Flowing Rhythm

1

I don't know why I'm so unlucky today. Papa is forcing me to introduce myself to his friends. I mean, I avoid "introduce yourself!" at school, so why would I want to do it in my own house? Like, what am I supposed to say?

"Roella is my only hope in life. I'm just waiting for her to graduate, and life will finally start getting better," Papa told his friends. I gave them a fake smile—I felt like a tomato being sautéed in a pan.

"Exactly, you've been raising her alone for so long," Tito chimed in, and Papa grinned. I quietly sat on the side, avoiding eye contact so they wouldn't talk to me anymore.

"How old are you, hija?" one of their companions asked.

"Seventeen," I answered shortly. He just nodded and smiled at me.

I was getting sleepy listening to their stories, so I went to my room once they were tipsy. I didn't know how to let out what I was feeling. I have this thing—whenever I feel something unusual, I write it as a poem. I don't do it often since I rarely feel uncomfortable.

Empty
Waiting for the stars to hear me
Broken heart, now I see
Pressure is up on me
They're waiting for me to succeed
Wake me up in the morning
When everything is shining
Gotta start believing
In the dream, I want to be in

That's as far as I got. I never seem to finish any poem I write. I tried combining some of my drafts into one, but they didn't fit—the meanings didn't align.

I'm scared of finishing it. I feel like the result won't be good, and it's not like this is a job I'm required to finish. I just do it whenever I want to. I sometimes share them on my Twitter account, and that's how I got my followers.

My followers always say they can relate to my poems and beg me to post more often. But I can't give them that, because I'm scared of failure... What if someone dislikes one of my poems and bashes me?

But again, it's not that big of a deal for me. I charged my phone and slept peacefully because Papa was finally asleep. Tomorrow's Saturday, and Lexi and I don't have any plans to hang out, so I'm just staying home, not that I have a choice. Papa made me clean up the mess they left last night. Tito is also leaving today, so I was in a pretty good mood even though I was tired from cleaning.

A whole month passed by quickly because I didn't pay attention to them.

"Hurry up, there's still a lot of mess here!" Papa shouted at me. I secretly rolled my eyes.

Funny how he said nice things about me to his friends last night, but he treats me like a slave. If I had a sibling, I'd be ordering them to do all this instead.

I finished cleaning around three in the afternoon, and I only stopped when my phone rang. I put away the cleaning stuff and sat on the couch to check the notification.

It was from Twitter—a comment, I think... I clicked the notification, and it took me straight to the comment section.

Lennon De Chavez @lemonDC 35s
so sour

veveezc @violetcruz 22h
You never disappoint us

Maria Rose @mariapaula 22h
surreal

uhm... okay...

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but... is he stalking me??? It's impossible for my post to randomly appear on his feed—we don't even follow each other. We don't even have mutual friends!

It's kind of awkward because I think he's the first person to ever leave a negative comment on one of my poem tweets. I'll just lie to myself and say I'm okay with it. I'll take it as a challenge, but I won't entertain it.