Falling Back in Love with Being Human

<b><i>What happens when we imagine loving the people—and the parts of ourselves—that we do not believe are worthy of love?</i><br><br>A transformative collection of intimate and lyrical love letters that offer a path toward compassion forgiveness and self-acceptance.</b><br><b><br>“Required reading.”—Glennon Doyle</b><br><br>Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist psychotherapist conflict mediator and spiritual healer she’s always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being no matter how hateful or horrible is intrinsically sacred.<br><br>But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another and barely clinging to the values and ideals she’d built her life around: justice hope love and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems—and whether there’s a difference—she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men to people with good intentions who harm their own to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human. “Required reading for the untamed soul . . . In these tender and revolutionary poems and prompts Kai Cheng Thom promises that there is no part of ourselves beyond saving. The collection reminded me how to love others and myself.”<b>—Glennon Doyle #1 <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Untamed</i></b><br><br>“Kai Cheng Thom <i>embodies</i> revolutionary love. She shows us how to love others bravely even those hostile to us as a way to heal our own tender hearts. Her poems are vivid love letters confrontations invitations. This tiny collection contains all the wounds and caresses in the world.”<b>—Valarie Kaur author of <i>See No Stranger</i></b><br><br>“Kai Cheng Thom’s new collection is a tender incantation against the failures of hope. In these letters Thom reaches toward lost souls of all kinds: outlaws movement martyrs fellow trans femmes of color and ‘the ones this world was never made for’ to whom she sends poems that read like prayers rituals to lay down our collective hurts. What is most astonishing however is the way Thom refuses to turn away from those who have inflicted harm writing: ‘the world i dream of is big enough for both of us.’ I am grateful for these spells and balms for the worlds of generosity this book dares into being.”<b>—Franny Choi author of <i>The World Keeps Ending and the World Goes On</i></b><br><b> </b><br>“Heartrending . . . Thom’s unvarnished honesty and earnestness immediately draws readers in. . . . This fierce and tender volume leaves a mark.”<b>—<i>Publishers Weekly</i> starred review</b> <b>Kai Cheng Thom</b> is an award-winning writer performance artist and community healer in Toronto. She was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and won the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers for her surrealist novel <i>Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir</i>. She is also the author of several other books including a poetry collection an essay collection and two children’s picture books. Kai Cheng writes the advice column “Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” for <i>Xtra</i>. <b>to the ones whose bodies shall shake the heavens<br><br>after Sandy Stone<br></b><br>dear trans women: the only way to live as a being cast as irrevocably monstrous is to embrace a monster’s power. the power to inspire awe horror unbidden desire. a monster is a creature made of the truth no one else dares to speak. a monster is a being beyond fear. dear trans women: when they come bearing torches remember that you are a being born of flame. and every moment you love yourself is a moment they can never take from you. dear trans women: we are the original witches. the reincarnations of the ones they burned. lesser outcasts will turn against you to save themselves; forgive them for they know not what they do. never forget that a lineage of monstresses stands behind you and stands proud. dear trans women: blessed are the hideous. blessed are the horrifying. blessed are the cursed. blessed are the unforgiven the forgotten the ones-­who-­must-­not-­be-­loved. blessed are the mad for our bodies shall shake the heavens.<br><br>Without looking at a dictionary define the word monster.<br><br><br><b>to a lost sister<br></b><br>i stopped writing poems for a year after it happened. i didn’t believe in them anymore because they didn’t save your life. i’m not a praying woman but poetry has always been my hotline to the universe. i guess that somewhere deep inside i hoped that if i said something elegantly enough it would come true. that if i spoke the language of beauty maybe God would finally start listening. are you there God? it’s me f***ed-­up transsexual with a savior complex. i’d like you to turn back time. if i could just go back once i’m sure i could change the past for the better. did you know that the word abracadabra comes from a Hebrew phrase meaning “through speaking i create”? i bet you do. my magic was never strong enough to manifest the miracles i wanted: to turn back time. to undo harm. to make the unspeakable things safe to say. to catch a spirit as it flies out of this world and weave it back into the body it left behind. what’s the use of writing poems if they can’t even do that? i wish i could talk to you. i’ve been wanting to tell you that complex PTSD and a crisis of faith have so much in common. they’re both about losing trust in the world in the wake of unbearable loss. grief tears us away from our faith but it’s grief that brings us back as well. because in our deepest grief we have nowhere else to go. the Buddhist part of me knows that in the paradox enlightenment is born. when you fell through a crack in the world and disappeared i started meditating again. i lit candles every night. i tied a red rope around my waist before sleeping—­anything to give my grief somewhere to go. for a year after it happened i dreamed about getting lost in mazes and screaming without a voice knowing that no one was coming to save me. but the Christian part of me knew that the secret of grace is choosing to believe. the secret of resilience is the art of surrender. i wish you were here. i’d tell you all the things i’ve learned about hope and forgiveness and holding on while letting go. our world keeps breaking over and over again. i have no choice but to believe that a new one is being born.<br><br>Write a prayer of hope on a piece of paper and leave it somewhere for someone else to find.<br><br><br><b>to the ones who didn’t cry<br></b><br>when i first heard that the gunman had walked into three massage parlors in Atlanta and shot eight people dead six of whom were Asian women i did not cry. i went to bed and slept without dreaming an instrument with its strings cut. it wasn’t until the morning after as i watched the news as i heard the white police officer say that the shooter was “fed up” that he’d had “a really bad day” that i felt my body break open and the words came pouring out like a rainstorm. like lava like fire pouring out from deep within. tell me about the pain of a body that knows its life means nothing. i am learning more and more about what that means. i know i’m not alone in the least. i want to hear the stories of gun violence police brutality and racism. i want to know the truth even as it rips me apart like a land mine. for weeks after the shooting whenever i tried to talk about it i found myself weeping instead. i think the truth was choking me as it tried to find a way out of my throat. i want to tell you about the white man who used to pay me for massages. i want to tell you how he said he had a sex addiction how he became obsessed with me how i couldn’t tell anyone because they’d say it was my fault for choosing the job i did. when i saw the Asian advocacy groups talking about how it was wrong to assume that the victims of the shooting were sex workers that it was insulting and degrading to Asian women my body started screaming: why is my existence degrading to you? what do i remind you of? the news says we never got a confirmation about the kind of work those women did and i think why would you tell the truth when you know what people might do with it? Asian sisters and siblings you can hate the plot of Miss Saigon without hating Miss Saigon. your body is not an invitation for violence. do you know neither is mine. no body deserves to be silenced by bullets. no body deserves to be disposed of in the name of someone else’s shame. a body is skin wrapped around stories is tissue filled with veins that the truth runs through is a box of bones with a voice inside. i don’t want to be a volcano. i want to be a garden full of flowers bursting open toward life all of them singing i’m here. i mean something. i want to live.<br><br>Imagine a world in which all sex workers are considered sacred and holy deserving of workers’ rights health benefits and compensation of their choosing. Draw or paint a picture of your vision. This might be a scene or person or more abstract: a reflection of a feeling or energy. <b><b>A national bestseller in Canada hailed by <i>The New York Times </i>as an “intimate expression of self-acceptance and forgiveness tenderly written to fellow trans women and others.” </b><br><br>“Required reading.”—Glennon Doyle #1 bestselling author of<i> Untamed</i></b><br><b><br>A <i>THEM </i>AND <i>AUTOSTRADDLE </i>BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR</b><br><br><i>What happens when we imagine loving the people—and the parts of ourselves—that we do not believe are worthy of love?</i><br><br>Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist psychotherapist conflict mediator and spiritual healer she’s always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being no matter how hateful or horrible is intrinsically sacred.<br><br>But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another and barely clinging to the values and ideals she’d built her life around: justice hope love and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems—and whether there’s a difference—she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men to people with good intentions who harm their own to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human.