Small cracks from within

In a corner of a small house, she lived.

It was 1 a.m. She was hunched up on the bed, breaking.

She did not cry because it's hot during nighttime in the summer.

She also did not cry because the electric company cuts their electricity randomly at night.

It's also not because her sweat was sticky.

She did not cry because of the tight space she lived in at home. 

She did not cry because she lived in the most crowded city under a busy bridge.

She bawled her eyes out that night. It had been months since she crawled onto that bed, looking for comfort. 

Before, it had been so intense for her that she felt the severity in her womanhood. 

She did not cry because of her worsening dysmenorrhoea.

She also did not break from vomiting all the time.

Earlier, she bought a lot of mefenamic acid to take the pain away.

She did not cry because her mother wouldn’t let her work at night because she could not sleep.

She’s not unhappy either from the stale bread she received–often having molds around them from neglect. 

She did not cry when, late at night, men in uniform came to extort money–they weren’t violent, they were just demanding 12% of her money.

She did not cry when she realized her parents are dehumanized, living to work for a capitalistic, cheap corporation.

She did not cry because she could not say what she needed to say.

She cried because she felt paralyzed. Paralyzed by the colorless artificial light, permanent fogs, and grey buildings that she saw everyday. She sometimes wonders who to blame for these unfortunate realities where all of it points to different causes, covering the tracks of the one responsible. 

She woke up the next day, forgetting the clarity and the devastating nature of what she had felt and what ran through her head. Still, she got up.

Written by Janna Mendoza