How do I paint this picture, in ink strokes that become words, of how all three of my closest friends were separately raped before any of them turned twenty? Not one of their attackers was ever brought to justice. It serves as little wonder then, why I — as the only one amongst them who…
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Martha At the age of twelve, Martha was scarred. A jellyfish had wrapped itself around her thin arm like a swarm of bees, like a lyme burn, like a lemon bite. They had to cut the goo off with a surfer’s sharktooth necklace. Her prince was sun-tanned and too old. She didn’t cry until after…
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Blood is thicker than water, but for some ethnicity is the deciding factor. That’s a bold claim but as a target of family racism, it’s something that I am forced to think about. I’m what could be considered ‘biracial’, that is, my mother is Anglo-Australian and my father is Italian. All racism is bad and…
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I must confess, I have not taken the bus in a while. I drive now. This is not a confessional. This was not written on a bus. Growing up in Taipei—a city of laudable public transportation—I took the bus often. We took Bus 220 south, across the bridge over the canal, and then disembarked shortly…
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At work, I’ve had to clean up faeces, urine, and vomit. I’ve been called a cunt and a bitch, been threatened with murder, and told that I’m liable to be torn a new arsehole if I don’t watch myself. I’m not a nurse, a therapist, or a police officer. I work in retail. I’ve never…
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Mary St / Electric Avenue / Wuthering Heights, Adelaide, 2012 – 2014. RIP. Hell so often is other people. Being around them, being without them and, perhaps worst of all, living with them… Before Jeff there was Jess, and one day the friend-of-a-friend becomes housemate. With two others in tow, we first dub our humble…
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This was not the first time my father had expressed an opinion which had bothered me, but for some reason this particular incident has stayed in my mind over the last few months. I was watching the phenomenal 2011 film by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi titled A Separation, which follows the lives of two startlingly…
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It’s possible that no toy has been subjected so consistently to feminist criticisms as Mattel’s Barbie Doll. As a kid, I heard many of them from my mother. I heard how that ‘if Barbies were real women, they would be nine feet tall.’ ‘Look at their feet, they’re not at all like real people’s.’ ‘No one’s…
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There is a woman applying hot wax to my arsehole. I’m on a massage table, lying on my side facing a stark white wall. And there is a woman applying hot wax to my arsehole. She’s asked me to bring my knees to my chest and ‘pull up’ with a hand on my right buttocks….
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Playwright Michele Lee admitted in a recent interview that writing a memoir at such a young age could be interpreted as ‘self-absorbed.’ However, Banana Girl thrusts us into her twenty-somethings with such intimate realism that any self-indulgence on her part is completely excusable. In the lead up to a four month literary residency in her…
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Anjelica Huston was not a name I recognised before I started reading her memoir A Story Lately Told, although maybe I should have, given her fame and high profile career as a model and actress. To be fair, the highlights of her career took place before I was born, and more than anything I was…
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Sitting in the train from Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport to the city, crossing an old industrial bridge and looking through the triangular holes of the construction, I get the first glimpse of Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. Not wanting to look like a typical tourist I try not to look too impressed,…
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In the last months of my mother’s life, I fell into the first blushes of what I thought, at the time, was love. Chris was nine years older than me, could fix cars and had a crooked nose that reminded me of breakages. The most romantic moment of my life, to date, is…
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At eight years old, my idol was the girl who lived next door. Her name was Sam. She was twelve and she had red hair that she always tied up in a ponytail and tucked underneath a baseball cap. She had TWO horses, so she was instantly my favourite person. She let me ride one…
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