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Hi, hi. It’s me again. I just can’t stop thinking about you, talking to you when you are not here. I dump all sort of things going on in my mind and there’s always this you who’s responsive, sometimes satirical, sometimes resonating. We never had any exchange of warm and kind words, there’s no hugs, kisses, sending love...shit like that. Your affection is always expressed in such a way that was so scornful, but I never trust anyone except you. I never feel the same strength, support and safety from anyone else other than you. It’s funny cause I never pick words when you are not here, but I was so careful on the phone. I pick words, I choose my language, I try not to offend you. Since when did that happen? I pour my heart out when you are not there, I shut my real thoughts when I confront you. In either way, phone is the only way we communicate. But I speak to you all the time, whenever I like, wherever anything reminds me of the fucking unassimilable part of me, or time.

Do you remember Yilin? We went to winter camp together in year 11, the first time I left home for so long, for 28 days. My first time in this country. I was fucking happy, it’s like a honeymoon, the very special tour between us. The only problem was food - she threw up twice at school and once at table when everyone was there. It was a fucking roast dinner. Nobody noticed it because that dude kept talking and she put her hands around her mouth, pretending she’s coughing while not letting the vomit out. I excused ourselves to the loo and closed the door, leant my back against it while she dipped her head into the toilet. The last day of the camp we lied down on the lawn, there were stars on the sky. We kept telling each other what food we are gonna have when we are back home. Stir fry aubergines, green beans, potatoes, deep fried pork belly with cauliflower, cauliflower... then she kissed me. She said she loved me. Don’t you remember? I used to talk about her and you were throwing a little tantrum...you blew up your mouth like a globefish. I knew you love me at that time, I don’t even need to confirm that - it’s so obvious. I searched in our chat history, nothing cheesy there. All you did is leaning your head on my shoulder, hand in hand. We were sitting by the subway entrance, watching people coming in and out, anywhere is fine, just not home. Home and school are terrible. Teen girls are ok to be gluey as hell, but no way they are couples. You just not being seen this way, and you’d better not to. Rule number 1, never come out at school. 

.........

I came to uni and everyone seems having some fun. Pubs, clubs, rugby, friends...I tried to be part of them at first. Then I can’t - I had assimilated so much that I felt the pain. I thought I was enjoying it, or I was trying to. Then I looked around the table, that everyone was laughing so hard on things I don’t understand. They all have blonde hair, like, everyone. Being blonde is a thing isn’t it? I forced myself into this unstoppable laughter and suddenly no one was talking, they were all staring at me. The uncanny faces turned into a dubious look, a ‘are you ok’ look. I laughed so hard that I can’t stop. And finally I went back at 3am, threw myself into bed, the faces keep going over and over again in my mind, one after one. The wrinkle next to the mouth, the bellies moving up and down, the drinks split on the table, and the goddamn disgusting smell of sweat, dress and damp...and more importantly, that urge and distortion and displacement of language 1 second before sth smart or a joke comes out of my mouth. Whenever I say something I fucking look around the table to see everyone’s reaction. It was a performance, not chilling talks. 

The guy I fuck with, yeah I’m fucking with a guy now. I...I don’t seem attractive to girls anymore. Anyway, the only reason keep me with this dude is not even sex, is his fucking room. I feel like I can never have enough space, my room is fucking empty, fucking blank! I stuck all the photos and posters around and I feel like this room is hideous. I always have this fear, the uncanny fear that comes from nowhere...no, we all know where it comes. There’s never enough room to breath, I don’t even want to leave my bed. But his room makes me feel safe - he lost his erection right before we had sex and we stayed side by side under the pillows and quilts, waiting for his to harden up again. There was nothing else, just the softness of the sheets and someone else’s body. Human bodies are warm, I grow obsessed to the body of a man and I just want to rub my warmest part to his warmest part. It feels good to have sex and cuddle someone at the end of the day, to see the rashness under the skin, to stay naked under a pile of blanket, to touch and be touched. Then the next day I wake up, looking at the man next to me. Do I ever know him? Where’s all the trust and connection come from? Fuck off.

I sometimes think I am a fish. You remember my classic anecdote about Spring Festival - my dad buy 30 goldfish every year and let them swim in the fish tank, the first thing people see when they enter his house. The fish die one after one, by the end of the festival, nothing exist in the tank except those fake seaweeds and sparkling of fish scales and skins come off from their dead body. Every morning you see another fish floating on the surface with her beautiful friends gathering around her, eating the body with their red and transparent tails swinging behind. There was this one time ever, on New Year’s eve, we heard this blunt noise of something clashed into another. We all left the kitchen to see what’s happening - it was a goldfish. She managed to jump out of the tank, 40 fucking inches tall, knocked the lid open and escaped. The blunt noise we heard, is not from the the lid, it’s the sound when her body hit the cold, hard floor. I think about the fish all the time, the brave suicide, the small, wet, vibrant body... Last winter a guy drove me to the beach and he fucked me from the back in the car. He struck me so hard that my head bumped into the window. I never know what my partners are thinking during sex, but I rarely think about sex, it is always something else. The fish, π= 3.1415926..., the sea...out of the blue I unlocked the door and my body slipped from the heavy panting and the hurting anal to the freezing blowing wind. For one second that feels fucking good - an euphoria! An ecstasy! The fish slip through the fingers. 

You see, the metaphor game ends here. I got nothing to conceal from you. I escaped from the world we all hate so much, and only ended up entering into another world that has nothing else besides endless, unavoidable assimilation and violence! In the midst of this cruelty, every friendship and allyship, if there is any, seem too fragile. There’s endless dispute and awkward silence in our phone calls. I sometimes think the cracks are here because I’m so far away from you. I don’t even know what clothes you have in your closet now, what do you eat everyday, what are you thinking when you see the pigeons...we only talk about politics now. Everything is politics. ‘Let’s be genuine and honest to each other till we meet again.’ What will happen when we meet again in the unforeseeable future? Do we still get to hang out on every street we grew up in, listen to the songs that only us listen to and drink the lemon sodas. Can I still take a nap on your thigh and smell your hair? In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. I guess I still have hope, otherwise I have nothing to live upon. I grip it tight by heart. When the leaves start falling, I try to believe the everlastingess of summer.