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The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics

ISSN: 2472-7318

Reasons I Can’t Attend Your Zoom Hangout

Sam Moe


Keywords: self harm; self care; sexual assault

 

Categories: Sick/Disabled Bodyminds during Sick/Disabling Times; Academic Pressures (or Critiques of Neoliberal Horseshit Productivity Expectations, as suggested by Amy Vidali)

 

Content warning: self harm; sexual assault

 


Brief artist’s reflection: I wrote this piece as a hybrid poem/flash nonfiction essay after several weeks of attending more than fifteen hours of Zoom class, meetings, discussions, and so forth. When thinking about carework, I start to wonder if it counts that I am caring for myself, though not very well. Suffering from a sixteen-year self-harm addiction, I finally began wearing ACE bandages to most meetings, as a way to curb my relapses, which were induced by panic attacks and flashbacks (both embodied and as intrusive thoughts). I wrote this piece to try and reflect the ways in which I attempted to care for myself, and for others, while fawning as a form of protection. My methods to take care of myself don’t always work, and this piece is an exploration of those attempts.

Reasons I Can’t Attend Your Zoom Hangout

even though you wrote me a beautiful email, even though you told us you loved us, even though you told us you’re tired you’re afraid you’re still working reading writing fractured yet whole, you’re still hosting Zoom calls so we can go around in what I would normally call a circle but isn’t quite a square because my Zoom screen does not look like your Zoom screen and doesn’t it make you want to scream when you hear yourself asking us to drink shots for every way the pandemic has affected us, I pretend my coffee mug is full of vodka, I drink two cups and by the time midnight rolls around I am so awake I think I might actually tell someone I’m drowning, I think I’ll tell the woman who claims to hold space for me that I’m un-holdable, un-loveable, I’m the red part of the stove—

I think I’m going to tell everyone I keep arriving late because I’m staring at my own arms, I think one has grown longer than the other, I’m sorry I’m late I’m coming soon, I just need to click the link but you will have to wait until I stop crying in the light of the fridge, but the problem is I can’t attend your Zoom call because I keep crying in the laundry room, but I attend your Zoom call anyway because if I don’t keep working on keeping pretending I am something I’ll start to remember I am nothing and then we will really be fucked.

Reasons I can’t attend your Zoom call including, but not limited to:

I started relapsing again. I’m in the middle of trying to figure out that, if I never stopped, is this progress or a waiting game, if I never stopped how can I tell you I’ve started again, I’m going to need to take tonight off and I can’t attend your Zoom call because there is no safe space that includes creating a makeshift blacklight with Scotch tape and permanent markers so I can see if the body really does keep the score, I can’t attend your Zoom call because I’m too busy grabbing at my own jaw praying I’ll be able to cry again but it’s Pisces season and, unfortunately, I’m all fear.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because I feel amazing; I can’t attend your Zoom call because I feel numb.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because I got into an accident last weekend, but there’s no reason I should miss class if I’m not in the hospital, I can lay on my back so my bruised ribs can heal, so I’m on the Zoom call in one of those turtlenecks because I don’t want anyone to look at my Zoom square and wonder why my chest is purple, but I’ll tell you this for free, when the airbag went into my chest I wasn’t thinking about you I was thinking about Danna Paola.

I can’t attend your Zoom call on time, because I got diagnosed with complex-PTSD today, and though someday I’ll write some really excellent shit about all of the times I was taken advantage of, when enough time has passed that I will no longer associate my body with a suffocation, when I’ve stopped shaking (no I won’t tell you what happened to me) until then I can’t attend your Zoom call, but you asked me if I said no or yes so I guess I’ll call in, but I’ll be five minutes late with my camera off because I finally started crying again, no it’s not because of trauma, it’s because I ate tiramisu for breakfast again and I’m so hyped up on coffee liquór that I’m crying over how cute this ant is that crawled inside my apartment window.

You and me both, little baby, we’re all alone in this world, I swear you are not alone, how did you survive the winter let me just climb on my textbook for a few seconds, I promise it’s not going to hurt, do you think I should bring this ant to the Zoom call?

I can’t attend your Zoom call because I’m a decayed peach.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because I’m a metaphor and not a person.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because you don’t care about content warnings and last week I got knocked out by your Medusa story, my soul escaped my body like a lightning bolt, I have floated to the top left corner of my bedroom and I can’t attend your Zoom call because then you’re going to see me.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because my family members are in the hospital.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because I am asleep.

I can’t attend your Zoom call because today when I told my family member I was worried I’d get hurt again and bad things would happen to me, she said well, that’s your prerogative. When I go to bed that night I dream of forests, not of her, I don’t know that woman.

I dream I lie to my doctor,

I dream of a puzzle house to get lost in,

I dream I wake up tired and evil in the moonlight,

and as I’m contemplating tossing my computer out the second-story window my phone buzzes with a 4:00 a.m. email alert that reads, I hope you’re doing well in these “unprecedented” times, but I’m going to need to meet with you later than expected, my apologies in advance, I may have gotten the Zoom password and my Netflix password mixed up, but send me a smoke signal when you’re in the waiting room. 

 


Bio

Sam Moe (she/her) is the first-place winner of Invisible City’s Blurred Genres contest in 2022, and the 2021 recipient of an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Converse College. Her work has appeared in The Hungry Ghost Project, Overheard Lit mag, Cypress Press, Gone Lawn, The Shore, Yuzu Press, and others.