before June came May

a narrated photo diary

7 years ago, An Nguyên waded through the snow to sit down in the international students’ office in Queenstown

and decided that New Zealand would call me June.

That first winter, May 2017,

my mood rose and fell like the rhymth of one’s chest the morning after heavy drinking, equally dazed.

Such time and space was unkind to the tropical daughter. Demeter unleashed her wrath upon the barren tree branches that stretched for miles across a greying sky. Leaking from these cracks was the relentless pitter-patter of icy rain against the window panes night after night

and together we wept.

May 2024,

I went to art exhibitions, classic plays, music gigs, short film showings. I read two books and bought one more. I aired my soul out to dry in the lightness others' creation, wishing that amongst such brilliance would exist a spark that reignites the warmth a human should feel.

Waves of inspiration came crashing in. I picked up sketching, the guitar, collage, photography; I wrote daily. But these expressions of creativity had little merit; they came from a hollow self so act like a cheap veneer that worsens the rotten wood. Such surges of inspiration pulled away rapidly, as tides do, and took with them my futile effort, leaving me chaffed and burnt-out on a bone-dry beach,

where the rain would turn what is left into ashes that fade with the restless wind.

Somehow, every May,

I feel 15 again, a bitter brittle bashful baby, crawling into a tired June that leaves me more alone than if I was never birthed.

This year was different. At the dusk of May, when the last wave was pulling out before the endless icy winter, I leaped into the ocean with it.

I sank

and sank and

sank

to the seabed littered with 7 years of sideswept potential, unrequited love, forgotton hopes and broken dreams. What a ghastly scene.

Sitting there, I could feel my eyes stinging with the salty shame that still chalks my cheekbones, and yet my skin is colled and my head grows clear.

June took me by the chin and told me to take a long-held breath - so I came up gasping for air

and for a brief moment, I realised that my heart still tries so, so hard to beat.

I will turn 23 on the 23rd,

contented that after May, still comes June.

- June Ha

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Bài viết thuộc thử thách Viết Đều và Hay của Writing On The Net Alumni.

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