Everything feels like nothing, and nothing starts to feel like everything.
Everyday. Everyday as I wake up,
Nothing ever beats the feeling of inadequacy.
Inadequacy to do good
Inadequacy as a daughter
Inadequacy as a student
Inadequacy as a person
Inadequacy in feeling good within my own body
Inadequacy from feeling good about myself.
Everyday feels like an endless loop, you best believe my misery hunts me.
But what is inadequacy?
Is it scarcity? Deficiency? Insufficiency? A lack thereof?
Is it this mindless blob, formless and dark or a mangled form of flesh, eating away at you and your insecurities?
Like a virus, it pins you, goes deep inside you and there is never enough antibiotic for you...
This inadequacy keeps me up at ungodly hours where the sun howls and moon chirps, the clouds look at us, feigning interest, idly looking but never interacting.
This inadequacy lulls me in irregular fever dreams where comfort lies in solitude and loneliness,
where the people that surround you, cover their ears, bites their cheek, looks forwards, smiles faintly, but never tries to understanding.
My heart wails for the smallest of things. Nothing, nothing becomes everything.
My successes make me feel less, still. Everything, everything becomes nothing.
I am this inadequate thing, floating around, never seeming to be enough.
Inadequate. Because i could not protect myself from those who touch my skin like its free real estate, those clammy hands holding me in a state
A state of frenzy that never seems to end
Inadequate. That no matter what I do, my past will forever haunt me and define the being I am now that no matter how much I change, and try and try and try to do good, it will never be
enough.
And those same voices, those same people, they say they scream they tell me,
“You should have told me.”
“You should have fought back.”
“You are a waste of time.”
“You are dumb.”
“You are nothing.”
“You waste your talents for something as this,”
And those same people, let go of words
That back then would have meant nothing
But now it seems to be everything
It becomes my identity
It becomes my oxygen
It becomes the blood that circulates in my body
It becomes the endorphins in my brain
Nothing becomes everything. And everything that I’ve tried to change, worked hard to achieve, tried to mend, was sorry for, starts to become nothing.
But I am tired of feeling like nothing. That everything I do is always inadequate. That it is some form of scarcity, deficiency, insufficiency, a lack thereof.
These mindless blobs, or mangled forms of flesh,
Like a virus, it pins me, goes deep inside me and there is never enough antibiotic for me...
Because instead of listening, to understand, to empathize, they listen so they can jeopardize...
Whatever love is left that I could give to myself,
Without a shred of doubt,
In a warm, bright embrace for myself, in a corner slouched.
So, I ask these voices, who are only here to remind how inadequate I am:
How do I fight back?
How do I be good enough?
How do I become less dumb?
How do I make nothing stay as nothing? And appreciate everything as everything?
Because day by day, this inadequacy I feel, gets really tiring.
• December 13, 2019 | 12 PM
This was my audition piece for a competition I auditioned for that unfortunately did not push through because of the pandemic. In my journey with poetry, I want to continue to hone my form and create something that is true to me but also mirrors the lives of others and that we may be able to share a sense of empathy for one another's struggles.