liviana jovana | d8 | FIN

Blue eyes. Ocean droplets: dark, deep and endless. A window to the soul yet they themselves hold stories of their own: karmic, harsh and soft, happy and sad—memories of every type. The ones that remind me of pressing my bare feet into the mud and running around the house with the sole intention of ruining the floor to those that bring a glint to my blood's eye, the ones where there is intense happiness, life, love, beauty. Then, the crippling ones that move like the grim through the night: bleak emptiness.

Looking at the world is what gives each person their own perspective. A single speck of life in the world, that's all we are, yet we each see things differently. Shift—and then things might start to make sense. My greatest fear is being blind; relying only on your own touch and the word of others. Opinions in one ear which aren't allowed to escape the other... there is no room for question. Acceptance of the world at face value.

The only thing worse than being blind would be having sight, but no vision.

My contemplations run like a river where the soul is the soul. Inside, I feel alive and different but on the outside, I feel only like a collection of parts. Makeshift and handmade, but not made with love and care, just thrown together. A stolen chin from my mother, my father's nose a gift from my bloodline. These blue eyes feel like a lie sometimes too; people say they are grey, tinted by the tears of a full moon to add a soft curiosity to my face. All I see is a fractured exterior, because I am desperate for something, but even I don't know what it is because my mind seems to fail me every time I try to find it. It is like wanting to fly with no wings. 

Purpose—to play a part. I just want to know.

I believe that the quieter you become, the more you can hear. The complications of that have left my tongue-tied around my peers, only occasionally do I ask for help or try to make a friend. I'm far happier with my own company, far happier with just watching the workings of the world and understanding it from that. I watch as people become tired of their own voice, and part of me thinks that there will come a time where I'll have to step up to the plate. I'll swing with my own speech because my words have not run dry or been cried out. They will have had time to process, to heal from hurt, to best understand.

It's hard to rely on people when it feels like the work against you. Nothing can bring a person peace other than themselves; the sentence brings caution to every move I make. There's speculation of who, what, why, how but never any truth to it—living life with a reserved approach just comes naturally. Life is full of the unexpected, and though it may call for you to venture into that because you never know what will be around the corner, sometimes you have to tread carefully to go and look. But taking such a leap is hard: no wings, no confidence—it's almost like I'd be asking to fall.

Despite being at one with treachery, my eyes shine bright with hope. The only difference between the impossible and the possible is whether a person is determined; I've always tried to strive for what I want and what I believe in. Giving up should not be an option for anyone. Success can be difficult, but it is a journey where the final reward is worth it. And though I've seen it countless times before, where determination leads to destruction, I feel like mine is different. It is power to my person.

My person has been crafted within these four walls. A product of the time, of my mother and father's work and love. I used to press my ear against the wall to try and listen to the stories of our home, fixated on the possibility of someone from this home coming from nothing to be something. I seek the stories I want to see in my own life, sad, honestly, because there's nothing stopping me from being my own kind of something except myself. 

There are a fair share, here, though. Not all with a happy ending, but that is what makes them real; it is what has knocked me into the girl I am today. A dent in the wall reminds me of my grandmother's rocking chair going back and forth, back and forth, for what felt like it would be an eternity. It would rock in the winds of spring, through the breeze of summer and between the storms of winter snow. When there was finally stillness, there was a shiver up my spine. Peaceful in her slumber, her only company was the cold. 

It was with her death that I fully understood the importance of life.