Beyond the Darkness

Shattered Stares

When I walk down the street, I feel the world shrinking around me, as if I am a black dot in a sea of faded colors. Every moment is filled with their stares stares heavy with contempt, poisoned pity, or outright mockery that needs no explanation.

My face? It is the crime I never committed, the sin I was born with, the mark that life decided to etch onto my features as an unerasable stain. They call me ugly, but their words go beyond mere description. They are a declaration one that states I do not deserve to exist. As if life itself rejects me, as if I am nothing more than a mistake that should have been corrected before being left to rot in a world that does not forgive those who fail to meet its standards.

When the day begins, I already know I will face humiliation. I just never know from where the first blow will come. Sometimes, it comes in the form of hushed whispers behind me, seeping into my ears like slow poison:

"Look at her… how does she even live with that face?"

"She should hide… her presence is an insult to the eye!"

Other times, it comes as loud laughter, piercing through the silence of the streets, slapping me harder than any stone. Laughter that reminds me that I am nothing more than a joke to them, a spectacle no one wants to miss.

But the worst moments are when their hatred takes on a physical form. Suddenly, I hear shouting then come the stones. They fly toward me as if I am nothing but a target for their amusement. Some hit my arms, others my back, and the worst are the ones that land against my legs, making me stumble for a moment. I do not need to see the scene to know what is happening. I have lived it too many times.

And when I fall to the ground, no one rushes to help me. Instead, they stand at a distance, laughing. Some pull out their phones, eager to capture the moment, turning my suffering into entertainment. Even those who pretend to defend me I can see it in their eyes, in the way they smirk between their words, the way their hands linger just a little too long as they pull me up, as if performing an act they don’t believe in.

"Come on, guys, leave her alone!" they say, but there is laughter behind their voices.

"This isn't funny… well, maybe just a little."

I feel torn between the pain of their attacks and the pain of realization—the realization that no one truly sees my humanity. Even those who claim to protect me do not believe I am worth protecting. To them, I am nothing more than an object of ridicule, whether they are harming me or pretending to stand by my side.

When I return home, I stare at my reflection in the mirror. The tired eyes, the unhealed wounds, the silent exhaustion that no amount of sleep can fix. I ask myself: Why? Why me? What did I do to deserve this other than being born?

But there is no answer. There is only the mirror, showing me the same face the world rejects a face that no one sees beauty in, not even in its soul.

Everything around me felt like it was conspiring against me, every word, every look, every whisper seemed to carry with it a deep wound. At first, I thought I might be overthinking things or perhaps I was just too sensitive. But as time passed, I began to realize that what was happening wasn’t just a coincidence or a fleeting joke—it was something intentional, something that happened day after day.

The children in the village didn't hesitate to amuse themselves at my expense, whispering behind my back about everything negative, mocking the way I spoke, the way I walked, pretending it was all just playful teasing, but the pain I felt was deep. They laughed at my appearance, my mannerisms, every small detail of my life that I didn’t see as a flaw. And it didn’t stop there even the boys joined in, becoming part of this cruel game that toyed with our emotions, the emotions of those who couldn’t defend themselves.

Every day, I lived with the anticipation of the next hurtful word or mocking glance. Whenever I got close to someone or walked by a group, their judgmental stares would increase. Those words echoed in my mind all day long: "You're mentally ill," "You're complicated," "You're a failure." It was hard to believe that these words were being said about me, and I never understood what made me deserve all this hatred.

Deep inside, I knew I wasn’t sick, I wasn’t complicated, and I certainly didn’t deserve to be painted this way. But the more those words were repeated, the more they began to seep into my mind, and it became harder to stop them. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Was I really some strange creature incapable of being like everyone else?

Then I heard that it was my aunt who had been spreading these lies, talking about me in every home in the village, sharing the details of my life and exaggerating my flaws. She said I wasn’t beautiful, that I was ugly, and she didn’t stop there. She even called me a failure in the kitchen, though she’d never tasted my cooking! She was spreading these ideas as though they were undeniable truths, and I couldn’t understand why she had chosen to destroy my image in this way. Why did she choose to be the hand that silently shattered me? And why was she planting these ideas in everyone’s minds?

Late at night, when I would sit alone in my room, I would often get lost in my thoughts and the waves of pain that engulfed me. In those moments, my emotions were a mix of deep sorrow and suppressed anger. Every word seemed to spring into my mind and shake me, yet I couldn’t speak out, I couldn’t confront them or ask them to stop. This mental confinement hurt me more than anything else. The more I tried to be strong, the more those thoughts would swallow me once again.

But what hurt the most was the fact that I didn’t even know the reason for all this. I would ask myself, “Am I really ‘mentally ill’ as they say? Am I really ‘complicated’ as they described me? Am I really a failure to this extent?” Who could face these questions in silence? What could I possibly do in the face of this unyielding siege?

My thoughts would wander, and I would imagine myself changed, gaining the ability to put an end to it all, but reality would always crush those dreams gently, pulling me back into my misery.