Sunflowers and Losing #JealousyFestival
Am I jealous? I've been jealous more times than I can count.
I am a person with a strong sense of inferiority.
I'm not good at studying or sports, and people tell me, 'It's great that being born early in the year makes you a year younger when you're an adult!' but...
When I was a child, especially in elementary school, I only have terrible memories.
I wasn't bullied, but every day during morning assembly, the classmate who stood behind me—who was born in April—would pull on my braided hair. She was a very tall girl. I was small, so...
I couldn't say I hated it.
'Damn it, just because she was born later than me...'
I thought that and just endured it.
I was aware that everyone looked down on me.
But there was one person. M-chan, who had returned from living abroad, was kind. She was easygoing, good at studying and sports, could do anything, and had a great personality.
I looked at her with envious eyes.
We were made to write poems in Japanese class.
I was good at essays and poems! Or rather, I liked them.
I was a gloomy kid who could only show off my talents here.
I wrote it fluently.
The title was Sunflower...
A hot summer, from the moment the true leaves appear.
The stem grows rapidly.
The face turns toward the sun,
As if to show a big smile.
Or something like that, using the limited vocabulary sleeping inside me, I poured it all out! I poured it all out!
How about that! I wrote it!
Something like that.
After that class, the teacher would read the good works.
I was a regular for that.
But that day was different.
M-chan's poem was chosen.
The title
'I Can't Write a Poem'
I want to write a poem
But I can't write a poem
Looking up or looking down
I can't write a poem
!!!!! What is this poem!
That was the content.
I thought at that moment.
I lost.
I surrender.
I can't think of that.
I could only think of a sunflower that everyone would like.
But M-chan was different. Everything went dark before my eyes.
That's right. I was intensely jealous.
In my memory, this is my oldest jealousy.
I thought this was the one thing I wouldn't lose to her in.
Could she really not write a poem?
Was that what talent is?
I don't know.
The demon of jealousy was ignited, and now I am here on note. Actually, my sunflower poem is long gone, but
'I Can't Write a Poem' is
burned into my mind forever, and while I burn with jealousy, I think, 'Jealousy! note! M-chan! Thank you!'
#JealousyFestival
I respect you, Nami Saito.
I also love the jealous Nami-san.