We have those thoughts, don’t we? I mean, not all, but some. Others act on it, while a few can’t seem to find the courage. She is one of those…
This is her story, it may seem trivial but it’s a story of a girl who lost herself. In search for a purpose that she cannot seem to grasp no matter what she does. How she teeters on the edge trying to hold on but when it piles, it really is hard to get out of.
It started when she was young, it’s weird how she can remember bits and pieces of her memory. Usually, we often forget our memories during childhood, she did too, but she also remembers most of them. Like how her mother’s embrace smells so creamy, flowery and sweet, how the powdered grape juice tasted so sweet and tangy on her tongue and how a cartoon can stimulate her dreams— to form stories, friends and the like.
As a kid, she had inclinations to playing toys that boys like. It might be due to the influence of her father, but mostly due to how those toys work. She liked to touch tools like screwdrivers and drills. She’d catch frogs with the neighborhood boys after the rain. She would build tamiyas and have a race with her RC cars. But most of all, she hated barbie dolls.
As young as 5 years old, she was already bullied. When she was young she hadn’t thought so since she doesn't have a reference of “bullying”. And kids, kids are very cruel without their parents’ guidance. But no one was at fault, no. It was just kids, being kids.
It only made sense to her when she got older. She remembered when her mother would leave her in the playground with the other kids, and she would be constantly pushed off from the slides, swings and had her fingers almost squashed by the seesaw. She had wounds, bruises, but her mother chucked it up to her lotus feet which was disproportionate to her body, leading her to keep falling down, thus the wounds and bruises.
The bullying was so constant to a point where she didn’t want to leave the house. But staying in the house would garner her mother’s ire and her mother had a disposition to hurt her when she misbehaves, pinch her in her inner thighs or the underside of her upper arms. Parts of the body where bruises— blood clotting under the skin could be hidden. Sometimes, blood spills from the cuts from her mother’s nails so it helps that it’s hidden. She was a naughty girl, she was aloof, blunt and often sarcastic. She also picks up bad words fast so one can understand her mother’s frustrations. Was it so bad though?
As a young girl, one wouldn’t have thought of dying or killing themselves. It was a very out-of-reach knowledge and a concept that a kid wouldn’t understand. So, everytime she felt cornered by all the pain and ridicule of being called “stupid” and cursed at every mistake she makes, she resorted to running away. Although she didn’t have the courage to do it, she was always preparing for it. Every month she would write a letter, pack the pink barbie bag that she liked: because of the green gel-like line under the name “Barbie”. Her mother would then always find out though and finding either the letter or the bag would get her a beating with a stick. Sometimes her mother would get a branch of a tree with a bit of leaves to give her more pain. Every hit would feel like a whip with thorns and would leave bloody cuts on her skin. Her mother would avoid any places that can be seen so it’s always on her bare bottom. When her father finds the letters though, on the rare occasions that he’s home, he would comfort her. Truly a rare thing that can be counted on one hand.
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It was a tragic memory, yes. There are good times as well. Like this one birthday during the new years, her father bought a firework called “Judas’s belt” which she laid out in the long quiet street of their subdivision and lit up for long consecutive explosions like that of a machine gun. But as we all know, those times don’t last. When she started school, her mother’s beating was lessened. Because the nursery school teacher would see it. A five year old kid would often make a mess and surely, it’s often the kind of mess that requires a bath. The school baths saved her from the constant beating, however, it didn’t stop anyone from bullying her.
It was jealousy. Even though she was called “stupid” her whole life, she was indeed quite smart, smart enought to skip grades and smart people often hangs out with smart people. Since it was something they have in common, even though she was young, she made friends with a high school student. A boy and a girl recently moved in the neighborhood and the girl studies in one of the prestigious schools with pink skirts while the other in one of those posh all boys schools. They seemed like a higher being to the neighborhood kids, they were well-off and they were pretty. Those who bullied her from the playground took a fancy to them while they took a fancy to the little girl. She was smart and she liked to build tamiyas so they often played. She would build their tracks in siblings’ house so she could escape her angry mother. The neighborhood kids didn’t take this well, and would often result in locking her up. It’s often in the gates that blocks the stairs down the creek. They would take her there saying they would catch frogs but would always end up getting locked up behind the barbed wire gate. Leaving her there until her mother came to find her with the whip-like branch. Here, she learned how to stress-eat. She particularly loved the fat part in fried pork and powdered milk over rice.
Still, she was able to fight back. It took her a year, but as they say, a cornered rat will bite the cat. She took matters into her own hands, or in this case, her fists. She showed her tomboyish tendencies earlier on with her choice of toys, but who would’ve thought she could punch as well. Although this earned her a scolding in the principal’s office, the principal was kind enough not to let her mother know. Maybe her sweet teacher knew about the beatings.
After distancing herself from the well-off siblings, god seemed to have heard her pleas in front of the mirror and she was granted a baby brother. She loved that baby brother, he resembled her mom. He was so handsome, aside from the time where he was wrinkly and ugly, he was handsome. He had milky-white skin, translucent hazel eyes, long eyelashes and soft brown hair that glowed golden under the sun. He was thin compared to her when she was an infant but he was handsome, beautiful even. Now she had a playmate.
Soon her life in that town would come to a close, when she was exposed to a knife-fight between her mother and father. It wasn’t really a knife as much as it was a utility swiss knife. It was a red one with a key ring attached to some keys. Her father was grappling her mother trying to stop her mother from stabbing him with the small utility knife. With suitcases packed and with her pink short dungarees that she settled against a purple flowery dress, she was sitting in the bed right beside her dad who was pushed down by her mother with the utility knife right on his forehead. Her mom was fuming, eyes red with anger, tears flowing and with a vein almost ready to pop right on the side of her head. Her dad lied on the bed grasping her mother’s hands that held the knife, trying to stop her from possibly stabbing him on his sun-kissed forehead.
That very same day, they took a boat with her little brother back to the countryside. And here in the countryside where she spent most of her sad youth, she would be always asked: “Why do you hate pink so much?"