The Moon is Upside Down

The following work is the essay I published in Vol 4 of the STAMPED zine project. It's a zine dedicated to sharing the voices and experiences of minority immigrants in the Australian system. This issue's theme was DEPARTURE. All issues of STAMPED can be read for free on their website. And to the Neocities community that was there for me during my lowest, a special thank you.

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I remember first stepping out of the airport on a dark 5am morning in mid-June. 23 hours of flying and now everything was the complete opposite, day was night, summer was winter, and the waxing gibbous was waning? Talk about feeling like an alien. The moon is very important to me. For a long time, she was all I had.

My life I left behind in the United States was hardly a life at all. My early childhood was characterized by violence, being hurt at home and hurting my peers in turn. I was sent to the police at 6 years old for sociopathy, and walked out with an “autism” diagnosis instead. My f*mily knew I was a sick child, yet they were too beholden to their image of a perfect suburban American family to listen. Instead of supporting me, they stuffed me in the attic, only retrieving me to pose for plastic dinners and idyllic holiday photos. They refused to teach me basic life skills so I would remain dependent. I gradually relented as I matured, preferring total isolation over the brutal cyclone of my f*mily life and the murky waters of socializing.

I hadn’t quite realized how bad things were, although I was glad to go away to college. I could maybe spread my wings a little, step out of my cage for a bit. Of course, the pandemic had other plans. Back to the box I went. I put up with it, it was what I was used to. It was all I knew. Solitary confinement was uneventful and taxing. My anxieties multiplied year after year. I never learned how to take care of myself, always afraid of failing fundamental tasks, expecting neglect and malice from everyone, crushed under pressures I couldn’t understand.

After college, my f*mily woke up to the fact that I was going nowhere fast. They chose to grow hostile rather than helpful. Naturally, I got tired of being berated every time I showed my face, so I stopped showing my face. I no longer participated in the rituals of dinners or holidays. I became nocturnal so I could sneak around my own house at night for food. My f*mily, ever spiteful, eventually started throwing out leftovers. They knew I couldn’t cook, they purposefully never taught me, and they knew I couldn’t order food, I was so paralytically agoraphobic. The message was clear, I was being flushed out with starvation. I rebelled, surviving on forgotten cans and expired morsels in the back of the pantry for nearly a year.

During this affair, she came to greet me. The moon. Her radiance gave me the strength to carry on. Her gentle glow drew me to finally venture outside, to take walks around the neighborhood in the middle of the night, if only for a brief change of scenery. A quick breath of air. A small taste of freedom.

In the slow agonizing process of coming to terms with the trauma and grief, under the moon’s motherly guidance, I discovered I was transgender. She offered her embrace when nobody else would. We both knew this was the last straw. Truly there was nothing left for me here. Soon after, I desperately pleaded to all the people I knew on the internet: please get me out of here. One of my longest friends said she had space for me, could provide for me for a little while, and could teach me the life skills I yearned for. The promise, the hope, and the moon granted me the willpower to overcome my crippling anxiety. I went to get medical clearance, I went to the bank to open an account without my f*mily on it. And on that fateful, sunny, stifling June morning, I walked out of my house for the last time without a word to anyone.

Landing in Melbourne, dazed and scared, nothing was familiar. Not even my most reliable tether was safe. As I stared up at her through my own misty breath, I understood her message. “Things will go differently now,” she whispered, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s been about a year since then, yet the pain of my old life feels centuries away. I go out and about on day trips, I meet up with friends, I create art, I shop, and sometimes I make dinner for the very same friend who rescued me. For three of these recent months I travelled the Victorian countryside fulfilling my visa duties, enjoying more and more hospitality along the way. In those gorgeous unpolluted mountains, I basked in the moon’s unbelievable brilliance, and thanked her for everything. The kindness afforded to me has taught me the proper meanings of family, love, and safety. It isn’t lost on me that my security is always in jeopardy as a migrant, however my newfound sense of belonging melts away my fears. Australia is undoubtedly my home, and my future is built here. Even if the moon is upside down.

07-2025
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