Slipping into my new skin, I got many things. A roof. Food. Family? Family trips. Nannies who came and went. Strength. Schooling. Languages. New names. 

I shed many things, too. Old names. Ancestral knowledge. Knowledge of the family that was. 

Losing the soft sound of her voice, I came to recognise the new one. Cloyingly sweet, yet on edge. Often laced with acrid anger. Occasionally exploding, other times a stony silence.

With the new roof, I lost the freedom to be. To be silly. Cheeky. Sad. Angry. To feel.

 The nannies I loved, left. Or were made to leave. I acquired knowledge and new words. I lost my sense of play; lost an intuitive knowing. Forsaking the free-moving rhythms of my body, I excelled in sports. 

I enjoyed eating out. A revolving variety of restaurants for family dinners. I relished the intricate flavours. Yet I was always on the edge of my seat. Bracing myself against arguments. A ticking time bomb. The end of dinner came with the divvying up of duties. Who needs to polish off which dish. Pleasure turned into overriding discomfort.

I got a grandma, old and wrinkly. A little harsh, yet always kind. Weekly visits with a toy in hand or pillowy red bean buns. I lost the other one. The one I never knew of. The one who, by the time I got to see her face on screen, had been lost to dementia. 

I speak a global language now. I no longer know the tongue of my old village, nor its streets, its culture, its hidden whispers of secrets long forgotten.

Now, I lose the restrictive roof. A quiet and simple meal at home while the family dinners keep on without me; the carousel carrying on its dystopian tune. I enjoy each bite leisurely/ slowly/ languish, letting the taste sink/ seep in. I shed the skin, its once glistening sheen, now sheer and opaque. I clean my dishes, floors, and drains; wash, dry, and fold my clothes. All that was done for me before. I choose hostels over hotels. Strangers over family. On paper, I’ve got so much. Yet it feels like I’ve known nothing but loss, over and over again. In a myriad of forms.

Past and future interweave intermittently: the past arises in the future, and the emerging/ arising future shapes the past. Each loss permeating the present moments; each recall a recreating of the stories past. The screams tear through, ghosts of the past. Presence holds space in the present, burnt skin rustles before fluttering off. A disparate loss of what was never quite. A charred clearing. Scars the signposts on this journey. The arrival in the arriving.