os pobres também choram

"funny how letters repeat themselves along the continuum," he thought after having stumbled on his own reflection in the sideway mirror. he felt sorry for those around him, but there wasn't much he could do about it. he had been beaten up before - way before they even started coming in and in and gushing into his life in hordes. now he was tired. and he thought everyone could see that. he was beside himself now - in anger, in bitterness, in moodiness. hell, yeah. he thought the world could see him. couldn't he see through people at times after all? why did people have to think him any big shit he wasn't? he wasn't a writer. no, he kept repeating those words to himself as though they were his own powerful mantra. and people had to realize that. he didn't even take good pictures! all he ever did was show his big fat face off in people's screens. wasn't that obvious? showing off, that was the name of the game. he was convinced of his effeteness and powerlessness and nothing people said was going to change his mind about that. he didn't want labels. he was tired of them. he had lived his entire life under them. and had been plagued by them. as a kid, he was labeled a wuss, a chicken; he was called sissy. joining in the boys' gang was not something he could've done back then. the girls didn't want him either. he wasn't cute enough - or funny, or anything else that might have appealed to them. he was... himself. a misfit. all but a misfit. he grew up into teenagehood, his tastes unequaling those of his peers. an outcast, he tried to join in what he considered "the counterculture group". that, too, he was denied. he looked too geeky, with his face full of blemishes and his greasy-lensed glasses. he then chose not to belong. those were the most difficult years. he had to convince himself that he ignored people's presence (and existence, too). but deep inside he knew he was the one who had been ignored all along. the one on whom they had turned their backs. in his college years, he decided to change all that. "i'm gonna be someone i'm proud of. people will respect me. they will, alright," he'd often think. it was true. they did respect him. not because of who he was, but because of what he had, because of the knowledge he'd amassed over all those years sitting in the dark corners of the library as he picked up dusty books from the shelves, books no one he knew had ever had. so he cultivated his own self, fleeing what he termed "mainstream" till the time came when he fell in love. he fell in love with another guy. but could that be happening to him? it wasn't. it was but a crush, but for all he could tell he was in love. in pursuit of his new-found "love", he did what he could to "acculturate" and look like the people around him. he got himself new clothes, new glasses, new pants, new tastes. he wanted to fit in, that's all. he dressed himself in a whole new character, one that liked all the latest cool albums and took feminism classes along with a bunch of riot grrrls. but he didn't mean to harm people. he didn't mean to trick them. or perhaps he meant - not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. having been plagued by existence, wasn't he allowed a share of happiness and comfort for himself too? so he sobbed and sobbed. and started writing, the words flowing out as he hit the keys in meaningless tangles... because that was all he could do to find relief - from himself, perhaps. and solace, too. that was his safe haven. his own little corner of the world, where, at last, he could be himself, away from the inquisitive eyes of The Other.