เราต่างงดงามแล้วจางหาย

"If you forget me, then you've gone too far; turn back"Words can seldom describe how Man truly feels, and yet there are some words which not only describe but also incite similar feelings in us. This is one such example; a book I had to put aside many times in order to breathe and contemplate the abyss of my own soul, the spiritual ravine which lit up with each of Vuong's words."What is a country but a life sentence?"PTSD, childhood trauma, child abuse, otherness, alienation, immigration, racism, religion, meaning, suffering, death, love, loss, homosexuality... I could not believe how many issues did this brief work of genius tackle. Its words are simple, merely words we use in our daily exchange. But their structure and what they stand for when combined together is more than what any ordinary man can usually communicate. "It was everything I hid from everything that made me want to be a sun, the only thing I knew that had no shadow."It is mostly the narrator's honesty which got me; not only toward other people but towards himself as well. I remember a podcast by Benjamin McEvoy in which he talked about the importance of applying the best of what we read to our own lives. In this respect, I can only hope that one day the wounds of the psyche, which society had taught us to hide and conceal, would let me be honest with myself in a similar manner..."Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence - but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it".