Gratitude

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Ritual of Homage to Yang Song at Red Canary Screams:
A Rope Bondage Suspension to capture the Fall/transform to Flight

Two years ago, a woman was scared for her life. She had been raped at gunpoint by a man who claimed to be an NYPD. After reporting the assault to the police, instead of investigating the violence done to her, they pressured this woman to become an informant on her neighbors, the women who worked by her side. 
Her name is Yang Song. She was a Chinese immigrant massage parlor worker. She was a sex worker. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife.
Two years ago today, Yang Song would still be alive, working to send money to her family in China. Working to survive. 
Working despite social stigma and threat of violence, still she worked
to provide for herself and her family and she chose to care for her community
rather than betray them. 

...

In three weeks time that same woman would be on a window sill, 
one side of that glass pane posed a life in handcuffs 
A judgement of degradation over a fleeting moment of pleasure
in exchange for sustenance
and the other side a decision of noncompliance.
A step to be free. A hope to survive, to walk away, to live.
Perhaps to fly.

Yang Song chose to be free.

...
Yang Song, we ask you to lend your life, 
your story, and your death to the work that 
we wish to labor in your name for that community of sex workers, 
those women whom you protected.

Yang Song, we offer you food, incense, and spirit money. 
We offer you our love and protection of your story.

In your fall we hold you
In your fall we hold you so you may fly
In your fall we hold you so you may fly
and your wings may carry us 
 
Song Yang 
​Rest In Peace: Fly in Power