The Lies We Live

chances

My grandma says that one human understanding another is a miracle in itself. I see where she's coming from, but I always believed that miracles had very little to do with humans. Miracles occur when things are brought together by sheer force of will. They do not occur naturally. And that it occurs on large scales. Asteroids colliding, and galaxies just starting to form. Its the ripple effect that we experience here on earth.

But humans are silly because we always assume that the ripples originate from us. And perhaps miracles and understanding have nothing to do with our lives; it is simply luck. The probability that you find yourself with good parents and money in the bank. The likelihood of being likeable.

Because we do not get to choose whether our parents love each other, or their salaries, or jobs. The world decided that for us. People take one look at us, and somehow that determines the fate of our lives. People see failure in baggy clothes and dirt stained fabrics. They see success in arrogant personas and arrogant talk. And they are the ones who handpick all the winners in this game.

Our skin colours simply exist to give a brief history of our pasts. Yes, I am brown and my parents used to be poor. But the world favoured them. Signed their immigration papers and gave them jobs. But there are still cousins and friends who didn't get lucky. Because they still live in the dumps and feel an eternal resentment for the lives they were given.

By no fault of their own, some children live in community housing and some live in the suburbs. The worst part is, that those kids have to grow up only to realize that they are less somehow. How unfair is it make people feel terrible for all the things that they can never do anything about?

It's probably why I feel so pathetic crying about my problems, and my pain, because the world has made me believe that my pain is not valid. It ceases to exist solely because of all the good things I have. As if the good eliminates the bad somehow. And I wish, more than anything, that this was true.

I can't be upset about my mother's illness because we have a nice house. I shouldn't feel alone because my dad has a steady salary. How can a building replace sickness, and how can money replace friends?

The fact of the matter is, it can't. When you don't have to worry about next week's groceries, it gives you a lot of time to think about other things. F*ucked up things that I don't wanna think about.

Like why am I here exactly? I live life with no aims in mind, except for the fact that one day I might somehow integrate into the well-oiled machine called society. Working my 9 to 5, surrounded by small talk, an imitation of the american dream. How terrifying to think that I am only preparing myself for mediocrity.

Because I still dream. Of perfect moments, and stories that sometimes become real life. The truth is, I'm not okay with what's happening in Palestine, or Pakistan, or Sudan, or Ghaza, or India, or Syria. 

Young woman and girls are violated every day. Their rights are taken away, and it's hard not to imagine myself in their positions. I don't believe I could ever fathom the strength they have. To be both a woman and broken at the same time. And it will keep happening because courtrooms let rapists walk free, and no one says a word about it. Places like these are dangerous, because they enable these atrocities, and take the blame off the monsters who do it and place it on the victims. I'm done listening to 'She deserved it. Look at what she was wearing.'

And I know we hear about the school shootings in America, but what about the rest of the world, where it's a daily norm, and not just a weekly occurrence. Who will advocate for those children? No one, I guess. But when innocent lives are held at gunpoint, it shouldn't matter who they are, or where they live; they don't deserve to be treated like this. 

I think maybe some things happen by chance. But luck is a stupid thing that doesn't know what it's doing. I think about these things until all the air turns foul in my lungs, and I can't breathe. I want to protect these people because the universe didn't favour; they favoured me. And somehow I feel like I owe it to the world to restore the balance. 

I want nothing more than to stand between them and their evils, because even from thousands of miles away, I can almost feel the fear they feel.