Dear Mean Girls,
When you left me alone during break time to eat, I kept staring at the wall as if it could finally answer my questions. I felt it comforting to know that there’s a parallel universe around me glossing. To know that love and friendship are often the coat of silver on a rusted wrecking ball. To know that I don’t belong.
Every time when you all giggled in the corner, telling stories, my 11-year-old version thought one day I could also be one of them and talk to my friends in that manner. It felt as if there was a hollow trench in my heart waiting to be seen and felt. Those who talked to me gently felt sympathetic mercy.
When you told me how my ponies looked so nerdy, I thought it was me. It was a part of my personality then scraped from the surface. You made it clear that to belong you must be good-looking, with pretty eyes and a lovely smile.
Sun rays wrapped around my head signifying the crown I wear. I always thought my touch was a single, a burn. It was the dusty ash flying around the center of the universe. You made me believe that was true. I left pieces of me on the glass tray that you served because I was afraid I wasn’t enough.
When you left me in the crowd I felt lonely. There were a zillion faces passing by each second. Every known glory contains a pathetic story. I saw sonder in the eyes of gloomy faces. There were so many people but I was all alone. It felt like the worst way you could let me down.
When you included me in your group at the fair and left me in the crowd, I imagined myself as an ant in between zillion others, moving at their pace of life. Every known glory contains a pathetic story. I saw glimpses of sonder in every eye of the jostling crowd. There were so many people but I was all alone. It felt like the worst way you could let me down. Say I am a part of somewhere that I don’t belong. In front of all those I don’t know and I will never know.
Once someone asked me my favorite school year and I wondered if it was the one when I was least social or the one where no one made fun of me. Was it the one I really didn’t cry about or the one I wasn’t struggling with money? I realized that having every year as a better one was a privilege I didn’t see. They say time heals wounds but the older the unattended wound, the more it’s likely to get infected. I couldn’t answer the question. Every year I survived a room full of experiences I never lived.
When you told me I didn’t deserve it, I thought the same. I was put on the pedestal you made me climb. The center of attention and the eyes glanced at me. It quickly scanned my dress, my moves, and the way I expressed it. Their poison tongues spit criticism like verses of righteousness. Sometimes it does more harm than good to have your flaws pointed out.
The way you looked at my success made me think for once that I didn’t deserve it. But the second time you looked at me made me want to do it again. To relive the moment, to do it again, to show them that I can do it.
The parallel universe I didn’t belong to eventually kept running away from me. At a point, I accepted I can never be a part of the groups. It was fairly because I didn’t want to miss out on the part of me no one saw. I wanted to protect my inner child from the poison. I knew I couldn’t control their naivety being a threat to my identity.
Epiphany hits me like an elephant walking on an empty road. The elephant’s tusks are ivory, the devil makes things shine. I have adorned myself with the best of me, my dreams, my passion, my belief. I have shielded every part of me from those who hate me. At the end of the day, it’s always the cliche, when will I have a happy ending? The race is long and there are far too many barriers they say, but when the sun sets and I see my eyes in the mirror I can say that it’s who I believe is true and no lies in disguise. Am I the sin that they, the devil, tell me? They talk about blasphemy when they are the ones trading tusks of ivory.
