(May 10th-19th 2022)

Write about what matters to you.

Tuesday Morning, 3AM:

I stare at her. Dark skin, darker glasses, black hair cascading from her head like water. Same eyes,
slightly slanted from our Asian family we never visit. Tired eyes. Listless, they stare back at me, as cold
and empty as marble. I shiver.
‘What matters to you?’ she asks again. Shadows under her eyes stark against her face. I stay
silent. In a split second, her apathy vanishes, replaced instead with a sharp arrogance she wears like an old
dress. She leans to one side, a half-formed smirk on her lips. ‘If you’ve grown up so great and true, tell me
then. What matters to you?’ Despite her sharpened words, exhaustion still clings to her shoulders.
I sit in front of her, careful not to touch the glass between us. “What do you think matters?” I ask
her. My voice is loud, thin, awkwardly cutting through the stagnant air.
She rolls her eyes, a sneer on her face. ‘Leave it to you to answer with nothing. What good have
you ever been? I can’t fathom how you’re the one who made it out alive.’ She sighs exaggeratedly,
collapsing to the floor in an over-dramatic fashion. ‘What have you found in the land of the living? Some
plastic semblance of fulfillment? Some promise of purpose and a higher calling? You probably have
‘things that matter’ falling out your butt. So you tell me. What matters to you? What’s so great about the
world out there?’ Annoyance flares up within me.
“Well, I suppose everything matters, doesn’t it? The world is going to shit! Racism, sexism,
poverty, war, scarcity, climate change—”
‘And what a jolly difference it makes to worry! Now that it matters to you, everything has
changed! Watch the solutions come pouring in. I’m sure you feel like a bright little button now, don’t you?
What a responsible, aware, sensitive citizen of the world you are! Truly a paragon of humanity!’ Her
words echo across the room, ringing shrilly in my ears. ‘I’m sure it was worth it to cut me out for that.
Satisfied with the trade? ‘Oh, everything matters now,’ is that it? Then how is that different from nothing
at all?’ My hands are shaking.
“And caring about nothing is better?” I shape the words slowly, deliberately. “If nothing matters,
what do you live for? Because it sure as hell isn’t making the world a better place.”
‘What’s better, to care? To know the world rots from the inside—that its infections fester—and
continue to live detached as you always have? Or to live, to keep breathing, keep going, knowing nothing
matters? One of us knowingly lets everything crumble while the other just does their best to stop from
crumbling themselves.’
“Either way, the result is the same.”
‘Is it?’ She leans forward. ‘One makes you a villain, the dredges of humanity. The other, makes
you a survivor.’
“And what a survivor you are, curling up on the floor as emptiness eats away at your insides! Tell
me, how many times have you stayed up, unable to sleep as you choke on the emptiness that consumes
you? You must be so proud of yourself. Just bursting at the seams with satisfaction!” My voice gains a
shallow film of iron I pretend is strong enough to reach her through the glass. “You are just a coward.”
There’s a beat of silence. We stare at each other, the tension palpable.
‘Then tell me,’ she whispers, ‘what matters to you?’ My heart is beating loudly in my ears and the
blood rushes to my head. “Wha—”
 ‘What do you live for now? What did you gain when you took those scissors to your head and cut
me out like dead weight? Tell me. What matters to you?’
“I…I….” I fumble with my words, trying to put them in any order at all. “I…”
She starts laughing. ‘Did you really think you had changed? Give a turd a haircut and you have a
slightly lighter turd. Still a turd nonetheless.’ Her words puncture the air like needles. She gets up slowly,
pityingly saying ‘Sometimes the turd gets delusional. Sees its different reflection on the glass and pretends
it's something else. But no amount of different clothes or pretty perfumes can cover up the stench.’
Suddenly, she bangs her fist on the glass, small cracks framing her clenched fingers. ‘The weight
that holds me down, the emptiness that devours it all, is yours too. It is your burden to bear. You thought
you could evolve, change in one go, just cut the hair that weighed you down and rise again a different
person.’ She offers an ominous giggle. ‘What, you think our demons just got tangled within our braids?
You can’t just cut them out. One snip, gone. It doesn’t work like that.’
I’m standing up now. I can’t quite remember doing so. I stare at her, still. We’re so close to each
other I can almost count the eyelashes in each of her eyes. ‘You aren’t better than me. You aren’t more
worthy than me. You are still the same tired, empty, cowardly little turd you were back then. Your head is
lighter, sure, but you’re heavier than ever. Now you don’t just fight the emptiness, but buckle under the
strain to keep up the lie. The illusion of change.’
What cheesy-ass bull is this?
‘I’ll ask you one last time. What matters to you?’ I stare. I stare and stare and stare and stare,
maybe hoping to set her on fire with my gaze. Nothing. The girl sneers at my silence, disdainfully looking
in my direction before vanishing. I don’t have the patience for it right now.
My mirror is broken, small cracks framing my bloodied fingers. Without her, all I have is my
disheveled, red-rimmed eyes to stare back at me. Pieces of glass fall onto the counter as I extract my hand
from my shattered face. God. This’ll be a pain to clean up.
The wonders of sleep deprivation, I guess.