Jordana Chana Mayim
The Fate of the Dragon:
An illustrated Essay on the New Normal
Normal is a wound.
Many are suffering from it.
Normal is a weapon.
Many are controlled by it.
Normal is a lie.
And refusing to believe it is the beginning of freedom.
The Fate of the Dragon: An Illustrated Essay on the New Normal is a poetic, heartbreaking look at the injustices that societies have normalized and the devastating consequences that so many face just for being different. Among those consequences, feeling that suicide is the only way out of pain. However, this book’s message is not one of despair, for the dragon’s fate is still undecided. And the new normal can look very different from the old normal if we take better care of each other, and if we understand our differences rather than punish them.
The new normal can be a repetition.
Or it can be a revolution.
The new normal.
The words set me seething.
And if I continue to be what I have been,
a prisoner of lies,
I will do with my rage what all the
gaslighted dragons do with their fire...
The new normal.
The phrase doesn’t set me counting the days
with a song of tra la la in my heart
because soon everything will be as it was,
except, of course,
for one more layer of masks...
The new normal makes me fear that
things will continue to be misnamed:
the illogical, senseless, and unjustifiable
forever stripped of their prefixes and suffixes...
We who have survived on the borders
and the precipice of the abyss...
Love always looks us square in the soul
and shouts with all its strength
so it will be heard and believed
above the brutal din:
“Do not mistake lies for truths.
YOU are the reason I rise.”
