this is how you live

in class, i sit next to a great vast window. not as much glass to me than as a locked portal. but i’m grateful i am so close to the window, this open world of green splashes of leaves and little buds of flowers peeking through, with the sun bouncing off leaves so happily. it helps me. it is constantly calling, soothing, especially when my world is not. it’s a constant reminder that there is something out there. something just like me. 195 countries. 8 billion people. countless days. and deep within me i know, something will be mine. 

at least hopefully.   

i have created a to-do list.

first, realize you are a real person.

second, realize everyone else is real. realize, everything is real.

third, ponder over reality. the dream i had last night, the group of friends i saw at the train station, the thoughts that blew into my head, getting tangled and then unknotting themselves just as easily, what is real and if so why, and if so who said so, and if so what am i even talking about?

it isn’t a perfect list.

i haven’t completed this list either. i’m still kind of stuck on number one.

when you ask my friends who i am, they respond along the variations of “she’s cool,” and “shes so nice!” it kind of irks me. 

even though i’ve spent my entire life of a decade and a half working for these words, even though a few years ago i would have been grateful to just be described by another person. even though i know i am those words. 

it is just curious to me what these adjectives even mean. four letters, sprinkled with two vowels, covering their meaning of just, plain, easily, stupidly: boring. 

but i know deep down when i move on to the next phase of this life, when i get new friends to wonder if they’re fit for being a bridesmaid, call a new city my home in all those social media bios, have new adjectives string to the mention of my name, that i will still find this boring.

this is what happens.

i would climb across the mountains, swim over oceans, go against knights and slay dragons with bare fists, screaming, “i want to be happy!” 

and my wishes are thrown across the canvas of a sky; they are fulfilled within months and caressed warmly in my arms, until i run off on top of another hill, yearning to the world with all my heart.

oh world, let me have everything!

and after everything tumbles into my desperate arms, i only sigh and ask for the world to take everything back.

i am so simple, so miserable, and so painfully boring i barely register myself as a body. a body with veins and a healthy brain, with a pumping heart roaring a beat every day. so many organs with so many things, too many things–it can’t possibly squish together into me, and if it did then why, why even with all these cells of life and tools of living shoved inside my soul, can i still not stay happy.

to be honest, i feel the world is scared of me. even the sun and its rays.

its so obviously summer outside. the sun tumbles into the sky everyday, blazing, as if squeezing every bit of life into her marigold rays. but i can sort of understand how she can hang there for so long that bright. people are happier with her watching down at us, and in return i think she’s also happy to be doing something. i sometimes wish i was her. 

we were doing icebreakers in class. school had just barely started yet i could tell nobody had dug up the energy to care in their studies. fashionable skirts and a shiny mask of makeup were tossed out as easily as they had arrived; replaced by hateful stares targeted at the floor and stained hoodies. 

i keep looking out the window, as my tablemates let out reluctant names of the places they traveled to over break, so many cities the roof of too many stories, said like something stupid, something embarrassing out of the corner of one’s mouth. 

“melbourne.” “venice.” “shanghai.” one ear, the other ear.

we move onto our hobbies, our likes, our dislikes, our families, all hesitantly. each answer is followed by an uncomfortable nod of disinterest, along with our collective gazes all targeting the next person.

“two brothers and a pug.” “oh, i like to draw, uh sometimes, yeah.” “i don’t have a favorite song.” “i don’t really like swimming.” “my favorite food? um.” “no i don’t.” “yes i do.” “same as she said.”

it occurs to me suddenly, as my classmates try to go through these terribly awkward conversations, i have been lying. everytime three sets of eyes land on me. everytime my mouth opens. i didn’t even go on vacation. i don’t even have siblings. 

the bell rings. the rustle of footsteps and hastily zipped backpacks, although loud, only brush my ears slightly. but i am in a trance because i gather my things just as urgently, and run out the door. when my feet hit the hardwood floor i cant even feel it, cant even hear the sound of sneakers. 

the sunshine greets me with its warm rays when i run outside. i hate it. it’s sickening. its fake. it makes it hard to breathe; there are words, words from the sky, that dig through my ears and into my lungs and down to my heart, weighing it down, sinking it lower and lower, twisting around my voice, air evaporating. i run under a tree, trying to hide in the shade, my chest a rattle. yet a whisper of sun still shivers on my skin. 

i already know i’m going to cry even before the tears have reached the brim of my eyes. it’s a slight burn of the nose and a light wash of gloom that hangs over the vision. but this crying is different. not the crying done stuffed into my pillow, lingered with wails and complaints to nobody but soulless stuffed animals. and not even the rare drops that squeeze past firmly shut eyes, a red face, a whisper under the breath praying to stop, stop crying right now. it almost feels like this is what crying is supposed to be.

crying, like the end of the world is at my fingertips.

crying, like a drum, a rhythm i must follow.

crying, like a chain on my neck, yet a cool breeze, crying like escape, like relief, crying like hell, like heaven, like ugly tears sliding on my tongue and the aftermath of rosy cheeks. crying, like all the pages, falling down bikes, getting bad grades, to college, to marriage, to death. crying like i was put on this earth solely to cry. 

this is my world. this is reality. these are the adjectives that hang on my name.

 crying, crying, crying.

ugly snot, fogged vision, red cheeks. but i scream, i scream up to the sky louder than i have ever begged the world before, keep crying, keep crying. crying is what keeps me alive. 

because perhaps a messy to-do list i have once written in the columns of notebooks and edges of post its, perhaps steps i have re-scrawled over and over are checked. perhaps with every heave of my chest there is a piece of me that sighs, that bathes in tears and soaks up light. light? or anything? certainly something; though i can barely tell if it is stinging my heart or hugging it gently.  

i know in a few days, shame will drape over me terribly. there will be flushed cheeks and awkward laughs. but right now, i am real. my tears are wet on my sticky face, the air is fresh and flowers float in the wind, humming a sorrowful song. and more than all my heart beats loud, alive, electrifying. 

this is what life feels like, with tears.

it starts raining. dollops at first. then a waterfall of sobbing. harsh currents of wind start whining. i reach my hand out carefully, stepping from underneath the tree. sure enough, a small pond of water forms in my palm. 

as real as the sun.