To give you a little background first, I didn’t really have a happy life.

My father brought us here to the United States when I was 10 years old.
Even before we got here, my parents’ relationship was tumultuous, to say the least.
For a brief time, we enjoyed middle-class wealth. Then he abandoned us for another woman.
Which would have been not so bad, had he not left all of us undocumented.

17 years of fear. Fear of being ousted from my home one day, and sent back to a country I no longer identified with or knew how to live in.
I had to give up UCLA twice, because it did not make financial sense.
Spent my years scraping by, day by day.

My mother was an emotional wreck, and left me some inner scars that affect me to this day.
I am grateful that she stayed and took care of me and my brother.
I love her, but I do not like her. Her remarriage was a big blessing.

I kept a few close friends in my life. I’m introverted, and it drains to me to be social.
But now they are hundreds of miles away.

My brother is distant, caught up with his own life.
We are too different. I am only a bother to him, just like how my mother is a bother to me.
Karma, I suppose.

I have another that I consider my brother, but he truly has his own life, his own family.
I am not negatively affected by his absence. He is not emotionally expressive, but I know he’s there.

I received my citizenship last year. My fear had come to an end.

I tried to kill myself in the beginning of this year.

I was tired of living. I am weary.
Death was going to comfort me.
It was going to swallow me whole, crush me in an instant with those sharp fangs.
And it would have been bliss.

I earned my citizenship by enduring an year and a half of racism and bigoted treatment.
And for what?

For the first time in my life, I was truly envious of those who “have”.
For the first time in my life, I resented my father.
If he only cared enough to at least give me proper status.
My life might have been truly different.

No, I am not blaming him for my life.
There are other undocumented who did well in life.
However, I cannot deny that a large chunk of my life had been spent just trying to stay above the surface.
“Bullshit” doesn’t cut it.

Yes, my life is just beginning, even if it’s so late.
Yes, there is only “up” to go from here.
Yes, I should be so happy.

But why am I so broken…?

I got myself through so many tough times.
And I am better off than many more unfortunate people out there.

But you know what’s funny?
When you get a taste of what you cannot have, you will go insane.

Youth. My youth is gone.

I am empathetic. Yet no one is here to empathize with me.
To laugh with me.
To shed a tear with me.
To tell me their hopes and dreams.
To share words with.

I am so weary.
When they saved me from my desires, they taught me that
it would be selfish to take the easy way out.

I am being childish.

At the end of a long tunnel,
I emerged from the dark,
only to find myself staring into another black mouth.

I can roll with the punches.
I can go through the motions.
But I am weary.

I just want to lay down and rest.
I want to stop.
My life has lost color.