frequency.

maybe i'm not as fine-tuned as them.

i. they like looking a lot.

they see me as a statue, perhaps, in their eyes, my solitary silence speaks of a new dimension to them. they point, stare and giggle, like fishmonger aunties at the neighbourhood wet market.

i feel like i'm in a different world, when we're all in the same room.

i shut up and their conversations and laughter hurt my ears.

ii. they like asking questions a lot.

or is it just me? i appreciate their little jabs at attempted conversation which always falls into an awkward, deep silence, but when it snaps my mind back into reality, i wish i could at least limply move my mouth or something. i try to make my lip muscles move, move, but they don't budge.

i feel alienated by my own kind, though there isn't anything but myself to separate us.

nodding makes them and i feel better.

iii. they like smiling a lot.

their eyes light up and their twitching mouths seem to curve upward, in an imperfect crescent. they look at me with those eyes, eyes, and i wish that i could be like them, so…happy. how can they ever be, anyway, with all this unhappiness shovelled in everyone's way?

i try emulating them, but i fail as horribly as always.

their smiles always seem to tell a different story as their eyes do.

i can't do what they do.

they seem to be fine-tuned to each other's existences that someone like me, on the outside, can never fully understand.

maybe, just maybe, we're people that run on different frequencies;

i just can't seem to find anyone that seems to run on mine.