Her words were like the edge
of knives
threatening my throat
She came down at me
Continuously
Unceasingly
Endlessly.
and everything black and white would
spill in the form of mauled speech.
and I
would be left in a pool of words that could craft
the speech of a joker.
And these... knives
not only gave me continents of pain with just its paper fine edge
but took away my dignity on the horizon of its merciless surface.

The sight of him won't knock me off my feet like Alp's wind,
but just enough to make baby breaths blossom
at the edges of my heart.
But baby breaths don’t last long.
for they wither with every second I float up
to the surface of realization, a realization of how stupid I was,
to let myself fall into the dark depths so easily.
He hated how I looked.
He hated how I laughed.
He hated how I’m so loud.

They treated me as an outcast.
It was just because I couldn’t quite tame my hairstyle,
Couldn’t quite do a proper split.
Couldn’t quite get satisfy everyone's idea of a perfect skirt length.
Couldn’t quite paint my nails without getting some out of the pale pink space.
Couldn’t quite have a meal and not ending up having greasy lips.
They wore hair spray that suffocated me with trend and fake personalities.

People ask me
Is there really not a single thread of grudge restraining at your heartstrings?
Why don't you push her head and force her to drown in her own insults?
Why not ruffle up his hair and tell him this fitted him better than his cheap hair gel?
That their hair sprays and make-up were just explicitly a futile effort?

I answer them
Indeed, there are grudges restraining at my heartstrings
But an eye for and eye makes the world go blind.
Though I care for my dignity
In which she has torn apart
My confidence
In which he has demolished
My reputation
In which they have successfully destroyed,
I have found boldness to forgive them.

I looked at her,
Everyone labeled her mean.
She hurt everyone that came her way too
With her crude words
But no one saw
The cuts on her wrists,
How her eye bags got worse each day
And how she starved herself each day,
Getting scrawnier as the clock ticks by.

I glanced at him,
He has never gotten good grades
I know he is working really hard
To make his parents happy
But
I wonder if his parents work hard for him or
If they drink a lot or
If they are too demanding
I know his shoes have holes in them because
When it rains he always complains about wet socks.
Maybe he feels so out casted because he has too little.

I stared at them as they walked down the hallway
Everyone sees them strutting
But deep inside, they are running
Running away from the lives that they have been living in for too long.
Parents who each have 70% of their body fluid made up of alcohol
Some of them don’t even have a complete family they can go back home to.
Running away wasn’t easy
When their feet are bind by the immense pressure
Of an incomplete family
They could only find comfort in the weaknesses of other people
And indulging in a fake persona

Bold from all the insuppressible emphasis
To let go
Those words and actions
Were untold stories
That only their pride could hide
And they might not know
For I don't need to read them inside out
Just turn them over, watch their back, read their blurbs, and learn that no matter how terrible, every story is a story worth to appreciate.

Sometimes
When there is suddenly this little lump in my throat
and my vision goes blurry
I tell myself:
"It's okay."

I don't realise that I have been lying to myself for
way
too
long.
Truth is
"It's not okay."

I watch sad videos in front of you guys
and cry
and then I realise that it's not the video that's
sad.
It's because they are excuses for me to cry.

I know people care for me
I know people worry about me
I know people want me to change
I Know.

So I'm really sorry guys,
I've been holding these emotions for way too long
way
too
long.
Trying to lie to myself that everything is fine
Trying to tell myself that things will get better
Trying to tell myself that it's okay.

I've been trying.
I really have.
I've been trying to fake a smile through everything
Doesn't mean I don't say anything,
I don't feel anything.
I know you guys are hurt by me too
and that I shouldn't blast at you
and treat you like punching bags
but
honestly I don't want it to happen too.

You guys say I can always confide to you
and you guys will always be there for me
but there's too many things I need to say
and these words form that little lump in my throat.
I can't find anyone I can confide to.
"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."
They all have their own problems and the last thing I want
is to have them worry about me.
They worry when I hurt them too
and I don't want that to happen.


So I guess I'll just keep quiet.


I'm sorry guys,
I'm not going to say anything about my problems
and not say anything mean to you.
Don't worry about me anymore.
I will let that little lump in my throat
get washed away from the tears
and the little streams of optimism I still have.
Though these streams are drying up
from the emotions that have continuously been
heated up.

People tell me that I have
pretty eyes
they say they are
beautiful.
Honestly i don't like them
I find them weird
and of an odd shape.
I hate how they just LOOK, and not SEE.
I hate how they don't notice things.
I hate how I overlook things that have happened.
I'm not good at noticing stuff that happen to the people around me.

Sometimes they even show the painful emotions that
I don't want anyone to know that they actually exist.


People say I have a sweet smile.
I hate how my chin protrudes out when I smile
I hate how my jaw looks
I hate it


And I hate how it hides away the painful emotions.

You see,
my eyes and my smile contradicts.
because that's how I feel
right here
right now.
Contradiction.
Dilemma.
Doubt.
I actually don't understand my emotions.
I don't understand why I feel certain ways sometimes.
But sometimes, sometimes is always.

It must be hard to have me as your older sister.
It must be.
I call your cute little jokes "lame",
and ignore you when you tell me about your fantastic school day.
I refuse to hug you to sleep at night
even if you're afraid of the darkness that could swallow you up anytime.
I order you to do things around and you do them but
when you ask me to do things, I don't.
You try to get me to stop paying attention to my phone and
start paying attention to your piano pieces.
You try to get me to stop lying around all day and
start going to swim with you.
You ask me all the time:
"Can you go swimming with me?"
I always reply:
"No, I've got work/I'm lazy/. Go swim yourself."
And I don't understand that when you keep calling your friend over
it's because you feel lonely
She's the one who listens to you
play with you
talk to you
when I don't.
Well maybe I didn't understand that when I said:
"Why is she coming over again? You guys play like every single day. Do your work."
You try to make me happy by telling me interesting things.
I silence you out when you do that,
popping in my earphones
and you just sit there quietly.
It must be hard to have me as your older sister.

It must be hard to have me as your daughter.
I talk back 99% of the time just to prove I'm right,
because I am so thick-skinned I wouldn't actually admit even if I'm down right
wrong.
I always change my mind the last minute,
leaving you panicking and worrying about what to do.
I treat my younger sister badly, being really mean to her,
I don't understand how we are both precious to you
You don't want to see any of us getting
hurt.
You work so hard for me
I don't come out of my room to say hi to you when you come home
You bought a new wifi network set for me
when I kept complaining that the current set wasn't working
when it was just my fault for using it
too much.
You meticulously worked to come up with a nice study table design for us
I complained that your laptops were taking up too much space
and you moved it away to the living room
where you could only use it while standing.
You didn't say anything about it.
It must be hard to have me as your daughter.

It must be hard to have me as your friend.
I blast at you
and treat you like a punching bag
not being sensitive to your feelings.
I make you worry about me even when I have hurt you.
I tell you what I feel so frankly and
you get hurt.
You tell me you're always there to listen
yet I never listened to you.
You always notice when I'm about to fall down into that deep abyss of the unknown,
yet when you're falling I still can't find a rope to help you up.
You try to watch videos with me and
I move my attention to my phone.
It must be hard to have me as your friend.

He nipped
her lip the first time.
Back against the brick wall.
Bottles warming,
soon forgotten at their feet.

There was something
so urgent
in the way they fell--
limbs tangling on
or against
any surface that
could hold them.

But those surfaces were edged
in pasts long hidden
and razor-sharp,
wrapped in caution tape.

And they remembered their fragility.

So they tucked
in their elbows and
side-stepped each other.
Trading bitten lips
for shattering glances,
they told themselves
No.

But sometimes,
in quiet moments,
the Yes still breaks through.