Diana Kurniawan

Thank you to the man in the ambulance who squeezed my hand when I was covered with blankets to be transported to the asylum. I didn't know anyone who would help me, and my family had given up. The trauma was so damaging and it hurt me that I couldn't function. There were suspects inside my mind and the report was ignored and they were free to roam and hurt other woman, and all I wanted was to end my life.

Thank you to my Paris Compadre, who told me that I risked it all when I asked dream man to elope with me. I won't forget his blue eyes and strong jaw, and how much I loved him but he was only okay with me. You told me I was brave although I was so hurt, because I was a survivor. I wished I was never hurt by it, and everything had worked out, but all was harmed and I was too dysfunctional to realize my own doing. All I heard was laughter from the pretty guys and girls and married women, and even his supporters. I would never be loved by his community. I wished it was easy to get over but the loss was so great I could hardly bear it, but our talks helped me. 

Thank you to the woman who hugged me at Santa Monica Third Street Promenade when I was working retail, selling Middle Eastern Bags, sobbing and falling apart from the assaults. Your Native American spirit soaked my tears and I was covered by your embrace.

Thank you to the nameless man who drove me in mid-July to my rental apartment before my move to Colorado, after my titanic mistake. You took $5, but gave me a kind blessing, forever.

Thank you to the Domestic Violence advocates who helped me. I would not have made graduation for my Master Degree without you. You deserved a lot more things in life than just this work, because your heart helped so many people. 

Thank you to those whose hearts lean to help survivors. We are invisible sometimes, and only recognizable by symptoms, but our hearts are pumping love just the same.

Thank you.

#JustWrite

If I was a divine celestial angel, would I have met my true companion? It was told that angels were neither capable to marry nor given in marriage by God, but what was to be of me? Was I an angel or was I born human? My heart told of how mercy wanted me to work for him, with a pen, writing life of unfinished and unrequited love, but what was to be of me, the writer with such a predicament? Was I mercy's story or the author? Should I write stories of star-crossed lovers or was I one myself? Should I write what I knew?

But what was to be of him? He was not star crossed, he found his true love and won't be another. He was and always will be with her, and won't ever value me. I knew I was nowhere to be in this destiny with a companion. I won't give up on my own life, there might be one for me, another soul whose wings were bent hell on loving, but broken from heart wrenching life. I wish I was not damaged from the struggles in life as an angel in disguise, but I was and the process of which I wanted to savor with the man I wanted to marry became destroyed and damaged, just like my soul was. 

I promised myself that I won't die and won't live to die for another woman who hurt me, but there were trying times and I wished I was not too weakened by trauma. I wished my mind was a black stallion pacing with me in steady state and running and working and writing, but I found myself instead, ruminating. I often ruminate, dissecting, analyzing, and wishing, while he was living and his life was the epitome of happy. I was not his dream, and until I meet another of my heart's dream, should I waste my life on these ruminations? Should I give up on marriage? Should I give up on love? I hope and pray for myself to live another day.

No! I shall keep on going, and keep on with my mercy's pen upon forgiving myself and my undoing and doing, and my post-traumatic-mistakes. I wished I was not, but I was and will be, a woman who has to live with these conditions, but was it my fault that demons pursued my life, the angel with broken wings? This was why I made myself a writer, to propose to the world, to have me, and to love me, and to hell with the rest.

I pray, as I write with Mercy's pen, that God will write with divination, hope, faith and unconditional love, as was in Psalms 139, and won't give up on me. That God, himself, will finish my story with truth and such a brilliant love that no one will compare, not even my own thoughts could imagine. That I will be...His Mercy Testimony.

#JustWrite