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It almost feels as if I have all these limbs I cannot feel.

A few years ago, I had a complication of a disease I had for a long time, and one of the symptoms was I would suddenly lose feeling and control of some of my limbs. It was awful.

Today, that’s over, but my immigrant journey, and being in the ‘wrong’ side of the world, feels like a fissure, a split from my deep sense of self and identity.

I have such a deep love for Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. Being separated from those places feels like I can’t breathe, sometimes.

And yet, in order for me to exist as a queer person, I had to voluntarily make this split. And now I have all of these phantom limbs that I’m reminded of, randomly. I move about the world like a chameleon where you’ll never really guess where I’m from (I’m autistic), but my original self, my whole self, is much closer to the equator.

I have not been able to see her.