LIMUHAG
Violence is not equal to benevolence. Twisted kindness. Subjecting women as subordinate to men– what a tainted mindset. Inability to see hints of purple, ofblue or black is not a sin, but choosing to turn a blind eye is. There will be an escape.
Photographs is equal to memories. The punctum of the past that’s never forgotten. The continuous living to the sensation of fear, of sting and ache crawling from depths of your skin whilst looking at that photograph. Memories never forgotten.
Look again. Not only to the photographs that held memories of the past but also to the numerous expressions written on the faces and the empty spaces around the subject. We must look again, and again, and again.
I always thought memories and nightmares were enough to scare me already but no, photographs were even scarier than those.
I agree. In one way or another, we all have that photograph which has its own punctum that comes to life and activates its sting every time a person involved looks at it. I, myself, am a witness of how a photograph’s sting can make me feel restless. It has no voice, but it can speak. It can echo the words that once made me feel breathless. It can shout the remarks that once made me feel naked. It can relive the experience that I always wished to leave in the past.
A photograph has only two sides—front and back—but those sides carry the traumatic truth from angle to angle. You might not see it, but it’s always engraved there. It has to be there.
I looked into an essay. Yes, an essay. Well, it sounded more like a poem, one written in ink so violent, so red. Red like the door that the essay, the poem, told me all about. It told me of some poor door, sitting in a flat, opening and closing on screaming hinges.
I looked into an essay, a photo of three happy beer bottles and two bright faces. I looked into it, that photograph. It told me a litany of men, good men, bad men, too good to just be good men. And inside them, I peered into the tale of a woman trapped inside a memory.
I looked at it, the essay, the poem, the wooden monument. And as I looked, I climbed and crawled, hoping to see more. Find that door, that photograph, that woman from before. I close my eyes, look at it once more.
Allito
The man is the problem. The touch, the gaze, the words. The absence of control becomes violence— the thief. Only an animal cannot rein its thirst for flesh. For dominance. For carnage.
A woman should not need protection. To talk and be talked to with dignity, without being responded with malice or ill-intent. To walk with safety, without being stared with perversion and indecency. There will be no turning a blind eye to a crime that never happened.
The world beyond the tips of my mother’s bougainvilleas that barricade our front yard is evil and unforgiving. My sisters, so young and innocent, in their knee length floral dress, skin-tight jeans, and citrus perfumes. To let them wander freely without fear is but a dream. The world outside our gates is frightening.
A story told as if opening matryoshka dolls where on the tinies doll there’s the photograph that started it: from the man with unwanted intimacy to the man waiting on the bus stop, from the men in leather jackets to the men you trusted.
It is easy to get lost in those mosaic memories of men and their itch, but bitter is the reality about the ethos of sexism—how unperceived and hidden it is in the mask of benevolence—wolves in sheepskin.
Men are hostile, I used to think, but mostly benevolent like my father, my uncles, my dead grandfather with his two wives.
Yet, unlike you, I have no ‘punctums’ in photos, no photos to tell you it's true, they were benevolent to children, to me, to my cousin who was touched and watched with half-closed eyelids, red-blotched drunk eyes of her and my benevolent and playful uncle.
I do not know, I simply do not know, how a touch of a man feels from behind, the waist, the shoulder, the ass. I do not know how to be treated fragile as a paper, as a glass, as a woman walking on the street who's life is at stake with every men she pass. I just... simply do not know the severity, the inherent divide between sexes, the penis and the vagina, the society that tells men are above all, men are strong, men do not cry show no tears, men rule and men fight but if women... strong? women... think? women... rule? burn the witch! stone her! she is anything but a sinner. god will forgive you all.
Everyday I wake up and see more and more teenage boys get lost in the "feminist owned!" pipeline. I once was one of them, too. Almost
But women like you, women who testifies against patriarchy, made me aware of the world I live in. I couldn't bear to think if I actually got lost in that pipeline…
In your essay, I found an unfamiliar comfort, soothing my core despite its alarming nature. I know violence too.
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In your essay, your photo had your punctum. Mine was in 3D form; the one called home.
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In your essay, you followed violence to the flat with the red door. My violence happened to grow up with me. Once violence got upset, tore a hole in my cardboard door. Violence was born into my home.
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In this home, as I had to live with violence, I had to give up crying, had to remedy the punch hole with brown tape packaging. It comes off every now and then, so I had to see the crevices of the broken artwork violence gave.
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In this home, I had to endure his nagging when I wore my skirt too short. Violence would often label it “protecting,” while insisting how the skirt made me look like an oversized boar.
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In this home, violence started young, back from when we were children. Violence would smother a pillow over my face for disobedience. Violence would beat up my puppy for shitting. Violence would dart a spatula towards my wooden wall whenever I tried reasoning with him.
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In this home, violence would not bother tending to his aftermath, so I had to peek through wall cracks, I had to shed silent tears on the same pillow I was smothered with, had to look at my ruined being through a punched cardboard door. I had to give violence back massages so tender, I forgot what I felt towards violence was anger.
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This home is probably the biggest blind field you’ll see – a collection of all my woes. Every day I had to live with the ghost of me that died from violence’s little brotherly shows.
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Forgive me, Kim, but I can’t look at violence as a monument. I refuse to scan for different angles. Every time I look at violence, I see his sexist, fat-phobic, patriarchal edges. I’m always reminded they were thorns. Thorns I had to tread carefully if I wish to survive this home where violence resides with me.
Fight or flight speaks from our sense of fear. A fuel to steer and stimulate our body to act from shock made by a threat. The rush feeling given by adrenaline is something I call a sensible lifesaver, but a survival drive should never wish to feel in a dark alley.
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I have to look my way out as fast as I can as I pass with distant muddled and blurry objects. I have myopia, where my friends usually ask how many fingers they are holding up: one, two, or three. No--no, we are not blind; we know exactly what we see: how many fingers they hold and who is holding up.
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The rush reaction we have felt in darkness is the same as the punctum contained by a photograph. The causes are the high definition of the horrifying sight they think as indifferent and usual. But, no--no, you--we know exactly what we felt and what had happened.
The mouth was maneuvered.
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The red door was shut, and so were you. I bet the floor witnessed; I bet the windows cried; I bet the walls resisted; I bet you tried—I'm sorry, but not an assumption; I’m sure you tried.
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Facial features were set to comply.
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You tried concealing through moments, but mirrors never lie.
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It was a successful embalming: beautiful, sealed. They see grace behind the tortured masterpiece. It was an art—art with no awakening.
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You stood in poise with shadows of pain. Oh, the pain— it was, is, and will always be haunting.
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I'm sorry for your pain I can never relieve. I say sorry for the apologies only written.
Skirts, my classic favorite. A type of clothing. Never an invitation for predators.
Dear Moore, your photos remind me of my skirts. Of what happened. Of what should never have happened to us.
A skirt, my white tennis one. I was wearing it when I felt an unsolicited touch inside my skirt, the white tennis one.
Dear Moore, what have you become after you spoke about it—the red door, the photographs? Does being on top of the monument better than staying below it, despite you gained scratches and blisters on your way above?
A skirt, my pencil one. I smiled from saving my money. The guy behind the counter smiled while staring at my legs behind the skirt, the pencil one.
Now, Moore, am I doing this correctly? Do I deserve a spot at the top of the monument too after I exposed my skirts? My stories?
In your essay, you brought me with you to that night through a photo. In a photo, you shared to me how a photograph can be a wound, a reality in a past state. In a state, where you never really knew what violence was until you entered that flat with a red door. Behind the red door where violence lived.
Violence. Shaped in human form. But are actually beasts in their best guise. Sometimes a creep lingering in a corner, or the one you promise forever with. But then they would say “not all men”, and we’d ask “which exactly of them then?”
Which exactly of them are different from the ones behind the red door? Which exactly of them are not in guise?
History. Accounts. Photographs. It's a man's world. Violence. Sexism. Common. They come and appear in many forms. We live with them.
When a woman makes a move, it is either foolish or calculated. Stupid or sly. It can either be a nod in the head, a parent's approval with what you wear, or a joke my cousins made when we were in their car passing a lane said to be unsafe for women. Apparently, two girls reported that they were raped. Apparently, they were sluts.
There is no freedom. When a woman thinks she's in control, it's either unconscious obedience or she's the one to blame. Immoral. Stupid. Immoral. Crazy. And then they would say, "what a shame," "she was asking for it."
You are right. It's true that we should look again. Again. And again, and see if there is such a thing as a safe place for women.
I used to like the silence. Not until my mind kept erasing the happy memories and kept most of the daunting ones. They haunted me when I sleep, when I ponder deep, and even when I weep.
At times, I wished I could only make out embarrassment when I trip. But I learned just how recalling can be so humiliating. And how it makes me feel like shit.
How, one time, I got my butt spanked at the age of seven by an old angkol who lived on street seventh. I was embarrassed with how the angkol thought it was fun and that all I could do was run.
How, one time, a guy kicked the door open while I peed with both feet on top of the dirty toilet seat, skirt barely covering my spurt. I was embarrassed that I cried for an hour and that he might’ve seen my flower. A few years passed when I learned how he laughed at my despair and said he didn’t know I was there.
How I couldn’t get myself to face an old friend living in the same place. Because my first dick encounter was when I was eight when he let me hold his mate. We were hiding in a place without light. He was older than I.
And I would beat myself up: because I was naïve, because I was disgusted, because I remembered.
I wish I could look at these moments like they were monuments. And not extensions of my being that needed obscuration. And not seeing a child that feared. And not forged memories that were impossible to be forgotten.
At times, I wished I could stop re-living the disgust.
At times, I wished I could stop living.
If I pretend to not hear, will they go away?
If I pretend not to see, will they leave?
Ignore, Ignore—Words spoken under my breath like a prayer whenever I see men on my way. Papa said, I should close my mouth; do not speak, just ignore. Men, he said, will let you be.
But why when I did so, they didn’t? Violence still lingered around me. Watching, smiling, touching. I can hear it at night. I can see it in my dreams.
When I stood up finally, raising my voice, I thought finally Violence would stop. The looks will stop. The touches will stop. But no, it still didn’t. It got worse, even.
He said, ladies ought to shut their mouths. Men don’t find it very attractive, you see.
We have ears, we have eyes, we have mouths. We ought to use it, Thank you very much.
Moore Ways of Loving
Ways of looking. Moore’s way of looking. Moore ways of looking. More Ways of looking. A simple wordplay.
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Seeing violence manifest Moore ways than one. Photographs taken as visual proof of violence being found in sweet hugs, invitations of poetry making, in naïve “I’ll protect you”s.
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Pictures take me back to moore ways of looking in violence imbedded in love taught.
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I’m a child that has been taught a simple smile to strangers is an act of love and kindness—mistaken as an act of invitation for moore than smiles but uncomfortable conversation.
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Simple conversations with polite smiles and laughs taken as invitations for waiting outside my dorm room in the dead of night.
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Simple and unnoticeable violence.
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Love after all has been taught to me as something to be given, while men are taught that its’ for the taking.
To do:
Wear a skirt.
Wear no bra under a shirt.
Down a couple of drinks without alert.
Play music in both ears and dance silly.
No need to look behind; walk no hurry.
Run, skate, or ride a bike in the city.
Travel alone without fear or worry.
Leave the keys in the pocket.
Keep hands bare.
Be at ease.
Look straight ahead.
Taste the air.
Open the windows and unlock the door.
Sleep under the stars; pass out on the floor.
Sit on the beach, watch the waves on the shore.
To live, not survive; that would be for sure.
Men disappear on the streets for a night. This is how it would go. Crazy how simple, crazy how it’s true.
My current environment has enlightened me of what feminism is, and I often looked back and be ashamed of myself. Yes, I was insecure. Yes, I was filled with hatred. I would excuse myself that this is just a product of my upbringing. But so does Kim Moore's experience.
Experience. Something, I can't have. Thoughts are always muddled and disoriented, and as I write this I would stop and ask myself: will this be offensive? Will I sound tone-deaf when I say this? And, there it goes again! It's that I am terrified that I sound patronizing when I only hope that my thoughts go across without worries.
Worries. Caught between my identity and my willingness to reach, is me asking: how can I help? How can I tell that I look down to someone to pick them up? I can't just crouch, can I?
In the photo - partially aware of the life growing around me - I was standing in one of the cold corners of the master's bedroom, forced to paint a smile to commence the click-and-flash of my mother's digital camera.
In the photo, in one of the cold corners of the master's bedroom, only one old grungy calendar with an almost-naked woman holding an alcoholic drink my father used to drink was pasted on the wall as if watching my movements from time to time. That drink made father so mad he would slap mother.
In the photo, I am stuck in one of the cold corners of the master bedroom. I never went up against the eyes of violence of patriarchy. And a woman like you, a victim of the system, was able to muster the courage to bear witness. I swear from then to bear witness to these havocs.
Breathless; you were breathless in the recollection of what was frozen in that photograph. You were breathless in the ache of remembering what it was, how you used to be; who you were before you walked inside that red door. The before was a faint memory; the after, a wound that had scarred on the surface yet continued to run deep.
You said to imagine your essay as a poem, did you mean to see it in fragments? Did you mean to take the images, painfully vivid, to a dive down the ocean of questions with uncertain answers? You had your questions written, memories bared, thoughts spilled in breathless succession; and I had my own questions, memories, and thoughts bared through your words. Who do we become after? Perhaps, better.
Perhaps, worse. Perhaps, breathless in the process of remembering, and maybe trying to heal. Perhaps, still learning to fight and walk away from our own red doors.
THE LYRIC RESPONSE
In an effort to make the form of the lyric essay more understandable to the students, Prof Cruz asked the students to create a short response (100-150 words) to Kim Moore’s “Ways of Looking”. The responses were required to model the form of the lyric essay.
Photo Reference by Andrés Jiménez