My Mind Whirs at 1Million Ideas Per Minute

i am brokenhearted.  you know how it feels like, being brokenhearted?  it’s as if your heart is being shred into one million tiny little pieces and each piece is dipped into a steaming bowl of salt.

my mother just told me i cannot go to school anymore.  i am too dumb to be in school, in the first place.  i am unlike my sister, mary anne.  mary anne is smart.  mary anne is pretty.  mary anne is charming.  mary anne doesn’t spill coffee on our father’s favorite suit.  mary anne this.  mary anne that.

i cannot be mary anne, i told her that already.  i am not smart nor pretty at all.  i can hardly get an 80 despite studying nonstop the whole semester.  my hair is dry, my skin is pale and pallid and my teachers don’t like me because i don’t talk in class.

“you are good for nothing,” my mother hissed one time i failed to perfect the valenciana.  “istupida ka gd.  indi ka na gani alam, indi ka pa gd kabalo magluto.  por dios, por santo melinda, what will become of you?”

“i am sorry i forgot the bell pepper and calauag mother, i thought it would make no difference if i don’t include them,” i tried to defend myself.

“tonta!”  

it wasn’t the first time of course my mother reprimanded me.  she finds some reason to scold me everyday, i am not exaggerating.  it’s either my dress wasn’t ironed properly or the coffee is cold already when i gave it to her or the chickens cackle too loud.  i don’t understand though why it should be my responsibility to make the chickens shut up.

but despite all of these, i love my mother.  at least, she still talks to me.  my father, on the other hand, doesn’t.  he stopped talking to me after that fateful day.  he doesn’t call me by my name.  i am his IT.  i don’t blame him.  i completely understand him that everytime i look at his old, soggy face, my heart bleeds.

i hear my mother’s annoying voice again.

“pray tell melinda, why can’t you be mary anne?  why can’t you bring home report cards with decent grades that will make us proud of you?”

“i can’t be mary anne, mother.  mary anne is dead.  and i am not.  so there’s no way for me to be her.”

that made my mother quiet.

christmas parties make her think of him.  they remind her of the time when he readily and valiantly fetched her from her christmas party just because she wants to go home.  and he was with his friends that time.  that made her think that perhaps, perhaps, she is special to him.

when he first kissed her, there wasn’t any fireworks.  there were no sparks, she must admit.  but it felt so good that she was laughing and crying at the same time.  his hands are soft, so unlike the callous man she thought she knew.

he is the only man who made her fall in and out of love in a span of 30 seconds.  he is funny, he is smart, he is so damn lovable.  but why can’t they be together?

she still cries when she thinks of him.   they will never be together now.  she will never see him again.  ever.