As a young girl,I was taught that I shouldn't hate boys,I shouldn't fight back to them regardless of what they did to me because it wasn't ladylike,they probably only did it because they liked me and boys will be boys,right? I tried to remind myself that when in fourth grade,I went home with cuts and bruises because a boy was ****** that I did better than him on our English test and he wanted to get even with me.I didn't fight back because as my teacher had always said,"that's just how it is,honey,boys will be boys".It was one of the two things that she had said to me that never left my mind,along with the reminder of how a real boy and a real girl can be distinguished from the "others".
I was twelve when I was molested repeatedly but I didn't do or say a thing except try to get out of this *****,wretched skin because it was probably my own fault, I shouldn't have such precocious ******* at an early age.
Ha!What was I thinking?Going through puberty like that,looking all sexualized when I know that grown men cannot control their urges.
Stupid little girl, how could she forget that boys will be boys?
I was thirteen, when I was told about the "proper" way to dress and act because I might provoke the boys and they could be ruined for life.
I was fourteen when I was first told what my hips,my thighs,my legs,my bottoms and my chest should be like,in the way that most boys like.
Because the only way I'll ever validate my existence is when a boy takes me as his and to do that I should be what most boys like:
not too tall,not too short,not too skinny but also not fat,witty,funny and smart but I also need to know when to shut the hell up.
And I can't change that because it's the unspoken rule in our world,and no,I can't try to convince the boys either (my ability to know when to shut up is put to use here,because it doesn't matter if you're the oppressed, you need to shut the hell up and grovel before the patriarchy just like everyone else) because that's just the way they are and boys will be boys.
I was fifteen when I witnessed the torture that some of my guy friends experienced because they acted like "girls",as if my gender is an insult, as if being a girl automatically makes you weak and helpless.(Since when did being supposedly invincible and not crying made a boy a real man?I don't think that's what real masculinity is about.Does being a real man or woman come with corresponding terms and conditions?)
It was only a few months ago when a ****** walked free despite destroying the life of a college girl.He did not get convicted because she was reportedly drunk and he was a boy and boys will be boys. (So, who will take the blame?the alcohol or the girl?were they the ones who forced themselves on someone against that someone's will?)
This case took me back to a decade ago when one of my best friends was sexually abused by an older man but nobody helped him, they told him to just toughen up, **** isn't real for him because he was a boy and boys will be boys.
And I wonder,when will these monsters finally be convicted for their crimes?
When will the guilty boys be held accountable for their actions?
When will the pain of other boys finally be considered valid,when will being of the *** that they are stop making them "not really victims"?
When will one's gender stop being an excuse or in some cases—serve as a derogatory name?
When will the screams,cries and pleas of women abused and victimized everywhere be loud enough for you?
Loud enough so that you might actually feel their agony creep in your bones,consume your whole being that all you'd want to do is crawl out of your skin,loud enough so that you might actually begin to understand how it feels like to be us,objectified and dehumanized,loud enough so that you might actually hear the pleas of boys and other men everywhere,asking to be freed from gender roles that limits their ability to exist beyond labels or to feel pain.
I wonder just when will you stop using my gender as an insult,just when will you stop telling the world how a real man or woman should be?
Please do tell because the little faith in humanity that still resides in us is slowly fading.
From where I see it,I feel as if there's no hope.
There will be no hope as long you all remain slaves to bigotry and the patriarchy.
I guess,there's no hope for your mothers,daughters,even other boys and young girls like me as of this time.
And maybe,when another rabid man decides that he wants as his meal for the day,like I am meat,like I am something to be consumed and spent,I would just have to accept my fate.
Maybe,as my lifeless and ravished body lies motionless in an alley somewhere, you would be shaking your head, condemning the girl who was stupid enough to walk alone at night,unaccompanied,the girl who was "asking for it" because she wore "revealing"clothes,the girl who probably got what was coming for her because she didn't know when to shut her mouth,the girl who thought she could exist the way she wanted when she knew full well that there are rules,stigmas and that boys will be boys.
-W.L.A.C

There goes the boy again,averting his eyes with persistent denial,unsure if I'm fighting the same silent war inside as him.
He claimed that there was nothing more catastrophic than him,
the boy with the supposed void behind his eyes,
He was everything and nothing, the chaos,all of the colors all at once and then he was the deafening silence and the darkness you'd get lost in,
he was the coming disaster and then he was the calm.
He never ran out of metaphors for himself,never missed a chance to define himself as something that would wreak havoc among us.
The boy who drowned himself in ink and tears, who searched and searched for an answer in between pages that gave him nothing but empty promises of a better life,a better world.
Most of the time,his fictions only made him more restless,they fed the unspeakable in him with bitter truths.
The boy who felt crushed under the weight of existing.
The boy who had never thought that maybe he was just a boy,struggling to be a man and that he is flawed,scarred and only human.
This is for him,this is for the boy who isn't,wasn't and will never be a disaster or a monster.
He is just a boy,just a boy.
And when he grows,he'll be a man,just a man.
If I never come around to tell him,please tell the boy that he was just a boy,he is just a boy and he will just be a man and nothing more or less than that.
(Except maybe,immortalized through my mediocre writing.)
-W.L.A.C.

We are not worlds away ,in fact,we exist in the same and perhaps we each just occupy too much space,perhaps we cannot be together without suffocating one another.
Because I will always be too much for you as you will be for me.I will always be too young and too innocent.
Maybe even too pretentious,too disgustingly happy or too much of an overthinker.While you will always be too far from my grasp.You will always be two steps ahead of me.You are a drifter,despite your tendecy to easily get attached to people and things like me,you always have your eyes set towards the horizon,to the future that maybe.
Even now,when we are in the same city I feel as if we are already continents apart because despite our close proximity to one another,there is a universe between us.
And I want you to know that if one day, that universe decides to stretch out itself too far that not even the magpies of an ancient Chinese fairytale cannot help us shrink the distance between us,I will still be here,I will always love you in the way that I have always had and can—almost. It wouldn't be enough—it never is—but it is a comforting thought to know that at least we had tried,just not enough and that is okay.We will be okay. And I truly hope that I became significant enough in your life for you to be able to remember that I could have loved you and that I will always cling to that idea.Maybe in another world,in another time,an another me—more mature,better in every possible way and worthy could love you.In the meantime, I will numb whatever it is that has been killing me inside for the past few months,set my eyes on the horizon and meet my supposed future—one that doesn't include you and I know it sounds excruciating for my part but I have concluded that maybe it is what is best for the both of us.You could do better,everyone else that would even dare look at me does.I am not the kind of person you'd fall in love with.I am not the the kind of risk you can take.I am bad news and crap I want to be better for you but this is all I can manage to be.So,for the nth time I am sorry and I hope you remember I will always almost love you.I could have loved you if the Universe had let me.
-W.L.A.C.

Like fireworks that lit the sky one December night,they were two people that touched for only a brief moment and they burned and burned until there was nothing but cinders in their eyes.
Both were fires that burned to light the way for one another.
Maybe they just burned too bright and time  moved too fast,
Maybe she was his anchor, she kept him tethered, kept him there,steady and unable to move forward.
The world may never know, except for this:
"They" were as fleeting as time and their ephemeral words made it evident that both of them couldn't stay forever because even the brightest of lights die out—sometimes,far more early than others.
They weren't just fireworks—I know that now— each of them were forest fires and they burn for the other to provide warmth and light,oblivious to the destruction that they make.
They were forest fires.
And now all they are is rain and tears, drowning in an ocean of memories.
And as I write this,I can't help but think that in some ways this wasn't just the story of them,it was our story too: the story of us that never was and never will be.
-W.L.A.C

My faithful lover of all these years
He never did once leave me,not even in my sleep
Some days, his presence would be less felt
But he was always there
Occupying the empty space on my mother's bed as she wept for the man that would never return
He was always there
In the pages of her journal,a collection of her madness further confirming his existence
He was always there,
A voice in the shadows,echoing words of poison that infect each and everyone of us with hate
He was always there,
Resting inside me or the body of another;a temple he'd trespassed and made a temporary home out of
He was always there ,
Lifting yet another glass of wine for my father to drink
He was always there
He never leaves
He rests in my bones,he is alive in your eyes
He lives by feeding off the silence in between apologies and desperate prayers
Your sobs and cries,music to his ears
Your tears,a sea for him to bathe upon
He is the ramming in your ribcage,he is the pain in your chest when it hurts too much and you can't breathe
He is the thief that robs of you of sleep
He has always been real
He has always been here
Patiently waiting for another prey
But even if he finds another
He'll always be my faithful friend and lover

I could write about how the stars would align or be put to shame whenever you smile with your eyes but that would be lying and cliché,
the truth is,I see you just as the same as everyone else,bones and delicate flesh in the shape of what I could perceive
you are as lost and as scarred as everyone else,forever hurting, growing and healing
to romanticize your pain and glorify your flaws would be a sin
but yet again, I am a novel of sins and unspeakable things;I am my mother's disappointment and my father's mistake
I am my brother's curse,I am my sister's cruel fate
I am everything that is to be cursed and loathed and I could care less about being convicted
And I would shamelessly plead guilty as she turns you into yet another sob story, another prose piece
Or not

****** and bruised,we hold our heads up high.
We keep blocking the noise inside our heads by cursing at the sky,singing the anthem of the ******.
Hell bound,we only pray for things we need to make us feel alive.
Only when tucked in "I love you's" or "I'm a mess" do we say "God".
We keep committing crimes,using our sob stories as our excuses.
As if your bruises and wounds are enough to provide vindication,
As if our pain could justify our sins.
Neglected social casualties,we glorify our alienation,use our insecurities as weapons and wound others instead.
I'm sorry because we can't be saved.I'm sorry because we are told that,"it's all in your head".I'm sorry because growing up means succumbing to the cancer that is life.
I'm sorry,I really am.