But Under the Surface It's 6th Period. One more period until you can go home. One more period until you can finally get the rest you have been lacking for so long. A low buzz envelops your ears, and a daze settles over you as the teacher finishes explaining the math formula. By the time you open your eyes again, the class is chattering and loud, as usual. But the time on the clock is twenty minutes from when you could last recall. You take a pass to go to the bathroom and take a step out of the classroom and into the hall, sighing as you finally hear peaceful quiet in the hall. You step into the bathroom, and take a look in the mirror. Tangled, wiry hair. Acne-ridden, damaged A shirt with the school’s logo on it. Black, baggy pants to hide the scars on your knees from falling one too many times. Blotches under your eyes which you dismiss saying that it’s just smudged mascara. It’s not. It’s exhaustion. You know it is. You just refuse to admit it. You sigh and rub your temple, itch your scalp. One of the stalls behind you opens. And out walks Stella, lip gloss smudged, hair pulled up in a messy bun. She’s the leader of the cheerleading team, and a competitive dancer. She’s perfect. Or so you think. But under the surface, She’s anything but perfect. Never enough for her rule-abiding mother, Never enough for her dying father. She can’t even go to lunch everyday without assessing it as a threat, Forced to count her calories, Forced to starve, Because beauty is pain, And it always comes with one meal a day. You and her lock eyes, Pause, And just look at each other. Like two schoolgirls fighting the same war. Two people suffering the same condition. She blinks, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, adjusting her bun. You blink and brush off your jeans, rub the drowsiness from your eyes. The moment is over as soon as it started, and it’s all back the way it was. You return to class shortly, and sit back down at your desk. You and Stella don’t make eye contact again for the rest of the day. Because you’re too afraid to acknowledge the connection between you and her. And so is she. The bell rings for 7th period. You sling your bag over your shoulder and open the door, beelining around other people to get to your locker. You trudge down the hall and unlock the lock to your locker. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Troy. He’s known throughout the school for being cruel. The bully, the coward, the fool. The ‘give me your lunch money, kiddo’ kid. But under the surface, He’s just trying to feel better. Trying to take out his anger on others, To hurt them, to yell at them. Because once he gets home, he knows he’s not so tough anymore. His father hurts him. Lash marks across his back. Belt scars over his chest. Bruises, bumps, cuts. His father yells at him. ‘You’re useless.’ ‘I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it.’ ‘Stop crying before I give you a reason to.’ ‘Suck it up.’ He’s just trying to protect himself. Because he was hurt before. Betrayed before. And he refuses to let it happen again. He refuses to be weak again. You grab your books out of your locker, and squeeze through the throng of students around the doors to get to your last period. You get inside, and let out a sigh, because you’re finally alone. Or so you think. The nice girl, Maya, sits on a desk nearby, waiting for the teacher to enter the class. You’re best friends with Maya. Have been since 3rd grade. And you’re in seventh grade now. She looks to you, tilts her head, her sloppily assembled ponytail swaying sideways with the motion. “Bad day?” She inquires, eyebrows furrowed as she takes in your expression. You shrug, set down your backpack. “It’s always a bad day around here.” But it’s true. Just not to you. Because under the surface, Every day, When Maya gets home from school, She comes home to her siblings and struggling parents. two siblings. One of them a toddler, The other ten years old but severely disabled with the disability of being unable to speak, nonverbal. Some call him blessed, some call him cursed. He doesn’t care, Partially because his autism prevents him from understanding people, like a barrier, A wall blocking him off from the real world. A dam halting the flow of his social murkiness. A forcefield holding him back from the rest of the world. She’s forced to be perfect, Smart, Kind, Athletic, Just to provide for the family when she grows up. Her dreams of being a singer, A poet, Healing the world with her words, With her art, With her melodies, Demolished. She has to be a doctor, A software engineer, Anything that gets a high pay. Because is anything else, How would she help her family survive? What about her siblings? What about her brother? What about her future? Her future. Her future is a cracked glass cacophony of unanswered questions and answers yet to come. But to the rest of the world? She’s a sweet kid. A sensitive kid. The one who’s known to put her heart on her sleeve.
(+) (scroll down) The one who doesn’t hide their emotions. Doesn’t even try. The gentle giant. The 5’7 teenage girl of who’s kindness and empathy is to be taken for granted by anyone and everyone else. The one who cries at the death of someone she never knew. She’s the one openly sobbing at a funeral, One who’s emotions are as big as she is. The kind girl. The tall girl. The sensitive girl. The gentle giant. It’s the end of class, and you exit the classroom to leave the school. You step down the stairs, Wave goodbye to Maya, Avoid glancing at Stella, Give Hunter a wide walkway space. On the way home, you spot a throng of students chortling and making fun of someone. “Look at this guy,” one of them snorts. “He looks like a zombie,” Another giggles. “What happened?” Another asks, voice dripping in false sympathy. That someone is a tall man, who is currently sitting down at a bench, reading a book. He looks undeterred. But under the surface, Something in him breaks. Not sadness. Anger. Anger because of all he went through. Because of how hard he’s fought. Because of how much he’s lost. His arm. His leg. His eye. His humanity. His sympathy. Almost his life, in scenarios when his survival was bordering on the point of a knife. He fought for this country, A country who wouldn’t accept him for who he is. A country who resents him for his skin color. A country that has labeled him foreign along with many others. A country that will never understand how much he sacrificed to be here. He moved around with his head bowed in the streets, Eyes lowered onto the ground as he walked past the whispering crowds. The crowds that whispered about His arm, which he lost saving another man on the battlefield of war, Who is endlessly grateful. But now the crowds laugh and jeer at him. The Robot-Man. His leg, which he lost in a trench when a bomb exploded. Which he hadn’t thought he would live through. Which his brother sat at his bedside praying that when he wake up, He be respected. For the lives he saved. For the helping hands he assisted. For the souls he healed. But now the crowds whisper and travel, Giving him a wide birth in the worst possible way, Of pity, The Crippled Man. His eye, which took a bullet not meant for him. The milky stillness in his eye which sees nothing but has seen everything. Explosions, Death, Blood, Tears, Bullets, People who died too young. But now, all they see is the false sympathy in their eyes as they ask him if he needs any help, At the slurs they say behind his back once he’s turned. The Blind Man. But now he sits on the bench, His prosthetic fingers flipping the page of the book he’s reading, The book that hides the anger in his eyes, The book that conceals the single tear that slips down his cheek. You manage to catch his eye, and his eyelids widen slightly with recognition. You’ve seen him before. One time, in the alley behind the grocery mart, the same throng of students was making fun of him, Pushing him around, Jeering at him. And he let himself be mistreated, Because if he fought back, He’d be the one behind bars. The one who fought for this country, Being harassed by little children no less than half his height. You walked in. You saw the children mocking him for his arm. You fought for him. You yelled at the kids who laughed at him. You helped him in a way nobody else did for a very long time. And now, His eye crinkles into a soft, recognizable smile. His hand lifts in a small wave. The children surrounding him turn to look who he was waving to. It turns out to be you. On your way home, you walk past many houses with lights lit, Each telling their own story. Each holding their own problems. Their own pain. Their own scars. Everyone shows their pain differently. Whether it be small, tired smiles, Or acting tough to not be deemed weak. Whether it be pretending to be perfect, To scars peppering your skin. Whether it be feeling happy to help others more than yourself, Or feeling angry because you did so and never got the same back. So be kind. Be kind to Stella, the perfect princess perceived poorly from her particularly painstaking parent’s perspective. Be kind to Troy, the cruel crucifier who conceals his core competencies in conflicted compliance. Be kind to Maya, the emotional over-exceeder that exerts themselves to every expectation engaged. Be kind to Singh, the soldier who sacrificed his sight and sought submission in this society that shuns him straightaway by his skin being similar to swarthy sienna. Be kind. Not because the world is gentle, But because it isn’t.
