“Makeup and Bleach”

Twelve Ninty Nine, the price to pay was twelve ninety-nine. The muscles within my feet constricted themselves from any further movement. Among the bliss of chaos and the indecisive clashing thoughts, it was truly just a moment of tranquility between me and the box of bleach. My hand slowly reaches out toward the box, Mẹ and Ba won’t be happy if I do this. I retract my hand, leaving it limp and lifeless by my side once again, I can’t start the new school year looking the same. Going to middle school was a major milestone, it meant new friends, new hair, a new face, new me. All the other kids were getting new clothes and a fresh haircut, by that, I was easily induced by the mere box of hair dye. 

Sitting on the bathroom’s cold marble floor, I waited for the chemicals to work their magic, to seep into each black strand, and miraculously transform my locks into an angel’s hair. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, it was as if a thousand pitiful needles pricked the skin of my scalp. The clock struck thirty, it was time to rinse. But it was as if the heavens had awoken from eternal sleep, not offering me peace, but instead gifting me great misfortune. Creak! It was my dad, the last person who should have witnessed me in such a state. Too soon, my vocal cords have been cut, leaving the sound of his strident voice to grate my ears, soul, and mind.

 Are you stupid? Gosh, what’s wrong with you?! Do you think you’ll ever get anywhere looking like that? Why can’t you be more like your sister? You’ll never amount to anything in life, he’d yell, and he’d yell. Till I was reduced to a puddle, I made promises to myself to never dye my hair again. Even now, in high school, when I’d look in the mirror and apply lipstick every morning, I would be met with a lesson every day. If I was pure, perfect, more like my sister, I would be guaranteed a place far away from this constant misery. If I didn’t pick up the makeup brushes and the box of bleach, their words wouldn’t linger. It was simply all because a girl wanted to be a girl.

“Secret Metro”

Next year, you can start driving next year, they say. I watched from behind as they told my sister this time after time. It had been two years since we moved away from what was once home sweet home. I miss home. It was like Hawaii every day, and we had thought that life would be irreplaceable. However, the alluring sweet, mellow scent of the crystal oceans was now replaced by a mystic gloom of fog. Now life was under isolation, we were forbidden from freedom.

It’s not your decision to make, we’re your parents, Mom and Dad’s voices constantly itching the back of our brains. But everything would be okay, it would be okay because my sister would promise me from dusk to dawn that she would drive me anywhere I wanted to since fleeing from these anchors would never pass by them. Sixteen when she’d dreamed of free will…now twenty still under their authority. I was tired of staring at a wall, lying in bed, and reminiscing the moments of fresh breeze. 

One a.m., my sister woke me up in the dead of night. For the first time, we would find ourselves driving freely. Windows rolled down, music blasted, our voices in sync, and the illumination of city lights glimmering within our eyes. Through her, I saw a passage of life, a secret metro to what it feels like to live. There were some things you couldn’t buy, and if it was true, it’d be this. After all, you only live once.