Blackseraphine

 I learned not to ask. Not to expect more. Not to want more. Even now.

Never bad enough to be considered evil. Never hurt enough to be... Am I being emotionally abused? I asked the void, but I only heard echoes.

Sometimes I tell. Again, echoes.

Where do I turn to?

I was told. The problem was me. It had always been me. I wasn't meant to ask. I wasn't meant to expect more. I wasn't meant to want more.

I was meant to be an extra limb. An extension of their selves. A puppet on a string. But maybe that last one was too harsh. There are people who are worse off than me. 

But they tried, no? At least my sister did. To supress me. Her words echoed "Ayaw mo sakin? Ayoko rin sayo, ang hirap mo pasunurin." As if that's what I was meant to do. To do her bidding. And not being able to was my failure.

Yeah. It's my failure. I've been too sensitive.

My mother and sister were talking the other day and my sister asked what she got from my father. And then she asked what I got from my father. My mother joked that it was my arm. (My fucked up arms). My skintone. And my smarts. I wanted to laugh. It was my first time hearing that.

Didn't you call me dumb back then when I was trying to teach you how to use a digital camera? But that's right. I had to be understanding. You were uncomfortable and embarrassed. You also called me dumb when you got mad at me another time. And during my college years, one time you sarcastically told me "Tingin mo ba matalino ka?" It was a nothing question to you. I asked you why you had to say that. And you said so flippantly that I used to at least get a merit when I was a child. You honestly don't see anything wrong with what you said. But I was struggling so badly at that time and those words crushed me. My will was as delicate as a feather.

Yes, it was my fault. I was too sensitive.

There are people who heard worse things. Endured worse things. I'm not even an achiever. Just too sensitive to function correctly.

Never even asked if I was graduating. Sometimes I had thought maybe that's their way of understanding. To leave me alone and not ask. But why leave me alone in the things that mattered and always had something to say in other things?

When I was a child, they brought me to a doctor to ask about my arms. Surgery was suggested to correct it but only when I was old enough. That time came and parents never brought it up so I asked. And my mother said it wasn't dangerous anyway. And my young mind thought my mother was fearful because she loved me. But in the past years I thought if it was true. Or was she fearful because she was afraid of loss? Because those are different things. 

Did they even consider for a moment, to want the best for me? I don't think they ever dreamed such a thing.