Catholic mass

  I found my faith sitting on the rooftop of a bullet-shelled building in Beirut

  Drowning in tears I felt you near

  You taught me that faith means you are never alone

  Blood, yellow, blue, pink

  No matter your colors your energy pulls me back from the edge of the brink

  Waning, waxing, full, or new

  No matter your shapes you wink at me when I am walking home alone, feeling blue

  Beirut, New York, Paris, or San Francisco

  No matter my location, your light reminds me that home is moments when I look up to you and take a deep breath

  I tried to be happy I failed

  I tried to be tough I failed

  I tried to be positive I failed

  I stopped trying and felt

  Miserable, weak, negative

  And then it did not matter whether I failed or succeeded

  Sometimes you have to kill

  Your mother

  Your job

  Your father

  The system

  The technology

  The teachers

  The mentors

  The bosses

  The schools

  To find yourself deep down buried gasping for air

  Unlimited vacation

  We need trauma leave

  We need to heal

  you cannot

  grieve the future

  A paradox

  Your emotions matter and your emotions are fleeting

  They took your childhood

  But you can claim your adulthood

  You can start from scratch

  And re-parent your heartbroken child

  Until she will never doubt again

  Whether love is safe

  Whether her body is safe

  Whether the world is safe

  My body, my home

  My body, my first, last, and only home

  What would I do to nurture my home?

  To scrub its floors

  To offer it flowers, candles, and incense

  To bring into it only the most wholehearted guests

  To air it out on a bright sunny day

  To long for it when I am away

  My body is becoming my chosen home

  Roots

  You asked me why I have spent so many years kneeling and weeping

  I was alternatin
g between floating in heaven when you approved and buried underground when you disapproved

  Those ups and downs got me dizzy

  I had no roots

  I now spend waking nights planting roots, watering them with my tears and sweat, so I can one day rise unshaken whether you approve or disapprove

  I am not mentally ill

  My heart is ill

  My chest burns so hard

  I can’t breathe

  Anxiety swipes me off my feet

  I can’t speak

  I am not mentally ill

  My mind is ill

  Harassing me with stories of shame and self-blame

  This is how I survived the pain

  I am not mentally ill

  My soul is ill

  Of the intergenerational trauma it carries

  The overwhelming responsibility to heal

  I am not mentally ill

  I am emotionally healthy

  I have easier access to feelings that our culture has repressed

  Loss, despair, heartache

  I am not mentally ill

  I am mentally intelligent

  To have kissed despair

  And known that life has no meaning and then go and make some up

  I am not mentally ill

  My soul is resilient

  To do all the work

  With no upside but the healing of generations to come

  I am not mentally ill

  The world we live in is ill

  War, abandonment, abuse, silence

  Makes it unsafe to be present

  So I defend I act out I escape I disassociate

  If I am mentally ill

  You must see

  that our hearts are ill, our souls are ill

  If one of us is ill

  Our whole world is ill

  The self-help books

  The therapy manuals

  The research papers

  Written in black ink by white hands

  While my brown hands

  Hold my little body tight

  Trying to appease its angst

  So they can write the story of a brown girl

  Who had to burn

  The self-help books

  The therapy manuals

  The research papers

  And make space on her shelf

  For her book and the books of her sisters

  Written in black ink by colored hands

  what if you were the world?

  would you still want to

  save it?

  Cultural colonization, when my mother thought that American names were better.

  How come your name is Jessica and you are not from here?

  Abla, Jalileh, Aida, Almaz . . . Jessica

  When they colonize our culture we go from names that tell stories to names that have no meaning

  Crossing

  The room is familiar

  I know it like the back of my hand

  The corner is for my depressive episodes

  The bed is for my unfulfilled dreams

  The desk is for plotting my escape

  The window is for snooping at my neighbors and comparing

  I know this room so well

  I also know I don’t belong here anymore

  I am ready to leave my childhood room

  And enter my adult house

  The idea of living in many rooms seems overwhelming

  Having to decorate from scratch seems daunting

  I feel excitement rising like a geyser about to erupt

  I feel ready

  I don’t look back

  I just do it

  I leave the room

  Where am I, I still don’t know

  But this place smells like fresh baked bread

  And I like that

  Don’t trust anyone who cannot show you their anger, fear, or sadness. If they can’t be in the company of their shadow, they won’t have company for you when you are in yours

  having no home to go back to,

  I built one, one battle at a time

  I became a better person only

  when I saw I was a bad one, too

  As a victim alone, I cannot lead

  As a master alone, I cannot love

  As a victim and a master I can lead with love

  I numbed

  Because I did not want to admit I hated

  I screamed

  Because I did not want to admit I silenced

  I victimized

  Because I did not want to admit I oppressed

  I lied

  Because I did not want to admit I messed up

  I preached

  Because I did not want to admit I did not know

  I gossiped

  Because I did not want to admit I envied

  I acted out

  Because I did not want to admit I betrayed

  It’s too dark to see

  It’s too bright to see

  Sitting in the darkness by the light of the moon,

  I can finally see

  I am the abuser and the victim

  But first I was the victim who mimicked her abuser

  So she feels connected to him so she survives

  The abuser invaded my body and brain

  And now resides in me

  Telling me I am nothing

  I try to get him out

  So I tell you, you are nothing

  And when I wake up

  I see that I created another victim of his

  In the middle of the shame and the confusion

  Between wondering if I am him or am I his victim

  I realize I have become both

  Trauma is a complex beast

  That turns us into who we fear most

  I closed my eyes and swallowed my abuser into my little being

  Now I cannot get him out of me

  He screams through my lungs

  Speaks on my behalf

  He is not me

  But he is me

  I survived him by swallowing him

  Now I must purge him

  Purge a part of me

  Who never lies?

  Nature

  The body

  The child

  Trust your nature, your body, your child

  The moon only brightens up when the night falls

  Only in your darkness can you truly see your light

  Moonrise

  I sat there waiting for the sun to set

  The day to end

  To welcome the regrets

  I turned around and from above Mount Lebanon

  I saw the moon rising

  And knew when one light sets another goes on

  I must only ask and wait not to be alone

  Don’t ask me why I am feeling this or that

  I will tell you lies

  Ask me how I am feeling this or that

  I will tell you truth

  Feeling seen brings the tears of grief

  Of all the years when I thought I was invisible

  Feeling seen brings the tears of relief

  That I exist

  The most precious of gifts

  Standing Rock, 2016

  When I returned to California after my year sabbatical, I was inundated with stories about a protest camp in South Dakota led by a group of Native American tribes to stop the building of a pipeline that would harm their water and violate the sacredness of their land. I knew I had to do something to support them.

  The day I arrived was the day many vetera
ns joined to support the Native American cause. As I was volunteering in the kitchen in one of the tents, an old man in tears in his Army uniform caught my eye. People started gathering around him. He spoke softly of atonement. Of the pain he has lived since the war in Vietnam. Of the numerous veterans who killed themselves, who live with daily emotional and mental pain. The cost of unjust war has been transformed into trauma that the soldiers carry, along with the nations who have been abused, colonized, used. A Native American tribe leader sitting facing him said quietly: “Your trauma is our trauma.

  And together we heal.”

  Leila and Nour

  Leila was born in the underworld. Leila means night in Arabic. She knew darkness so well, drank sadness from a well. Swam in shame. Feasted on anger. She was the wise woman of all, and often visited by both mortals and gods.

  One night, Queen Nour, which means light in Arabic, reluctantly paid a visit to Leila. She had been flying for decades and in the process her legs, of no use, became limp. Now that she was tired and wanted to find her ground, her legs fell apart.

  Leila bestowed her with a potion of despair and grief that brought her strong legs back. After days of weeping, Nour’s legs came back strong and healthy. She felt grounded again.

  As a gift of gratitude, Nour offered Leila a visit to the world of light. Leila was scared, but also knew that if she declined, Nour could shine her light in the underworld and they would all have to fly and lose their legs.

  She acquiesced and came to visit only to see that the world of light was empty, for everyone was flying. And only because she had the strongest of legs, she walked around, and tasted the plums of joy, and the nectar of gratitude.

  To be a child of the moon

  To be a child of the moon is to have the gift of pondering and sitting with life’s biggest questions

  To intimately rise in death and therefore life

  To intimately observe the unknown and therefore the known

  To intimately experience loss and therefore love

  To intimately swim in despair and therefore joy