The Weight of Our Sky

It means where we plant our feet is where we must hold up the sky. We live and die by the rules of the land we live in. But this country belongs to all of us! We make our own sky, and we can hold it up—together.

Do not ever let anyone tell you that you do not belong here,” she had said, looking at us intently. “We all do. There is space for us all.

When there is so much broken about the world we currently live in, one cracked person is easy enough to excuse or ignore.

Adults rarely like being told that they don’t have all the answers, or worse still, that the answers they do have are all the wrong ones.

If I’m going to wage battle with demons both on the street and in my own head, I’m going to do it with all of myself, and not weighed down by borrowed clothes and secondhand memories.

how very, very tired I am with this hidden battle for my own thoughts, the burden of counting, the work it takes to hide it.

But when you are fighting for your rice bowl, you don't think about how many hands were needed to grow the grain. You only think about who's out to steal your portion. Do you see?

It’s not Malays killing Chinese or Chinese killing Malays. It’s stupid people killing stupid people.

Bloody politicians and their bloody stupid rhetoric, speeches, ideologies. You ever hear anyone say words don’t matter after this, you tell them about this day, when Malay idiots and Chinese idiots decided to kill one another because they believed what the bloody politicians told them.

I’ve come to accept that the Djinn and I are always going to be locked in a battle for control of my brain and my body, that he will never truly go away and leave me in peace. But I also know now that I’m capable of fighting these skirmishes with him each day, and that more days than not, I’m capable of winning them.

BY THE TIME SCHOOL ENDS on Tuesday, my mother has died seventeen times.

Jasmine flowers are so pale, so delicate. You think they couldn't survive in this relentless tropical heat. But they thrive on it. They go strong and gorgeous, and they bloom. Their perfume is . . . intoxicating, so strong that it leaves its mark on you long after you've left behind.

The thing about a song is that, if you break it down, it's all chaos," I say. "Like, there's all these different notes, different instruments, different sounds. It's a mess. But you add a beat and a rhythm and somehow everything can come together and make something beautiful. I think that's what I'm trying to do. Find a rhythm for the mess in my head, so that it somehow... makes sense.

The happy bubble we've incased ourselves in shimmers, then bursts altogether, and the air that comes rushing in is thick with tension.

They don't see us as people, and they don't want to. They just know that we're not them. That's enough.

How do you expect unity to grow from seeds of self-interest?

Every minute you are gone, I age a year, you know that?” she tells him seriously. “Better come back faster, before I use up all my years waiting for you.

I think I'm trying to find a rhythm for the mess in my head so that it somehow makes sense

Girls are vicious creatures. You could tie your hair wrong one day and be ostracized by your friends the next. Your mother could come to school dressed in an embarrassing outfit one morning and by that afternoon you could be the butt of jokes for the entire school. To be different is to be mocked mercilessly.

No way," I tell her. "Once was enough for me." And I mean it, though it has nothing to do with Paul and his blue eyes, and everything to do with how very, very tired I am with this hidden battle for my own thoughts, the burden of counting, the work it takes to hide it. The Djinn hates it when I'm adrift in the world, trying to live my life; he prefers me anchored to my home, where I can feed his need for numbers without fear of discovery.

a blue Ford Anglia abandoned by the side of the street, the door on the driver’s side hanging wide open, its windshield an intricate mass of cracks spawning from a hole almost right in the center of the glass, where a rock has smashed through.

It wasn't uncommon then to seek traditional or religious treatment for illnesses you couldn't quite explain to your regular doctor; in fact, it's not uncommon now, either.

So . . . imagine your mind is a house. You fill it with things and

As someone who has spent so much time in the past weeks and months feeling like I need saving, I am almost dizzy with the realization that I can also be someone who saves other people.

In the back of my mind, deep in the recesses, where the Djinn can’t seem to reach, I know this is irrational, stupid, crazy. I know just thinking about death won’t cause my mother to die. I know that books on a shelf won’t stop her from dying, no matter how I arrange them. But every time I try to stop myself, a cold, creeping dread envelops my entire body.

But when you are fighting for your rice bowl, you don’t think about how many hands were needed to grow the grain. You only think about who’s out to steal your portion.

I'm too tired to fight him off. Instead, I let him enfold me in a beguilingly soft, dark blanket of misery, and cry and cry and cry until my head is heavy and my throat is sore and my eyes swell so that the city lights blur and merge into a beautiful, chaotic mess.