‘I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin.’
Just some writing practices I did in preparations for my English assessment, but I figured this theme mirrors with the feelings associated with school and the idea of being a perfect child, especially for someone like myself who came from a very fortunate background, external pressures and parents with a level of expectations.
P.S. This writing doesn’t entirely reflect everything I feel about school and the education system, just some writing I did inspire by the picture below. Definitely drop me a few feedbacks and how I can improve in the future :)
I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin. Never once have I looked into the mirror, and seen my thriving self, unable to hold back a smile as sparkling as the moon on a dusky midnight. It never came. Nor do I think it ever will. Who am I?
She was born a single child; it was only her mama and baba and her who lived in a 1-bedroom flat, where she took the top bunk and her parents the bottom. She spent most of her days at home, where the alphabet song to the advance algebra coursebooks, her crooked pine desk, the only table in the whole house, seemed her only companion. The peeled, blistered wall awaiting to be destroyed in the 4-sided cell made her shine – her intricately stitched diaphanous pink silk garment draped loosely around her smooth glowing brown skin, her generously cut shimmering crystals shaped like diamonds around her neck – She was still not happy, these came with a price.
By then, the table couldn’t handle the hundreds upon thousands of worksheets, so they had to resort to the already filled, creaking floor. Girls from her grade shouted and laughed in the field outside her dusted window playing catch, while she considered where good wasn’t good enough, and it meant more hours spent on the desk, more hours under the moulding machine, the more it’d fit into the Wall. Their perfect Wall. Each part of Wall had to be perfect, through the individual wood strips, and up to each fibrous tissue. Who was she to complain, with a roof over her head, clothes over her body, and food on the table - they’ve given everything to her, and it’s now for her to ace it or become the disgrace.
Who is she? Slaving her life through past paper questions and memorizing vocabularies, allowing the X’s and Y’s fill her mind, allowing the writing techniques to fill her heart, allowing herself to slide into the mould. She’s never felt comfortable in her own skin. She never will.
Thanks for reading, and see you in a bit.
-Winnie 10/10/2022
