To the one I’ll Never have

They say that you miss all the chances that you never take and still they can’t convince me to have you. You are the one chance that I’m willing to take for your sake. You need to know that I’m not a perfect person, far from it, and I hate living in this world. I’ve never tried to fit in. Never have I tried to compete with others. I’ve lived a simple life, rejoicing in others’ achievements and comforting them at their saddest. I’ve almost never gotten the same support from others and that’s one of the reasons I can’t make you a part of my life: no support system.

I’ve tried so hard to see the good in people, and not just random people but the ones I loved and respected, cousins I spent my childhood with, friends I broke all my rules for and even acquaintances that I met through them. I treated them with so much love, put them all on a pedestal. Because it mattered to me to see them happy. It made me proud if I was the reason for their happiness. Thanks to my upbringing, I believed truly that my discomforts and my problems should never interrupt the joys of others. That everyone else was always more important than me. And I believed all of it, still do. I believe that I’m not at all worth anything. And the way these people treated me just solidifies that fact. So how can I make you a part of this very sad life?

I’ve been betrayed so many times by the people I would bleed for that I barely trust anyone now. I believe in the worst of people and maybe it’s because of that that I do end up finding the worst in them. I used to think people were selfish when I was young and now I think they’re mean-spirited too. The only thing that’s stopping them from causing harm to the people that don’t think the same way as them is the law and sometimes even that isn’t enough. So tell me how do I make you a part of this world?

I’ve lost count of the number of times people have ignored me or brushed my feelings aside because they don’t think I’m at an important enough place in life. The way I could garner their respect was by achieving something they could benefit from. Only then would they think that I was worth their precious time. It’s not just limited to people I’m loosely connected to, but my closest friends, relatives and even my parents. They think love is a commodity that can be bartered for the checkpoints in life that the society has put up for people. If I fail to reach those checkpoints, I don’t deserve their love or even respect. They then get a free pass to treat me like I’m disposable. Every relationship I’ve seen is based on this. And I’m being punished for not adhering to this great society’s guidelines to a perfect life. So how can I make you suffer their wrath, too?

I’ve grown up trying to fulfil expectations. I’ve grown up with the burden of my family’s honour on my little shoulders. You know why? Because, unfortunately, my father didn’t pass on the Y chromosome and I ended up with two Xs. So now my body is not my own, my thoughts are not my own and my life is not my own. I live for my community and my parents’ honour. That I may end up completely destroying my family with a few personal choices like not getting married. Because how dare I make such a selfish choice? My decisions are not my own because my body is not my own. Because this great society believes that a girl has two lives: one as the father’s possession and the latter as the husband’s possession. And that is why so many daughters suffer because the society asks them to bear the tantrums of their father instead of telling the father to get his act together. An alcoholic, abusive father is still better than a rebellious daughter. And if the daughter dareth take a stand for herself, the people who turned a blind eye towards the abusive father will shame the girl. Because as a girl you’re enslaved to the men. As a wife you get to see the pain and torture that your husband will put your daughter through and either you’ll fight for her or silently join the crowd sneering at the fall of the little girl. Either ways, not much help can come off this situation. So how can I put you in it?

So I’ll make a pact with you. You’ll never suffer the same things that I did. Even if it comes at the cost of my happiness and maybe one day I’ll look back and regret it. But it’s better to regret not having you than have you and regret it. I can’t bring you to this world especially knowing that this world if full of cruel people out for your blood. Just for the crime of being born different. And god forbid (yes, the same god that always preaches about women being inferior to men) if your father messes up with chromosome too, you’ll be stuck in this mess with a huge disadvantage: of being a girl. Although I would protect you and never shame you for your decisions, how will I protect you from the same vultures that devoured me? How will I teach them to respect you when they’ve all never learnt to respect what they can’t understand? How will I give you a good life when I’ve fought so hard for just the basic necessities? How will I prepare you for the hurt and betrayal that you’ll face for being born as my child; the child of someone who’s an outcast? How will I train you for the torture and the pain that girls have to face just as a cost of living?

No, I’ll not do that. They say it takes a village to raise a child and my whole village is rotten. And I don’t see things changing or getting better soon. So it’s best that we part our ways even before we get to meet. I’m sure if I had you, you would be a vibrant, happy soul with no fear for the world but I can’t bring someone like you to a world that’s not equipped for a person like that. To trap you in this corrupted world, making you follow their pathetic rules and bearing their malicious ways, is something I would never put you through. You’ll not miss a life that you have not known.

Irreversible Equilibrium

I’ve often wondered as a child if I was ever going to be good enough for the world. Somehow, it got ingrained in my head that I’m meant to do big things and only when I become someone with mettle, will my life be considered worthy; I’ll be considered worthy. And I tried hard, I pushed and pushed and pushed till the finish line but I was never the first one to reach it. I was lagging far, far behind all the people in my father’s life: his nephews and nieces, his coworkers’ children, his best friend’s kids, I was the one who brought shame to my family. The one who was never good enough.

I remember being little, with sweaty palms and a racing heart, every time my parents visited my school to see my annual reports. I remember vividly how I dreaded that day, and the aftermath of it, wishing I would just disappear before my parents learnt how average their kid was. I was too young to know what death meant, but I remember unknowingly thinking that that would be the answer to all but a few years I’ve been alive. I remember the scared look on my mother’s face, anxious about my father’s reaction. I remember her pleading to me to do well in my exams so she wouldn’t have to watch her little daughter get beaten and swore at in front of a bunch of on-lookers who enjoyed the free show at the expense of a child’s self-esteem and dignity. The on-lookers whom I called my dear uncles and aunts. Some times, the neighbours would join in too. Those days we didn’t have internet or YouTube so this would do for some entertainment.

There was no escape from the hell I was living in because not once did my young mind question the adults who put me through this. No. We were always taught that respect should always be given to anyone elder than you, whether they deserved it or not was never a debate. They were always right because they had beaten me in a race I could never win against them: of being born later than them. I remember them, each one of them taunting me, making fun of me, putting ideas into my father’s mind about my family and then enjoying the view as he showered his wrath on me. I thought it was all my fault. If only I had studied better. If only I was not a loser. Then I could probably earn my father’s love and save my family from this scolding every night.

But as I grew up, I saw those same uncles who loved to have me corrected with capital punishment through my father, treat their girls like delicate daisies. I saw how they loved their kids even when they failed, year after year, again and again. I saw them supporting their children through shit my father would’ve murdered me for. And it suddenly stuck me: all the years of hate that I got from my father didn’t make me hate him, it made me dislike myself. To an extent that I didn’t see a point in living anymore. That I started believing in him more than I believed in myself. I realised the power of a supportive family looking at others and I grew bitter. Bitter and unforgiving. How was it fair? How could I compete with that? How could it ever be a fair match?

I grew up as an under-confident people pleaser and attracted all the narcissists and self-centred people in the world who preyed upon my incessant need to be accepted by them. My thirst for love and my immense empathy for anyone in distress was a deadly combination for anyone who needed an ego-boost or a boring chore dealt with. I made terrible friends and had no boundaries. I would go out of my way to make others happy and wouldn’t even get a birthday card in return. I tolerated all the bullshit I was put through by my so-called friends just because there was a void in my heart that was not filled by my father. I looked for love everywhere else. It breaks my heart for the girl that went through all this without an iota of appreciation or even gratitude. Because my father never loved me, I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved at all.

I’m writing this because I feel alone. I feel empty. Everything I do, it feels worthless because I still feel worthless. I’ve so much pain in my heart that I some days I can’t even bring myself to get out of bed. Sometimes I wonder if my father was right about me being a waste of space, or did he manifest it for me? If you see me or meet me, you’ll never realise the war I’m in with myself. If you see me, you’ll not guess how pathetic I feel on the inside. If you bump into me, you’ll not realise the body of broken dreams I carry in my soul. Not because I don’t think I deserve pity or sympathy but because I was taught that all the bad things that ever happened to me would be my fault so automatically my only response is to hide my pain.

How much of your mental state is actually inside of you and not just the environment you’re in? How much of your depression can be cured if you were given a chance to meet some kind, wise people who treated you like you were never done before? How many of our failures would cease to matter if we weren’t taught to cry over split milk but to just get another jar of it? How many of us are crying ourselves to sleep because we were never loved enough by the people we were dependent on? For how can anyone on this planet love you if the person responsible to bring you here, doesn’t? How do we beat this monster growing inside of us, waiting to consume us with one misstep?

I don’t know. All I know is that I’m fighting it. I’m trying my best to prove my father wrong even though my best is sometimes just getting out of bed. I’m trying to like myself and not fret over my insecurities. For I am all I’ve got. If I lose faith in me, what will happen to that child who still lives inside of me waiting for a moment in life where she’s not scared, a slice of time where she’s loved and accepted for who she.

Maybe, one day we’ll be the better world that little kids hope for when they try to dream about rainbows amidst the chaos of a broken home.

Daddy’s Little Girl

The little hands and little feet,
You called me princess at every beat,
The wonderful warmth of your embrace,
With your fatherly chest pressed against my face.
When was the last time I felt that way?
Of hearing my daddy encouragingly say
How much he loved me, so long it seems,
Or am I going crazy, was it only in my dreams?

Did you ever hold me close?
Did you ever pat my head?
Did you ever say you loved me?
Or even heard what I said?

All my childhood dreams are shattered
And I can’t understand why I never mattered
For I’m made from your flesh and your blood
Your bones writhing inside me, thud, thud, thud
You are there in the browns of my eyes
And the voice that often cries
You are there in the curve of my curls
In every rhythm that my head swirls.

Why did you never hold me tight?
Never watched to see me twirl?
And although you never loved me,
Why so am I still a daddy’s little girl?

Dear Mother,

Love, the kind that doesn’t fade,

The kind that warms my heart,

On the coldest nights and darkest days,

The one greater than art!

I found that love in your arms,

Your lap, in your warm embrace…

Your soothing voice, your prideful eyes,

That gleam upon your face:

When you look at me, and through me

And forgive all the lies I tell,

Although they pinch you in your guts,

You keep your smile, while you go through hell.

Your fathomless kindness, I don’t deserve,

Yet you keep me afloat while you drown

In the sins of my own doings

With not even one little frown.

And now that I see, I try to feel,

All those years of sacrifice,

That you threw away on me

On someone so laden with vice.

They’re visible in your forehead, mother

From when you tried to correct me,

And your beautiful, tired eyes, mother

From always trying to perfect me.

You held me when I was shoved by all

You held me so tight

When I shrunk in sadness, you made me tall

You took my blackness and gave me light.

I feel this guilt, this heaviness

For I can never even start to repay

The one person I truly love

Much to my own dismay.

Dear mother, I will always know

The cost of love you paid.

It’s in my skin, in my bones

In every loop of my braid.

With love,

Your daughter.

What Happened to Me?

Sunnier days, peaceful nights,

Longer hours, such delight!

Each day a wonder, a surprise

Happy thoughts and brighter eyes!

When kisses healed the sharpest burns

Gotten from running ’round in ferns

In shabby clothes and hair so wild

Oh, once upon an innocent child.

When dreams were big, and toes were small

Walls were meant for me to scrawl

My work of art, the small figurine,

Now painted upon, never to be seen.

Where are those days, and those nights?

Where are my dreams, my root of delight?

Where goes my road, deep and dark?

Where hope is less and light is stark?

Now there’s no joy, no happy cries

Now there are clouds upon my summer skies

Not much to want, not much to be

I wonder what happened to me …