People admired the part of my body that I hated the most.
In the tall mirror, I looked at the reflection as I analyzed how every part of myself comprises who I am — a human. I realized that body parts know how to mask themselves from being seen. My skin is covered with the clothes and makeup that I wear to cover the scars that are drawn in every spot of my body. It can sometimes be sculpted anew later in life as my vision of who I am should be reliant on other people’s views. My mouth is an amplifier of my mind and heart that consists of words of intention that can sometimes be blurred or fabricated. As long as it is not spoken, it is filled with deceit. Some of these organs are what I’ve noticed myself as I am obligated to wear my mask at all times, most especially when I am around people.
Everything remains hidden until you look at one part of me that never hides my truth.
If I glance at my eyes, I avoid my sight to let the mirror reflect the only flaw of a perfect disguise that is sometimes visible to be seen. It is as if you are admiring a beautiful sculpture until you realize there is a dent that you can’t ignore. Your personal view is no longer the same way you recognized it once before, and all you can remember is that one imperfection that makes up everything about that piece. It was no longer art anymore; it was unfixed and broken. The mirror truly knows how to reflect that hatred upon me. No wonder why my vision of self-love is distorted. Every time I look in the mirror, I notice the black circles and the bloodshot red marks that are both surrounded and marked on my eyes. The hidden turmoil I’ve masked started to crack gradually, but they shall never know what lies beneath these imperfections.
I hated my eyes because it has always reflected my shattered pieces. They reflect my vulnerability, and when everyone sees that, I am often left with ignorance. People don’t easily recognize the depths of what my eyes portray. It is as if a crying child is lost and is finding the presence of a mother in a big place of unfamiliarity, but people continue with their own business without recognizing what is happening with their surroundings. People have different paths and attend to their sufferings because they have to. I am well aware of taking account of my pain, but sometimes I’m still that little kid who longs for a mother’s embrace; but as I grew older, her presence was no longer existent because I learned to suffer on my own. Even when people try to look beneath the surface, they eventually slowly drift away. My eyes have been the most delicate part of me and once someone sees right through me, I break; but when the time comes that they leave me, I learn to build stronger walls than the previous one to protect myself from the risk of other people seeing me break down to leave me in the dust. Their reasons can be intentional or not, which hurts more because no matter the cause, its effects have left me consumed by fear of getting too close because I was naive to believe that I am finally understood.
Every day, I remind myself that I should’ve learned to expect less from others and accept the inevitable loss. The eyes of those who I love don’t always see me as an important value in their lives like how I see them as my lifeline. They don’t realize how their presence is what kept my heart beating despite how much life fucks me up in every agonizing way possible. Being left behind due to the circumstances of what time has set for us was like a paper cutting through its skin. Even if the cut was a minor accident, it stings and bleeds. It wasn’t their fault for leaving me behind because everything is where and when it is supposed to be. It was my mistake that I saw them as my universe while I was just a spec of matter in the fabric of space of their universe.
I don’t know when I will heal from this grief so I switched myself off to cover my fragile truth where I told myself that maybe I never will.
To be seen is to be understood — but does genuine understanding fade away when our time together is up? They’ve seen every crevice of my imperfections but I remind myself that they are not obligated to attend to help my visible cracks so I built a distance. When they dared to look into my eyes again, I kept building the wall higher and farther away from everyone until the darkness of my solitude consumed me. I started to disagree with the things they said. Sometimes it’s hard to think that whatever words they mean and say are true. Whenever they think that I’m as precious as a gem, I think of the opposite. Bittersweet as it seems, they are words that have become a blur of what it truly means to me. I couldn’t think of anything else but remember how their words used to make me feel loved. I shield myself to lessen the sore of what the scar does to me but as it remains hidden, agony remains. Every part of my body knew how to cover up except my eyes. It saw everything that unfolded but everything was so lonely to even have a glimpse of the glistening eyes I once had. Eventually, I became one with the shadows I’d feared for a long time until I realized that I was scared of people coming into my life to neglect me.
I kept my eyes closed for as long as I could until my capacity to look for the light and move forward was impossible.
The shadows of the walls I built surrounded me are what held me back. Every brick provides a strong structure as its cement binds it into an indestructible barrier between myself and everyone else. This is a testament to what I deserve from expecting others of what they are supposed to be in my life. There is no day when I don’t ask why I allowed them to look into my eyes as I break down in front of everyone I once loved; but this time I won’t show this side of me, not anymore. No matter how much they reach out from behind the wall and even if they try to scream my name multiple times, I will keep my eyes and mouth shut as I wallow in the darkness of the barrier between the people who try. If it meant for me to shatter the passion I once had for them and destroy every part of me that built my sense of self, I am willing to shelter myself from the fantasy of what I used to believe in.
The pain in my eyes that internalizes myself is what I deserve.
After every barrier I’ve built and finally succumbing to the barricade with my eyes shut, I was secure. No one will get to see right through the opaque brick wall, not like how my eyes would be as translucent once someone closely sees the imperfections I’ve hidden. No one will scream for my name to reach out for love, not like how my heart listened and poured out everything whenever they were at their lowest. Everything is certain with me and my eyes are shut in the dark. I have nothing to expect from myself but to sink into the fact that in this lifetime, I am nothing to anyone even if I made them my everything.
Maybe there was a part of me who accepted the darkness as my fate because that is what I thought I deserved; but as soon as my eyelids were shut, everything was different. The loneliness of my pit of darkness was not only empty but loud. It was a chaotic realm of what I saw myself in a constant state of every day I chose to exist. Irritating voices in my head will never stop screeching and my fists will start trembling in fear then gradually anger. I felt like I didn’t know who I was when I saw this part of me unfolding. The words that once comforted me have twisted and become the very weapon that used to destroy every limb of my body. No matter how much I shielded myself back then, my protection grew weaker as I deteriorated along with it. The steps I took forward turned into three steps back to what I’ve made out of myself but now I am far back from what I initially wanted to be. Everything else broken and unfixed about myself unfolded in front of me. It was as if I was slammed by the door in the prison of hell of my thoughts. It leaves me stuck in the darkness with my eyes shut as my body is stuck in isolation from the walls built around it. No matter how much I cried, no one will be there to listen and no matter how much I amplify my voice for help, no one will hear or bother to approach me.
My soul screams for solace while everything surrounding it suffers in silence.
Everything is still in place with the chaos rampaging every corner of what I know exists inside and out; this is truly a war. My eyes remain the one dreadful thing that continues to exist and is a part of myself. Time will only tell when I will finally realize that there will be someone who will stay behind the wall that I built even if they knew I would never show up. There might come a time when I finally break the wall to let others in again without the fear of losing them. Maybe one day someone will look into my eyes and genuinely understand that my eyes are worth loving and showing without the fear of masking myself. All of these are a blur to me which is not worth waiting for, but I still hope that time comes.
May the most hated part of myself be the most loved part of mine. May it be.