Demarcation

Who pronounces it? 

I knew I have to draw the line when we have a pandemic going on and our world became limited to family members we live with at home.  We were on a total lock down for the first time in this lifetime.  It was horrible!  The world we knew had to change.  For the first time in our lives, we had to cross out social interactions in our vocabulary.  We have to get locked up because there is a deadly virus on a killing spree.  After 2 months of a total lock down, finally, traveling to the next town was allowed.  I live with my family.  That's my mom, my dad, my brother and my youngest sister.  You can imagine how we get excited to travel in the next big town after a total lock down.  I get a call from my cousin and he's questioning me why I didn't come with them.  My younger brother and my youngest sister, whom I live with here at home drove to Tagaytay and left me behind.  They picked up my cousin in Cavite, brought some booze with them and had some crazy fun.  Then, my cousin complained at me that I didn't come because he also wanted to spend time with me.  Imagine my heartbreak.  There's a pandemic and we're in a lock down.  There was no work allowed and no establishments were allowed to operate.  Where in the world would I be in a total lock down?  My brother and sister, who lives in the same house as me, decided to go on a road trip without me.  

 

How horrible can that be?  

 

Who would do such a horrible thing?

 

How horrible am I that I deserved to be a pariah? 

When the only thing that connects us both is cannabis and you would tell me you already quit.  But then our source would ask me if I would want to grab some too so he could bring it to us both at one time coz you just hollered at him to get your stash.

 

When you are consistent in shooting nasty messages damaging enough to make me want to kill myself.  The messages that come from your pristine mouth are the worst messages I can ever receive in my lifetime.  I can't imagine someone with your fragile face and personality have the capacity to ruin another to the point that I want to just combust and disappear to nothingness.  I follow you on Instagram.  I see your fresh face all made up looking nice and sweet with all the beauty of life that the world can bring you showcased like candy.  Sometimes I imagine posting all the messages you sent me as a comment.

You are the very reason why one would go to an asylum.  You make my worst nightmares into a reality.  I don't even know how you can do that and how come you don't realize how damaging you are to another.  We were taught to foster hope in times of despair but you just verbalize all the worst possibilities with so much hate in you that it's murderous!  I've told you this before and I'll tell you again.  Be careful of the things that you say because more often than not, you're drinking someone else's blood.  Yes, there were so many times that I wished I never had been born because I felt so miserable being your younger sister.  But Thank God I don't have any suicidal tendencies.  Through the years, I guess I outgrew feeling miserable as your younger sister.

I'm your sister-your family.  We're supposed to be the same blood.  How can you be such a monster that you don't even realize the gravity of damage you have done to my totality that it changed me and made me who I am today.  I guess part of me is thankful because I wouldn't have this kind of resilience to harshness if it weren't for you.  I bore the fruit of your training since our childhood days.  Thank you.  You and mum are the reason why and how I identify myself so much with black people.  Black people are identified as the bad people when they're not even doing anything evil.  I have identified myself with them thru their music growing up.  I feel them.  I am them. 

 

Thank God I don't have any suicidal tendencies.  I thank God because I am a strong person that I am able to pull myself together in this atrocity.  The pain already numbed me but what's worse is, I feel empty with what this family is doing to me.  I feel like a house without a foundation or like a stump without the backbones.  There is a void and I'm in abyss.  I thank God that I don't have any suicidal tendencies because anyone who would be in my shoe would wish to just die than to go thru this whole bullshit.  

 

I don't even get it.  What's your point? 

What are you expecting to happen after all these?

For the life of me, I don't remember ever portraying myself as the good girl.  I was never the good girl and I never really pretended to be one.  Not even once.  So I don't get what all the finger-pointing drama is for.  Kinda redundant isn't it?  I was never in denial.

Oh you still want me to change into something I'm not after all these years?  After you've branded me as the villain of the millennium, you expect me to transform and submit?  Growing up, I've always identified myself as the existential black sheep and the root of all evil.  I don't even take offense.

Tell you what.  What if we make a deal and I'd commit to change only if you do too?

That was a rhetorical question.  Pardon my rhetorics for some truths do create a deafening sound like a reverberating silence.  I'd rather stir up a blur to the scarring lines to make it bearable to see.  I'd choose to stay in obscurity than bear the pains of the harsh truth.  Come to think of it.  At the very least, I'm not pointing fingers.

My instincts are telling me that there will be no turning back on your end.  You are so determined to put me to the edge of life, make me stand up on my toes until I jump to oblivion.  You have so much hate towards me when I don't even have the energy to fight back.  I can't even keep a job because of this stupid mild cognitive impairment I have.  You expect me to still pay attention to all the hate you all throw at me?  I'd rather make money and pay all the debts I have and all the debts I will have to make in order for me to enjoy life and survive this wicked world I live in.  

 

Have you forgotten how we were raised?  Growing up I had been strong because I get my energy from family.  We had such great bonding and memories over the years.  Our parents raised us that way.  How can you not consider how it kills me now that you have ostracized me to the point of no return.  Like I'm someone invisible that you don't see, someone who is deaf who doesn't hear you and someone who is blind who doesn't see you.  How can you not see how it's killing me?

It's killing me that you don't see when everybody else around us does.  I don't even need to explain myself to friends and to relatives.  They just see it and they get it.

 

I don't get where all the hate is coming from.  It's exhausting.  

Every waking moment I ask God for mercy that He may remove me from this hell on earth I am living.  

When will this be over?

 

Now I get it why some people commit suicide.  The hopeless feeling that one can get is horrible.  People who go thru some real depressing predicaments that merit loneliness and despair like this one that I'm going thru are really being tested.  It's nerve-racking and disturbing enough that anyone would do anything to get out of the horrible feeling.  But I'm in the right state of mind and I'm strong enough to fight it.  There are people who don't even go thru depressing predicaments but are feeling horrible for no reason.  Yes, it happens.  I know it because I've been thru it.  I was on medications for more than 3 years and it was horrible.  I'd rather think that I am the problem than to face the fact that I'm not.  I was in denial but only the truth can set us free.  

 

Demarcation is my survival.  When I had acne vulgaris due to stress in 2015 and 2020, it was horrible. 

 

Demarcation is my survival.  I pronounce it now that I have stress-free, clear skin.  Because of self-awareness, I managed to rise from the culprit and accept the bitter reality of my life, change only what I can and gain the wisdom to know the difference.

 

You pronounced demarcation but now I say demarcation is my survival.

Avoidance is not all the time a sign of weakness.  It's a sign of wisdom.

I hope someday, somehow, these things I write will help someone and would give them the courage to fight.  Life is hard and I want the horror to end.  But the horror is persistent and I have to live it.  I can't do anything else but to live life even though every waking moment of my life burns.

I count my blessings but the pains, they don't go away.  They linger and I linger but I choose to keep the faith.  

 

Demarcation is my survival.  

 

For now.