I recently became viral on the social chatting platform Line, my poetry and articles earning hundreds, even thousands of likes and shares and comments. Some even requested to be my friend via timeline, despite us not knowing each other. There are stranger’s chats every once in a while, mostly praises. But some, very little amounts lasts on my saved messages, saying,
“You look like someone who is open-minded and tolerant, it’s such a shame that you wear a conservative hijab.”
Or,
“Not to be rude or anything, but there’s only little you can do by writing these critics in this platform. So why bother doing it at all?”
And,
“I am conflicted. I want to continue my education, but I would also like to settle down as well. People tell me to choose only one, because a woman is incapable of being so many at once. Which one should I choose? P.S.: I love your works. it is the very first time in such a long while that something has made me feel closest to being human.”
Human. (a) relating to or characteristic of people or human beings.
I am nine years old and listening to my father, acting as a preacher, delivering his speech in the weekly sermon. He talks of love and compassion that the religion teaches, on how that our faith, in the end of the day, welcomes everyone so long as they are good people.
I am nine years old when my mum found out that I have befriended Cho, the girl that recently moved from China to this quiet town halfway across her origin country. No other girls were talking to her because of her funny accent and her different physique and her obscure cross-necklace. My mom had been furious, saying, “You should not befriend her, for she is not—“
Human. (n) of or characteristic of people's better qualities, such as kindness or sensitivity.
There is this man that everybody adored back in highschool. His tall frame and his charming smile made every girl swoon at the sight of him. Everyone watched in fascination as he grew to be the star of our school, his top-notch grades and countless achievements and perfect everything reflecting perfection in every second of his presence.
Those are the words his estranged brother tearfully delivered, an eulogy for that Star, now laying still on the open coffin top the church’s altar. Last afternoon, he shocked everyone by saying goodbye far too sudden. the droplets of blood from his slit wrist still fresh in our minds, as we witnessed his soul slowly leaving his form in that dingy, bathroom stall. His name was—
Human. (a) of, relating to, or affecting people.
My friend Casey’s brother is shrieking when we barged into his room, intending to borrow his collections of comic books to read. We froze, as i took the sight of him wearing one of her dresses—one which she later said she thought was lost in the laundry—and a light makeup on his face. He was pale and tearful, his arms covering himself as if in shame. I have no idea on what to say.
“Please do not tell dad.” He said to Casey, shaky voice lacing his words. “If he finds out, he will send me away because I’m not normal, because I’m not—“
Human. (n) a human being, especially a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien.
We are constantly prideful of being the most developed living beings on earth, with advanced technology and elaborated system to sustain a worldwide multicultural society. We are the best, they said. We are lucky, they said.
I walked home one evening, seeing homeless shivering from the cold and the ignorance of people. Some of them wrote “Have nor eaten in days” on their limp cardboard. I looked up to a flock of birds heading north, no doubt going back to their nest with full stomach and enough supplies for their chirping children at home.
I looked back at the beggars, and wondered who exactly is the lucky one.
Human?
And what are we, but drifting spectrum across this massive universe? What defines us, if it is not our flaws and errors and turmoils, dragging us to fall and get back up through life? What do we believe, if not hopes and dreams and wishes that people deemed impossible?
I still cannot grasp this entire internet fame. But I will continue on writing. For it is what defines me, and it is what makes me,
Human.
