Contributor Abigail George would like to share a new project of hers: a blog called Mentally Sound that features articles, updates, a magazine, poetry, and uplifting music. In this day and age, so many things can affect our mental health. Please feel free to join the blog and blog about your own experiences or loving someone who has a mood disorder or an individual who is suffering from depression. Log in, blog, do read the posts and leave comments to inspire our growing community!
For we are all bound in stories, and as the years pile up they turn to stone, layer upon layer, building our lives. – Steven Erikson
This month’s contributions deal with the complexities of nature, history, culture, language, or even the psyche of a single person. Everything we choose or experience builds upon itself to make us who we are, even short-lived experiences.
Yucheng Tao’s poetry collection April No Longer Comes,published by Alien Buddha Press and reviewed by Cristina Deptula, explores moments of love and beauty that are wonderful and transient, like the season of spring. Sean Lee’s poems remind us that even fleeting moments can be meaningful and beautiful. Jian Yeo’s poetry touches on the pain and beauty we can find in mortality. Mykyta Ryzhykh contributes surreal images of life, death, and the cycle of modern existence. John Grey’s poetry explores comings and goings, presences and disappearances.
Yoonji Huh presents nature, family tenderness, and humor with a color scheme that looks historical and weathered. Gwil James Thomas speaks in several tough-minded pieces to memories and dreams and our sources of inspiration. Sean Lee’s artwork evokes the power of the imagination to illuminate daily life. Alina Lee’s poetry suggests that our pasts and futures comprise layers of each moment in which we find ourselves. JK Kim’s poetry looks at summer scenes with a calm nostalgia, after events have passed. Alexis Lee’s poems probe what we choose to value and remember, what we invest in and find beautiful. Olivia Koo probes the nature of memory, how multiple moments combine to craft a mental impression and feeling. Ah-Young Dana Park’s poetry comments on our changing memories and perspectives as time passes and we age. Chloe Park’s art revels in exquisite detail, probing culture and memory with intricacy. Sally Lee provides poetic snapshots of moments in time, considering whether they have meaning or value without context.
Seoyun Park’s visuals speak to how we observe and confront life, the dangers we face and those we pose. Ethan Lee’s poems remind us of the underside of our world: the everyday grotesque and the many layers of the ordinary. Irene Kim’s work explores the strain and melancholy that can permeate ordinary moments. Austin Chung’s poetry illustrates various kinds of disorder and dispersion as Taylor Dibbert vents his annoyance at the common problem of loud museum patrons. Lauren Kim stays with a single scene from everyday life for an entire poem, probing its layers. Haeun Regina Kim’s poetry examines ordinary objects and animals in depth, sharing details and language to create an off-kilter feel.
Brian Barbeito also explores deeply, focusing in on the flora and fauna of an Aruba resort. Debabarata Sen celebrates the verdant beauty of Costa Rica. David Sapp’s poetic speakers become waylaid by the arresting color and beauty of nature. Dylan Hong’s pieces present a gentle, abstract, even whimsical peek at nature. Grace Lee’s poetry crafts dreamlike, gentle, floating scenes. Terry Trowbridge’s pieces on peach harvests evoke the challenging economics and natural realities of farming. Mahbub Alam reminds us of the innate rough wildness of nature: storms, volcanoes, huge predators.
Sayani Mukherjee evokes the rhythm of a public piano played for big city pedestrians in a rainstorm. Eva Petropoulou Lianou waxes poetic about the beauty of the moon. Noriniso Kasimova shares memories of spring in her hometown and her father’s love. Chinese poet Su Yun collects a group of short poems from elementary school students, mostly impressions of natural scenes. Dhani M.’s artwork stylizes natural scenes to create emotional senses of calm, curiosity, and wonder. Jinwoo Brian Park’s art suggests that we can re-incorporate the old into the new, the natural into the artificial.
Mark Young contributes a fresh set of fanciful geographies. G. Emil Reutter humorously describes noisy construction’s impact on local residents. Erin Kim’s artwork explores the upsides and downsides of civilization’s technological progress. Katie Hong’s work critiques our isolation and obsession with technology as Xushnudbek Yakubov warns of the dangers of online misinformation. Sophie Yoon’s art critiques our complex relationship with consumption and the natural world. Eugene Han’s art explores who we are and where we’re going as humans, and our relationships with nature. Shabbona Abdurashidova highlights the importance of sustainable ecology in Uzbekistan. Jahin Claire Oh’s work speculates on how the world’s other creatures might see us: mimicking and learning from them, drifting into or penetrating their environments.
J.K. Durick speaks to new, wild, and real frontiers in modern nature and technology, commenting on our efforts to understand and control them. Pulkita Anand evokes the mental and physical disorientation brought on by the colonization of one’s land.
Ahmed Miqdad calls the world to action to help suffering civilians in Gaza. Patricia Doyne also calls the world’s attention to starvation in Gaza. Stephen Jarrell Williams speaks to the numbing, mindless destruction of war.
Abdisattorova Xurshida highlights the contrasting legacies of Genghis Khan and Amir Temur. Abdisattorova Hurshida reflects on her admiration for Uzbek martial artist Abdulbosit Abdullayev. Maftuna Rustamova and Chorsanbiyeva Gulnoza poetize in honor of the military personnel who serve and guard Uzbekistan. Zumrad Sobirova celebrates the poetic beauty and pride of her Uzbek heritage. Jumaniyozova Nazokat encourages Uzbekistan’s young people to develop a greater appreciation for their heritage by visiting points of historical interest.
Nilufar Moydinova’s essay highlights language’s inextricable interconnection with thought, life, and culture. Mauro Montacchiesi creates a dialogue of philosophical thoughts and poetry between Dr. Jernail Singh and Rabindranath Tagore. Federico Wardal speaks to his long admiration for artist Andy Warhol and director and screen writer Federico Fellini. Orolova Dinora explores layers of meaning in Antoine St. Exupery’s The Little Prince as Surayyo Nosirova celebrates the heritage of Uzbek author Alexandr Faynberg.
Reagan Shin revels in the comfort and ecstasy and happy memories she finds in books. Mushtariybegim Ozodbekova highlights the power of books and stories to transcend time, culture, age, and space. Panoyeva Jasmina O’tkirovna highlights ways language teachers can help students develop fluency through relevant speaking and grammar practice. Turg’unov Jonpo’lat explores techniques to help children of all abilities to learn foreign languages. Nafosat Jovliyeva and Dilshoda Jurayeva illustrate gamification and other creative strategies for language learning. Rahimova Dilfuza Abdinabiyevna discusses ways to improve student competence with writing and speaking. Hilola Badriddinova outlines strategies used throughout the developed world to teach foreign languages.
Linda S. Gunther contributes a craft essay on “interviewing” your characters to better understand them as a writer. Paul Tristram’s poetry explores the heroic narratives we create through our writing and our lives. Gloria Ameh evokes the visceral sensations of writing on topics close to the bone.
Abigail George writes a stream of consciousness essay on her vulnerabilities from mental illness and just plain existing as a female-bodied person and how enduring them inspired her to write. Soumen Roy also connects beauty to vulnerability, speaking to the fading Mona Lisa and the union of joy and sorrow as fellow travelers.
J.J. Campbell reflects on disillusionment, loss, and the eternal quest, against all odds, for love. Mesfakus Salahin speaks evocatively of his quest for love and freedom. Baxtiniso Salimova’s poetry tells an epic love story. Mirta Liliana Ramirez relates intense grief at the loss of her lover. Dilnoza Islomova expresses her gratitude for her mother’s tender care. Bill Tope and Doug Hawley collaborate on a love story that turns unexpectedly tender. Urazaliyeva Sarvinoz shares an emotional tale of jealousy, love, and forgiveness between two twin sisters. Sarvinoz Orifova expresses gratitude for her parents’ constant love and care. Wazed Abdullah expresses his love and gratitude for his mother. Ozodbek Narzullayev expresses his love for his mother and invites her to share her life struggles with him for support. Xurshida Abdisattorova shares the story of a mother’s complicated grief for an imperfect husband and father who passes away in a sudden accident. Shoxrukh Fayzulla o’g’li Dusmatov speaks to his mother’s love and care and how wealth alone matters little without compassion and humanity.
To’raqulova Pokiza Sanjarovna speaks to the need for human compassion, wisdom, respect, and personal development. Hamza Kamar’s poetry expresses his powerful hopes for a transcendent hero. Bhagirath Chowdhary expresses his determination to avoid the next life until he has finished roaming this world, offering blessings to others. Charles Taylor’s short story probes our ethics and the extent of the compassion we owe our friends and fellow humans.
Julia Kanno reminds residents of the USA that most Latino immigrants are hardworking people with lives and dreams. Bill Tope presents a tale of a survivor’s search for justice for a sexual assault that shattered her psyche. Abdisattorova Khurshida presents a tale of thievery exposed.
Graciela Noemi Villaverde shares a poem on the joy of community and diversity and welcoming special education students. Haeun Regina Kim’s artwork explores unity and acceptance of others, as well as harmony among rural and urban areas. Nabijonova Madinabonu outlines how sharing coffee can help us build building friendship and community. Khudoyqulova Shahzoda highlights Uzbekistan’s programs to enhance economic opportunities for low income women and families and the disabled.
Nazarova Moxiniso looks into discipline and student character development as part of Uzbek preschool education. Ulsanam Ulmasovna outlines Amir Temur’s contributions to the Uzbek education system. Islomov Inomjon describes the Geoment, a device to teach mathematical reasoning to children with low or no vision.
Bozorboyeva Iroda offers encouragement for young people to find and follow their own dreams. Khudoykulova Shahzoda points out consequences of and solutions to youth unemployment.
Various contributors celebrate notable people who should be better known, or highlight important research work. Sobirjonova Rayhona outlines the career and accomplishments of Uzbek woman mathematician and teacher Shodmonova Hilola. Eshmurodova Sevinch highlights the need for training for employees in Uzbekistan’s banking industry in digital technology to modernize industry. Muslima Olimova highlights strategies corporations have used to adapt to stay on top in a digital world. Jo’rayev Ulug’bek outlines engineering techniques for strengthening concrete structures. Mirzaolimov Mirabbos probes the medical relationship between diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Ostanaqulov Xojiakbar speculates on how to improve web search engine optimization to improve online communication and website findability. Orozboyeva Mohina Nuraliyevna outlines the role and history of psychology as practiced in Uzbekistan.
On a more psychological level, Duane Vorhees’ poetry covers and highlights human complexity: different aspects to our personalities, different choices we can make, how we can change with time. James Benger’s poetry explores the fear and tension underlying our individual existences, the danger from geologic pressure, storms, raw meat – and how we sometimes find hope to carry forward.
Andrew Ban shares restless, random thoughts, finding commonalities with all humanity while acknowledging the need to protect and defend himself if needed. Dongeon Kim’s work presents scenes of intense human and natural energy while Texas Fontanella revels in the pure sound of non-representational language. Dennis Daly wanders through a variety of human feelings, from nostalgia to frustration to faith. Michael Robinson shares his journey and heritage of faith, how he found a spiritual home and refuge in Christ and the church. Muhammad Sanusi Adam speaks to struggle, resilience, destiny, creation, and faith.
Gaurav Ojha seeks out meaning in a confusing and vast world, ultimately affirming everyone’s ability to find their own truths. We hope that reading this issue helps you to find a smidgen of truth for your own life.
They were twins — born from the same body, living two different sorrows. One carried illness, the other carried guilt. When a letter arrives wrapped in the scent of nasturtiums, one sister must face the truth she’s buried for years: love can be painful, and forgiveness even harder. A quiet story about loss, jealousy, unspoken love, and the haunting ties of sisterhood.
Chapter 1 A Memory in Bloom
— Goodbye… Her voice rang out like a “hello” meant for tomorrow. I quietly watched her walk away, swaying like the spring breeze. In her hand, a cane — tapping against the ground with a rhythm of its own. “Look,” she said, “the nasturtiums are blooming. Aren’t they lovely? Pick one for me…” I looked around. I had never noticed nasturtiums here before. And yet now, branches burst open with blossoms. Gently, I picked the finest bud and handed it to her. With weak, trembling fingers, she caressed the flower. A soft breath escaped her. “It smells beautiful… When you visit my grave, bring nasturtiums. Nothing else. Okay?” “It’s too early to talk about death, little lady,” I said, trying to smile. “You’ve got a long life ahead.” I didn’t believe my own words. She didn’t reply. She only smiled, smelling the flower deeper. “Lay me next to it someday…” I wanted to say, ‘Why are you hurting me like this? Why use death to scare me?’ But I said nothing. “When we get home, we’ll sew matching dresses. With nasturtiums. Just like before.” She stayed silent. Inside, I knew she was counting the ways we were no longer the same. My arms ached. Light things grow heavy when you hold them too long. “Look — we’re home.” I gently lowered her. She couldn’t stand, just sat on the ground, breath shallow. I helped her to her chair. “Stay tonight… please.” Her voice trembled, pleading. I couldn’t say no. “Open the window,” she said. “Let me see the bright world. I’m tired of the dark.” I opened it. The spring breeze carried in the scent of medicine, sorrow, and memory. I wanted to cry. I looked at her — eyes closed. Was she asleep? I touched her hair — wet with sweat. “Sleep well, my nasturtium…”
Chapter 2 The Letter
— I’m sorry about your twin… My friend’s words pull me out of the film of the past. My eyes still gaze toward the window. The wind gently flutters the curtain. — If you want, I can stay with you? — No… I want to be with her. I press the scarf, still smelling of nasturtiums, to my chest. My friend silently leaves. I lie on the bed that feels emptier without her. As I reach for an extra pillow, a white envelope slips to the floor. I pick it up — the scent of nasturtium instantly surrounds me. Inside: a small note and the dried flower — the same one. I open the letter.
“My dear… Are you still changing pillowcases? (You’re smiling, I know it.) I’m going toward a light where pupils shine the same. Please don’t cry. I’m not mad you didn’t become my donor. I love you. I never said it when I was alive, did I? I’m tired. Maybe if you hadn’t left me that day out of jealousy, I could’ve lived longer. I’m not mad at you. (Strikethrough): Damn it, I am mad. I hate you. I wanted to live. At least until I was twenty-two. You’re a coward. At least admit it after I’m gone.”
Even the nurse writing this down for me probably knows you better. I know I’ve been cruel. I always blamed you for everything — my sickness, my loneliness, my blindness. Hurting you made me feel lighter somehow. But it never lasted. I liked watching you suffer with guilt. Because I was already walking toward death. We were twins — same body, different pain. When I fell, I wanted you to fall too. Do you see what a terrible person I was? I wanted you to be just as broken. I only ever wanted you to say: ‘It’s my fault. I left my sister alone. I’m the one to blame.’ But you always ran. From guilt. From me. From truth.
Isn’t fate cruel? When we were born, they thought you’d be the weak one. I was the healthy twin. But you lived. And I… Our parents always took care of you more. You were the sick daughter. I was jealous. I know it sounds silly, but… I wanted to be sick too. I thought being sick meant being loved. I envied you. And you envied me. You wanted to get well. I wanted to fall apart. Mom always said, ‘You’re strong, you’ll manage.’ You used to carry me. I made you — the sick sister — carry me. What a manipulative, selfish child I was. I hurt myself on purpose. I wanted bruises. I just wanted someone to notice me too.
Looking at me now… I realize God gave me what I wished for. I always thought sickness meant love. I was wrong. You only understand the value of something when it’s gone. Yes, I jumped from that tree on purpose. I did. If I could turn back time — I’d never do it. That day, I had a school competition. Everyone’s family was there — except mine. You had one of your attacks again. I was angry. I thought, “Mom only needs her sick daughter.” So I jumped. After that, you got better. And I finally got our parents. At first, I liked it. Then I began to suffer. I blamed you for everything. You ran away. Forgive me, please. I know you couldn’t be my donor. I always knew. Don’t blame yourself. Just live. I loved you. I never said it out loud. P.S. When the nasturtiums bloom — remember me.”
I wanted to scream. Inside me, something broke — like a dam collapsing. But this time, my tears were silent. “You didn’t know…” I whispered. I held the letter to my chest, hands shaking. “That day… I pretended to be sick.” So our parents wouldn’t go to her competition. I was jealous too. Of the smart, healthy girl… I curled up at the edge of the bed. Now, no one’s here. Just me, the letter… and the scent of nasturtiums. “It was my fault… my fault…” — I murmured, lips trembling. It was hard to admit. But it was the truth.
This article explores modern approaches and programmatic foundations for advancing inclusive education, particularly in foreign language teaching. It emphasizes creating accessible learning environments for students with disabilities, employing adaptive methodologies, leveraging digital technologies, and honoring humanitarian principles. The paper presents current challenges and proposes solutions, advocating for effective integration of inclusive strategies into foreign language instruction. It also offers concrete suggestions and innovative ideas essential for implementing inclusive and differentiated instruction.
Keywords: Inclusive Education, Foreign Language Teaching, Teaching Methodology, Digital Technologies, Differential Instruction, Educational Equity, Pedagogical Adaptation, National and International Methodologies, Collaborative Initiatives, Inclusive Education Innovation
Introduction
Inclusive education—enabling students with diverse needs to learn in a unified classroom—is grounded in human rights, social justice, and equality. The 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) enshrines the right to inclusive education . In Uzbekistan, the 2020 amendments to the Education and Disability Rights laws provide a legal basis for inclusive practices, including in foreign-language instruction .
Core Program Principles for Inclusive Foreign Language Teaching
Differential Instruction: Teaching strategies and materials (e.g., audio, Braille, CEF-aligned subtitles) are adapted to each student’s physical or sensory needs.
Adaptive Materials: Multimodal content like pictogram-based dictionaries, audio lessons, and short videos aid comprehension and engagement.
Technological Support: Tools like screen readers, text-to-speech and speech-to-text, inclusive online interfaces, and virtual reality environments provide equitable access .
Humanitarian and Psychological Support: Emotional support and psychologically sensitive teaching addressing motivation and resilience are essential for learners with special needs.
Policy and Strategic Framework in Uzbekistan
Since 2021, national initiatives—including the presidential decree promoting inclusive education and the 2022–2026 National Program—have aimed to widen access and infrastructure, develop adapted textbooks, and prepare foreign language teachers for inclusive classrooms . Over 400 inclusive classrooms now exist nationwide, with gradual rollout of adaptive foreign language teaching practices in partnership with organizations like the British Council and UNICEF.
Remaining Challenges
Teacher Shortage: There are not enough teachers trained to teach foreign languages inclusively. Recommendations include expanding university quotas, improving specialist training, and enabling international exchange programs.
Resource Constraints: Adapted textbooks, multimodal resources, and supplement tools remain scarce and require development.
Infrastructure Gaps: Many schools still lack inclusive-supportive technology—especially in remote areas. Establishing specialized learning centers and providing economic and financial support is vital.
Social Stereotypes: Misconceptions about the abilities of disabled students must be actively dismantled to protect their educational and psychosocial development.
Conclusion
Applying inclusive teaching to foreign languages is integral to modern education. When differential methodology, adaptive materials, technology integration, and compassionate support are combined, all learners—regardless of ability—can access quality education. While Uzbekistan has made significant strides in inclusive policy and practice, further development in teacher capacity, infrastructure, and social awareness is essential for systemic progress.
References:
Florian, L., & Black‑Hawkins, K. (2011). Exploring Inclusive Pedagogy. British Educational Research Journal, 37(5), 813–828.
Decree PQ‑81 (Jan 2022). National Program for Inclusive Education 2022–2026.
Uzbekistan Law on Education, updated 2020.
United Nations (2006). Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
UNESCO (2020). Inclusion and Education: All Means All. Global Monitoring Report.
British Council resources on inclusive education.
OECD educational guidelines for inclusive practices.
Turg’unov Jonpo‘lat Olmosbek o‘g‘li was born on December 4, 2007, in Buloqboshi district of Andijan region. He holds a secondary specialized education. He has achieved significant accomplishments and led various projects in the fields of ecology, socio-economics, and inclusive education. His articles have been published in more than 10 international journals. Currently, he is fluent in four languages.
Come; let us head butt the universe to see what she has got intense tone of pitiless indifference or irreducible errors How has it all occurred? What does it mean to be a human? Why this chimpanzee brain with sophisticated cognitive abilities?
Minds that can anticipate and conceptualize Animals in the wild or saviors in mythologies Where are our proximities in behaviors and perceptions?
The meaning of life is in the Darwinian reference Survival, reproduction, and a bit of reciprocal affection I have mixed it up
With Freudian fixations, denials, displacements, and regressions
The meaning of life is where it is not supposed to be
Repression of basic instincts for civilization progress
The aggressions and revolutions that burn down the order of things are its Discontents
Our symbols of art, literature and culture are pornographic,
Simulated by sexual urge
Why do we have morality for her hymen and not for his tongue?
Life is a pendulum that swings between creativity and death
There is no happiness in human civilizations
We have learned to suppress our instincts for artificial security and progress
Come on the heroes of cartoons, screens, and movies there is something magical about interpretation that makes this boring plot so interesting
Follow the trend; go on
Find your meaning in hero worship we all believe more than we think between unloading and fading out Surviving on those useless things that make life worth living
Oh! Karl Marx, can you make us believe again that
Everything is social, historical, and material
Matter before mind
The meaning of life I am thinking of
Has already been conditioned by the economic realities
To keep my spirit alive, I sat beside a stream
I heard the gentle murmur Of a sage moon as he was, Rajneesh
Even without thunder, there was Ma, Ma, Ma Math, Music, Meditations
My guru of excess
We have become too obsessed with sex
And lost the way into superconsicuoness
In my lonely hours, as I was restless in my bed I listened to a madman with the voice of Zarathustra Reason and Madness, Cosmos and Chaos Probability and Randomness Combine to create dazzle on the surface of meaninglessness Nietzsche spoke: you are what you overcome
If life is absurd as you think
You can still create your own meaning
The Prophet of the New Testament sermon told us Don’t judge, for thou shall be judged I said to him, I can’t even cast the first stone I have all the contradictions within
And, for Two Krishnamurti, I admire J. spoke of truth as pathless land I observe as I am Live with choiceless awareness UG, like a sledgehammer, reminded Mind is myth, and thinking is against living. Sages of the Upanishads have said All is all but all, even if you take out all And, as the dawn was about to break Buddha in silence nodded his nothingness
Even if you exist, you don’t Hare Krishna, I still believe in love for all the delusions I have racked up on my wall With Karl Popper, I celebrate open society and how the human mind works
Shifting between clock and cloud models
Why only the one? Have I been saved by too many? Let us not look beyond, beneath, or behind something The meaning of life is like bones and blood Fire and ice Struggle between day and night in the twilight sky Smoke emanating from dead bodies in a funeral pyre A child dying of bone cancer in a hospital bed Human fetus aborted to hide an exchange of pleasure A mother left alone in an old home by her only son And when you can’t even trust the face of an innocent child The meaning of life is discouraging, dangerous, and dark
Hanging between silence, signature, and speech
The meaning of life is somewhere between
What you know and don’t know
The meaning of life has not been inscribed in stone
We only have traces of lines drawn on the sand
Distorted by the waves of history the meaning of life is still recurring and returning Even after all the explanations, analysis, and interpretations
I only speak for my truth; it doesn’t have to be yours
Here in this courtyard with its garden chairs, washing line, grass shooting feebly out of the ground, a patio for the semi-productive crazies, there is a line beaming through all the hospitalised residents. Outside I can feel the wind move through me. In the impression of the wisps of it touching my hair, the nape of my neck, I can feel the design of a dream, the architecture of a foundation. If I write about this foundation and how much it hurts as it locks its bipolar self into place, it will nourish the sum parts of me, the portions of my estranged soul from my spirit, missing history, perhaps I won’t be a case study for long, under observation, aware of a feeling of futility, sadness, pent up rage and frustration. There I was, Jean, the ice queen, eyes glittering picking a name for the frustration. It took a miracle to get me here and now all I want is to get out of this place, escape this effortless order and routine, the nurse in their flash of white, this gated community.
If I write about what hurts me the most as an experiment perhaps that will assuage some of the pain I feel. The way of pain is cruel and bitter. It has an unstable core. Insecure and conscious of the darker voids within me can burn the edge off any kind of natural high I feel. Most of those highs were to be found in the pool next to the mansion, (the grounds of the hospital were extensive). I imagined my life as a fish stroke for stroke swimming next to the pale ghost of a bone-thin girl. It would suit me well to have gills, fins, webbed feet, swimming with a school. If that happened, nothing would be able to touch me, if only officially I could be more educated, smarter and funnier, if only there was something more elemental about this day, I would feel more real, suited up as a human being. Even the lifeless page is not so lifeless after all–cool and blue to the touch of a pen’s scraping. Even though I knew deep down that all of that cigarette smoke was bad for me, it made me feel like jazz was flowing through me and all that would seem to spirit itself, spirit me to some far off eternal paradise where life and living seemed more peaceful and ordered.
Carrying illness inside of me for the longest time, exploring the tiger balm of recovery like the way I read, poised, sometimes numb to the perfect order that other women would call routine and which female writers would chronicle. The emotional, sensitivity, the intimacy drawn in the fiction of those writers would always be dramatic, children in the background placing their footsteps obediently where their mother would tell them, husbands hovering, husbands drinking over the weekend, hiding their bloodshot eyes, the smell of beer in the air while a wife would scream blue murder in return to hisses, punching the air with curses. I was always mindful of expectation of the collective experimental flooding my brain, exploring that dry, unknown field, walking across it already as a condemned girl-woman with the impulse of flight, ready at the turn of a switch across the beating abstract metaphor of it. The pulse of the field glimmering like waves of heat, dust rising, being kicked up by my heels in this a field of dreams.
There was the stone voice.
All that time away from it I thought it had gathered dust, was of no more use to me but now released, after I aimed for it in my cells I discovered it belonged to me more than ever, my head, a head that was a fragile mess. Still, it had a centre albeit that it was an overworked one. The voice itself had intelligence. While inside of me it felt like a stone washed by tides, waves constructed to dance and whirl, stone set to the rhythm in a river.
I was a child breathing in the positive air of that divine realm, breaking the myths that it carried. What is the voice like of children, who write, create and why is it that what they write and create is just so striking? Where does it come from, that stone voice? Does it come from the infinite space, a sense of a kingdom (theirs) that is an intimation of where they are going, where they are going to end up? Until finally when childhood becomes just a remnant, like birds flying high out of reach, out of sight, of mind, where does the fire and rain of inspiration come from next, if not love, the experiences of returning love with that same gift? What condemns a girl-woman if not the force of her vulnerability, her future and present relationships with both males and females? Childhood that did not merge with adulthood and the knowledge of the awakening of death is what finally condemned me.
Physical health figured with strength in my early life. As I grew so did the night. It gave me hell.
The resident evil of that hell soon became in part the sublime. As swiftly as illness descended upon me I took to writing about that life experience. How invasive is the blackness of depression, of tiredness, of doing the most simple of all things, peeling a Granny Smith, of suffering in silence when time does not fly by. Instead it’s a glass case, a sealed box I am encased in with oxygen tanks a-plenty. Quiet all around can haunt, hurt my ears, tears blind me bleeding their salt into the lines of my moon face. They become all things turning, turning tied with a knot to silence. Its nothing is blinding. It begins with a cry for help and you have to wait, for there’s a substance to it at first glance, a faint, small, chain of breakthroughs coming through the fog, a spiritedness, congeniality that was not there before, laughter ringing in the air, mitigating circumstances to explain away, brush away the ill feeling metallic as blood. I was a tiger waiting to jump, leap in thirst. ‘Touched with madness’, there was a perfumed lightness in every step I took there that seemed to smell like flowers.
I was a child who wrote who became a grown woman who wrote.
Language was my summertime, a stolen liqueur chocolate from Daddy’s birthday present to Mummy or to say he was sorry, wrapped in coloured foil bursting with tart sugariness. When I sought closure it, writing delivered that and gave me closure and I found a worthy ally and opponent within her. The onset of a novel season would seem to tilt me sideways, put me off the beaten track and the only way I could revert to normality was if I became conscious of people and animals, dogs and cats in particular, since we had always had them as pets ever since I was a young child. Writing was also a bellyaching affair. It gave me nerve, sleepless nights of tossing and turning where I would find one end of a string of jumbled words scribbled or rather suspended like my daily reality often was and eventually I would give up, quit and lose the end of the string of words at the core of it. I told myself I should become more spiritual than I already was. It would help my writing more if I believed more in community and did more and came out more often into society.
And with the promise of love or a girl-woman’s infatuation came the violent letting go of blissful goals that would always be determined by inexperience, the fall-out of marked expectations. The voice that sustained me was the one from my childhood. The voice that tasted of devil’s smoke, Blake burning bright, flame and moth, a mother’s depression, anguish and rage, all her secret hiding places revealed, a father’s mental illness, friends that I knew in another inner world, a space and lifetime away who were flushed with the imprint of history. It would be live-men, so much more virulent, funny and wise than I could ever be, men who for the better part of their grown lives would be manipulative and keen at the same time to mentor the young, men who were promiscuous in their dealings with the inexperienced opposite sex. They would show me the cause and effect that illness would have on me in later years. They taught me that it would be my safety net. Even if they didn’t know it at the time, they were offering me the world on a silver platter.
The mystic in me plays at an unfinished game of hangman, noose planted around my neck remembering Mr Smith’s brown shoes, lace-ups under the table where he sat, the master and commander of the class, skin olive and pink from a touch of the sun. Even my father did not wear brown shoes. I imagine his foot in that brown shoe. It must be a well-rested foot for the most part. Not one that has to walk all the time where he has to get to, one that communicates pain and blisters like mine sometimes do. It is a foot that has a sense of the material world and of peaceful belonging. It is a foot that belongs to a body that pilots an educated mind that has experienced both pleasure and privilege at the hands of lesser men and women. He is a man who did not grow up with prejudice. I knew nothing then as I know nothing now of his life outside the school, his ‘England’. I just dreamt of inhabiting the aura around him. As if I could connect with him somehow on a spiritual plane. It was a lesson in love for me, poor Jean, terrified, scared to death of it.
Whenever madness (a wild-haired, locked up in the attic Mrs Rochester), was temporarily conceived in the characters I read about, I relished it. My own life just off of a few years to follow suit, to mirror my father’s life of wards, canteens, sitting on benches waiting for family visits, pills like bees in the hive. The stone voice was still there. My fingers would linger on the spines of books in the library, touch the titles, the names of the authors as if I was leaning against from where they first came from, a tree, as if I was in a forest full of them watching the hours pass by, God’s hand in the air. It would be years before I watched my brother grow into a flock of suits and ties and sharply pointed shoes for work in an office space, my sister growing into another country, swiftly cold and distant, a faraway voice on the end of a telephone line while I floated, or rather pretended to in the bath of now cool water, shivering, dipping my face underwater and smelling of soap. My old life is null and void at the worst of times. I have to reach formidably for health.
Worst being the prickling loneliness, the loose pain I have internalised killing me, carving flashes of a covenant between despair, mania and the highs of euphoria until I am still, still like black pine branches after they have mourned a passing season, still like my skull. It is not natural for human beings to be truthful, it feels more natural for them to be swayed by what they and their heart wants to hear. The stone in my voice is old, ancient. It is the voice of children and women, female philosophers who have passed on, their blood and bone in the vision of their thinking for the world to see. This stone is made up of a supply of part ingenious mortal thinking and the other part, forest, forest that will never feel the need to commit itself to suicide or evaluation because although a tree is a living thing, it does not have a mind-set that is programmed to be introspective, to talk, walk, observe, describe and contemplate. The forest that I find myself in, in that other dimension is where magic races through me when I touch a spine of a book, run my fingertips across the letters of the name of the writer.
I am a newer version of me with two sides. If the mania makes me seem vivacious and spirited, the depression masks that. The life I live now is a life where I went from being hospitalised for depression, the terror of sadness forming patterns in a pensive mechanism. Slowly I became used to hospitals, wards, psychiatrists and therapists. My life from my twenties to my early thirties is one where I had no control, no say except to listen to the doctors and the treatment they prescribed. The first time I realised I was different was when I met the other women in my room at the hospital. Four beds to a room. My new life became one where I would lie on the grass with the other girls from the other wards, usually younger than me, shorter, who bodies seemed fused to play hockey, swim in galas and play tennis. Bone-thin girls who were hospitalised for eating disorders, who came out homes where there was abuse, the physical kind aimed at their mothers and usually the emotional scarring would not escape them. All of us would stretch out in the afternoon sun bathing in its light, trying hard not to stare into the brightness up at the chameleon sky.
When I came home-home I was always hungry and would escape into the kitchen to dazzle myself, preparing meals my mother would not touch.
‘It’s too spicy. The curry was too hot. Is there salt in here?’
After my bath in the evenings I would write on the steamed up bathroom mirror love letters. The skin of where my fingerprints would come from wrinkled. The weight of water would meet me in dreams. I would often float on my back when I went to the swimming pool. It made me feel as if my bones were more than lovely; they were immortal in some way. Floating, arms at my sides, a still life in the water I pretended I was dead and in one sense I was. Outside as my life world gathered like confetti or rice, anger built up inside of me, whirling like a nimbus, tasting like a cake that had been too long in the oven, I would drown in that voice that was above all others and Johannesburg, Tara, Hunterscraig, Garden City Clinic, Helen Joseph, Swaziland and Port Elizabeth all would merge and dance so fast until their bodies shifted into blurred figures and I could once again be Jean. Like at the scene of the discovery of minor shock, all I could is do is sigh and wish the trauma away. We are all tenants in this major society. How we live in the end is up to us in the final analysis of it all.
I wondered how maps, swimming pools could serve me in my audacious quest for sanity, hoping that I, Jean would remain intact through everything. There is a lonesome motion in being, playing at numb. Instead I began to see life from God’s point of view and although life is cruel, there’s a majesty that coexists in every emotive curve, in the known and the unknown symmetry of humanity. When I feel tired I rest. When I am full I stop eating and I remember those bone-thin girls that I met when I was 21, with their shiny, rinsed hair, laughing and joking, playing at being half-productive zombies, drinking warm soda and passing it around in the group and the fact that just about everything about them seemed so delicate as if they could break when they fell. Girls who looked as if they could fit in the picture of a magazine, who with one taste of chocolate that passed their lips would throw it up. They were girls with a pink rose in each cheek, pinching inconceivable belly fat, searching for flab. For a while I became one of them.
I was made to understand children, adults and youth with the mind of a child even if they weren’t my own. And discovered that what is right about family is only found in theory. I found a modern unit and sense of family everywhere I journeyed with the onset of maturity. It is only the rain that flickers out of the corner of my eye. I don’t cry. I don’t have the energy for it anymore and its unceremonious intrusion. In seeing things around me I became a saint in motion. Nothing could touch me unless I gave that force or person permission. All I had to do was believe that I was here to follow the light, be an instrument of peace.
Every day at the hospital, walking from room to room in the ward is a day in recovery, it can inspire. You’re free to dream. No one can say anything if you do. The bright lights of the big city can hardly be seen from anywhere on the grounds. I’m shielded by high walls and trees. With illness, you can go from feeling like the most capable human in the world and then when that goes you feel extraordinarily incompetent, the introverted nature of being ill assumes fierce control and you are left retiring and docile, cooling your heels. My bright shouts draw a red line of emotional self-destructive behaviour through me. It doesn’t take much to get me to a plane of being piloted by the life lessons depression leaves me with. There is something of a sweet dream about it. I’ve grown to love to fall into that sleep. It’s a skill.
Sometimes you think the journey of the illness renders you invisible like air in your addiction for the tiny ball of golden light of health. So even if you’re self-conscious of any small mistake you make, it makes you feel beautifully humanoid as if you weren’t constructed by glorious organs, perfect tissue, cells, platelets, blood and bone and the image of genes in a jungle of veins. The doctors would like to think of change from being ill to an undeniable state of physical wellness was instant but I think that happened for the most part only in their dreams. Here, in this nameless, shapeless country, there were scenes of looking out into darkness, badly drawn addiction, the act of alcoholism that had played a role in someone’s life, the life of a family. Sufferers and victims and survivors bonded over a meal, gossip, the chit-chat of small talk. We were all joined together in the pursuit of becoming an out-patient. Of escaping what so easily we had come to think of as a route to follow to reality, normalcy.
I was a discoverer of the fractured known and the terrible force of the unknown. The flow I had to come to grips with clasped battle lines. For the most part I felt like a pin in a pincushion, snow falling and given room to grow spreading itself across the landscape.
The jewel of mental health is to keep your spirits up. You are at the mercy of the honesty of the illness. You’re always curious to succeed even though you’re at your most fragile. Humanity, normality still had the power to seduce. I had not completely abandoned that trail of thought. Hunger and hell became equals. The colour of the day was usually intensely blue (when I felt the depression articulate its nightmarish self), white (when I spent most of the day reading paperbacks, feeling medicated acutely and that it was the most unnatural feeling that I had ever felt) or red. That was when I couldn’t put my rage, frustration and pack it into words. The only thing I could do was that I had to store it up in reserves. It gave me energy. But that energy was temporary like a fuse that blows or a spark.
When I left the hospital all I wanted to do was read books that doctors had written about depression, that pharmaceutical companies printed in their bright little pamphlets filled with colour and magazine models demonstrating ‘sadness’, ‘family life affected by depression’ and the symptoms. I could tick them all off one by one. In no uncertain terms square-shaped boxes told me for certain I was depressive. I read books on depression in which the detailed, uncompromising text left me reeling and scribbling away with a compelling and affecting urgency. I picked up memoirs or books on the lives of creative people who had suffered just like I had and found myself being reflected back at me in a novel yet disconcerting way.
The bottom of depression usually sinks further and further away into an abyss of nothingness. There is nothing I can do about it except stare into space until my eyes hurt and start to water or close them and wish the spell away. Once I was a city type of person rushing everywhere I needed to go but it soon paled. Poetry never did. And although poets were people whose lives where often not sanguine or bliss I believed in them, worshipped them. I discovered there were walls everywhere. To keep me in, protect me, to keep the death of me out.
I watch my weight constantly as if I’m under surveillance. I pick at my food. Nothing is good for me. I swear I eat in little bites as if it would help me in some way as if there is no dietician watching over my shoulder to tut-tut at the portion size. I don’t keep it down for long. My throat burns as I run water in the sink in the bathroom. Nothing is good enough, filling, delicious and nutritious. I never had a healthy, nourishing relationship with food even when I was a child. As a child, I would never say no to second or third helpings. I devoured the heaps of food on my plate with delight, savouring every crumb. All through high school I was skinny. But the world turned on me. Soon everything began to hurt like the plague.
Why couldn’t all my eccentricities translate itself into something that was not touched by madness? Wherein I could find solace in something reasonable. But there is a powerful triumph in all of this – I can still write. It became my source.
I wished I could shrug off blood, sweat and tears in high heels, with alluring self-confidence in an office space. But that is not me. It would not increase my knowledge of this planet; make me worthy of being in competition with my contemporaries.
It is disheartening feeling, thinking that you are never good enough. Never perfect. It came from a padded childhood and the reward of that had already shown up in my life. Already I had convinced myself I was less than zero – a blurred negative, shallow and vain. Imagine thinking so little of yourself that you thought being self-destructive was redemptive in some way. I cannot shrug off the memory of blood, of devilish ‘cutting’, the target my soul. Something that says, ‘I no longer can take care of me.’ Love and worth is a wasteland to me. They’re difficult for me to imagine. Only the negative, only the shared pain on this planet seems real enough for me.
If I sleep the whole day it is only because I need my rest. If I need silence, it is because I can’t stand the noise, there’s too much of it. If I dream while I sleep, my mouth open, hair unkempt in a parallel dimension of the world I live in, the other one pinpoints from my subconscious what I should be living for.
When the world went black and the sky became hard, wrapped in stone, magic would course through me, my fingertips tingling, promising me a slight reprieve in my bed at home. Trauma felt like thunder and unravelled me in seconds. There is a record of all of this in diaries that I have kept for years. As a child letting go, set loose upon the world and a grown up.
Somewhere in the picture would be my family like a fossil that you would have to dig deep for, have the ‘eye’ for some prehistoric dinosaur bone, just one in a million other fossils, stuck grounded by the dynamic of gravity, one in a million of other families struggling to put food on the table, struggling to survive as a unit. They were never enough for me, with all their itineraries, constraints they placed upon me to ‘behave myself’ because even as a child I felt my bearings were connected to something within me and not to the external. I would find that when I was still, quiet something would shift inside of me hectically like a fish whose very life, the internal was being snuffed out like candlelight by a fisherman’s hands.
I would as an adult begin to search for truth in my writing. I always thought of myself, even as child, separate from other people, other mother’s progeny. Officially I wasn’t educated, I had never followed the right roads, when I found inner harmony, the peace I sorely craved I changed direction and soon became masterful at that. My world was as stable as an elastic band. I had to learn to heal myself as my struggle and my future became more and more certain, roles were locking themselves into place around me and the universe gave me kindred spirits when I found that they were sorely lacking. I was grateful for the ability to search in the pit of the dark fire of difficult melancholy yet it was still inspiring to delve deep into that abyss and come out reaching and formidable. I observed to live, to describe, to journal, to experience, to daydream in my youth and to reach out to others vicariously.
But I knew really, in my heart of hearts that I was not one of them. I could only write, stop time and place in their tracks. It stopped the pathways of nerves of hurt from navigating through me to my oftentimes dark and intense soul. The illness laid bare the material that made up the psyche of the rest of my family, a sister, a brother and a mother. There were questions only answered later in life and I found out that it did hurt me as if the illumined blue pearl of my world was caving in, like I was hitting my head against a brick wall with glitter snowing down all around me, like I didn’t get the fairy-tale ending or like I was just diagnosed with orphan abandonment issues as if I was some case study at a state hospital. Some days bipolar was a monster to tough for me to girl fight it out but it was easy enough for those close to me to notice a change in the air. Any negatives and I would be down, a fussy eater who pushed the food around on her plate wanting, waiting to gorge herself on chips and fizzing soda with a stream of bubbles bursting like ripe pomegranate seeds on my tongue.
I would be evil and cantankerous. I would just be waiting to explode like a volcano at the turn of a switch. Anything would, could set me off, anything that would touch the surface of my world, my equilibrium. There were days when I didn’t like the mirror. When I wrote especially into the early hours of the morning I felt something come alive inside of me, something rather splendid and unbreakable. It came with pangs of love, although I wouldn’t call it a childhood love and from my brain’s pale depression, its ‘crown of thorns’, that wasteland, that wilderness of dying to belong had finally brought me to something greater than myself. All my life I had been the chaser of dreams. There was now urgency; a quest lay in front of me, a novel and almost poetic intensity to my dreams and my goals now. In water, it held me captive. I could feel a current flowing through me with a bright force. Words still had the power to render me speechless. I was determined to work at this, to perhaps make something of my life with it. It had cast a spell over me, my mind and I had found in my imagination a home, a path set in stone and roots.
People stayed away, the family on my father’s side stayed away and the more they stayed away, the more aware I became of how I did not fit into society, the more blurred around the edges ‘normal’ became. No one came to see us; no one came to the house except my brother’s friends who came to see him. They traipsed into our house all hours of the day and night, sneaking beers into his bedroom, walking on tiptoe to the bathroom, up and down the passage, keeping my mum and my dad and me awake in our beds the whole night. They usually left in the early hours of the morning, the same way they came, through the front door, usually a bit unsteady on their feet. I began to dream at all hours.
So darkness opened up full circle. It speaks to me. As I wait upon the world it says that there’s a voyage out there awaiting me. I must write.
rotting liquid inside trying to catch up the greyness of the cup
Someone’s lips slightly printed on the orifie
Someone who will never return
Not for the cup,
nor its content
Dripping from the sink
Meant to be clear but seeming grey for its grey background
Clashing onto the button surface,
Losing its shape
Constant, continuous drops
Not entirely black, nor white,
Just in between: grey
Completed its duty,
Therefore its tip remains blunt and round
Waits for its presence to be required
As the Distance Grew
As the distance grew
between my toes
and the battlefield
the grip of hypersomnolence
got firmer,
tightly bounding my ankles
Every inhale I took,
from the cigar I returned to,
was filled with diphosgene,
eager to strangle the throat
And yet every night
I reached for another sip
The heart was limey and cold
it may seem valuable,
but I found it vulnerable
The heart was spoiled,
spotted with fingerprints of the lives that I owed
and the sin that I suffered
Should I have bolshie?
Bolshie the deaths my own fingers caused?
Or could I have bolshie
Lustrous Glass Pieces
Laughter behind a door that’s not yours
Every joyful pitch knocks on the door,
Calling for you to grab the knob
Knowing the door is locked,
You still have hope—
that will soon be wasted
Applause in a room you’re not in
Rings in your head
as the noise bounces around
Manifesting your thoughts,
The sound gets heavier and heavier,
crushes your limbs and squeeze your lungs
Until your last exhale
A fire you can touch but never see
Burns in you stomach,
Grilling you from the inside
The embers travel through your blood streams,
Into your capillaries and finally to your heart
Ready to boil you inside out
Wind chimes in a neighbor’s yard
with beautiful, lustrous glass pieces
Dance through the wind,
Singing with a charming voice,
Attracts the small songbirds
Blinded by the sound,
The naïve birds glide
into the precisely sharpened glass pieces
Too intoxicated to notice
that their wings, legs, and eyes are teared apart
Lauren Kim is a high school student with a fervent love for both poetry and visual art. Her work delves into the intricacies of identity, the nuances of nature, and the emotional currents of teenage life. Through her poems and mixed media artwork, Lauren seeks to capture and convey the beauty in moments of introspection and everyday experiences. When she’s not writing or creating art, she enjoys exploring the outdoors, reading contemporary poetry, and experimenting with new artistic techniques. Lauren’s work has been influenced by her diverse cultural background and her deep connection to the natural world. She aspires to continue growing as an artist and a writer, sharing her unique perspective with others.
