Loribelle Spirovski

But I really remember his smell.

And it was such a clear thought in my mind.

He smelled just like me after I'd been playing outside.

Like we had the same BO.

Yeah.

Which was crazy because it was the part of me I didn't like.

Like, I don't want to smell like B.O.

I want to smell clean like my mother.

Completely.

And...

And he had like really hairy arms.

And I'm like, why is he so hairy?

Why is his chest so hairy?

Like, you're just suddenly recognizing men because Filipino men are very different to European men.

And I just had this massive identity crisis, I think, because I thought, if I'm half of him and half of her, and I really just want to be her, you know, how am I going to grapple with this?

Oh, it's chalk and cheese, absolute chalk and cheese.

So my dad was living in a little apartment in Croydon at the time and

And he had this balcony that he stuffed chock-a-block full of plants.

Like, I'm telling you, there was about a 30-centimetre gap that you could walk through to actually water the plants.

But I had a little forest and a bedroom of my own for the very first time in my life and a mattress.