I believed myself to be
but then it changed so quickly

You found so many other
beautiful ones

I guess you thought I was unique
But it was just that you weren’t looking around

Toss me back into the sea
You should have never picked me up

The gurgling of the heart
Is absent
The shortness of breath
Is absent

Yet I feel it
By not feeling it

This is new
And I welcome it
Quietly…
Like it has always been there

My body is in the air

But I’m still waiting

I think

I want to let go

I speak

As if I know

But my toes are still on the ledge

I don’t even know how they’re holding me

Even though I want to be glad

I know I can’t let go of me

What I can achieve

If it’s easy for you

To shove it aside?

I have to tell you

How hard it was

I have to show you

The struggle that was

I have to live it

I have to show it

Where else do I live if not in your eyes?

The one I wanted to impress

I thought

I was above you, no less

But now

I see that you I want to be

And I’m

Left to face the real me

that I want you to believe

is ironic

Because it’s what I’ve achieved

After years of breaking myself down

and looking forward to a new being

I refuse it right in the eye

because to the old I duly cling

How can I blame

this arduous gain

for it’s exactly what I had wished for

How could I see

this wish inside me

is not what I wanted at all?

How could you let me
pursue my curiousity
knowing that there would be
this vicious cycle
that robs me of myself

No, you didn’t know
How could you know?
My mind is my own and noone else’s

Yet I still lament about
that innocence
that peace
Those little treasures I could not recognise

I wish I knew that day
That things
could be different

Did you know
that you gave too much space for me?
I knew
from the way you look at me

You let me be myself too much
Consoling my guilt with your touch

But now you are no more
And I’m alone with my guilt

building sand castles on this beach

I’m tired of

being fascinated with building grandeur on a whim

I’m tired of

paying attention to every stroke on this castle

I’m tired of

brushing off thoughts that the castle will not be there tomorrow

while I admire

the perfection

that is too pristine to be true

I’m tired of

denying that the high tide would come

I’m tired of

forcing myself to believe

that the castle is not made of sand

I’m tired of

having to face that my beautiful castle

will give in to the water

I’m tired of

watching it being flattenned to the ground

as I cry

for now there is a void in me

where the castle once stood so majestically.

and you wonder
how did you become so silly?

Just the sound of that word makes me cringe.
Even though we receive it so often in our lives, we still find it hard to accept it sometimes. We love to paint pretty pictures of ourselves so much that we end up opposing to factors that forces us out of our comfort zone. When I was 15, I was very active in Girl Guides. I was very passionate of the movement and proud of everything I did for it. One of our projects that year was to design n our own t-shirt. I showed my good friend, Mandy, a prospective design. And she said, “The colour combination is all wrong. Yellow and grey? It’s so dull. What’s that right there? An emblem? I thought it was a dead mosquito! Who designed this anyway? I think my three year old nephew, who can barely draw, can do so much better.” “Uhm… I did, I designed it.”
“Oh you did? Well it’s nice, it’s nice, I like it….”

We can give so many comments about how she was probably being a little too blunt on me, a little too harsh. But let’s not concentrate on how or why or what she said. Instead, let’s concentrate on why she took her words back.

Maybe she did it because she was embarrassed, or maybe she thought she was making me feel embarrassed. But at that moment, six years ago, I knew exactly why she took them back. It was because she was absolutely certain that I, under any circumstances, could not accept criticism directed at myself.

In our culture, we are expected to be nice to others, to please others, that sometimes we go overboard and avoid being frank just to take care of others’ feelings. Even though these are good deeds at a glance, this attiitude has created an atmosphere of superficiality. As a result, avoiding being honest about anything has become the norm, an expected thing, an everyday occurrence. This is the prevalent attitude of some of the critics that we have today.

But can we blame them? Can we blame the critics for not being entirely honest when they criticise? No, because sometimes the critics hold back their real opinions because the person they criticise will not be able to accept the truth about themselves. As in the case of Mandy and I. So whats this? Critics not giving their all because of the recepient’s inadequacy? Isn’t that odd? Shouldn’t things change? because if this pattern continues, the other party would go on making mistakes again and again just because nobody would have the courage to step up and say it’s wrong.

So if we want to be be better at anything at all, our attitude towards criticism must change. We should be more open towards criticism, more receptive to it. Criticism should be something that we yearn for, something we can’t live without, something we can’t get enough of, simply because of the assurance that criticism doesn’t drag us down. No, on the contrary, it elevates us because it helps us become better people. So ladies and gentlemen, let us allow our critics to have a little bit of Mandy’s honesty, without the harshness of course.