I’m sorry

for NOT being sorry

LANCE SARMIENTO

“How do we live in a world where there’s fright in the knowingness that there’s danger outside a world we once dreamed of growing up?”

those were the words that resonated around my head for the life of a 16-year-old kid he once led smile, wave, sit, and listen for the grown folks are talking I’ve been trained to apologize for every single thing I don’t regret I’m sorry, was I loud? sorry, but I’m not planning to shut up and sit down and listen to your tone-deaf whining is my pain manipulative? NOno, you do not get to speak because I told you not to while I don’t get to speak because you told people to not let me to

#NeverAgain is the number one trending every once a year but I don’t see anyone being held accountable for what you did 70,000 were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,200 were killed those aren’t just statistics, those are the lives of people you wield they are someone’s child, someone’s father, and someone’s mother who died without justice on the battlefield while you sit on a throne on a mission to rewrite the past in your own selfish vision I should be mad cursing your name right now but I’m more mad at Filipinos because that is their own doing and how they may let history repeat because they didn’t learn anything from it I should be sorry for them but I, really, am not scrolling pass by every other night how do we live in a world where there’s fright in the knowingness that there’s danger outside a world we once dreamed of growing up?

#MeToo, why is sexual violence something we tolerate?

#LoveWins, what is the purpose of celebrating, when gender-motivated violence is corrupting every citizen, can’t even pass a law, are we supposed to be celebrating a “flaw”? you can keep saying “Thank God, it’s not me!”

I am okay, I don’t care, because “Thank God, it’s not me!” when you recite those words repeatedly over your head

I hope you think about

Mahsa Amini, and the million of women being tortured to death because men don’t like what they wear I hope you think about the women being denied the right to do what they want with their bodies, when you’re done shopping for whitening products, I hope you think about the people being discriminated against for their color, when you decide to skip family planning, I hope you think about innocent children being born into poor, bigot households, give them religion, teach them to be good but not to be gay, because they told you not to, who told a little boy they shouldn’t be playing with barbie who told a little girl to wear a hijab because they might dress provocatively, I was so young when I was assaulted, I was just a boy and he was already a man, it could happen to you, to your family, to your friend, to anyone, and maybe by then, you’d finally pull the trigger on the gun and think of me not for only one

I could talk all day about what’s wrong in our world still, it would never be enough to fill up the void of what you have stolen from us so, I’m sorry cause I’m really not sorry or maybe someday they might forgive, but we will never, ever, ever forget.