Damaged?

A friend asked me whether i consider myself to be Damaged. I loosen my grip on the warm cup of coffee. I stared at the glass window and pondered for a second, only for a small second. My lips just simply uttered 'No.'.

Cause deep down i know, I may be many things, but damaged I'm not.

You can go ahead and call me broken, reckless, aimless, lost. but damaged? never, or at least not yet.

So what if one had a father who gambled away every piece of valuables in the house, and eventually the house. So what if one come home from school to find his piggy bank empty or shattered on the floor, the content never to be retrieved. So what one had to spent his every semester breaks ever since primary school working hard just to make sure he would have money to pay the next year's tuition fees. So what if one's mother could only afford to let them have one meal per day. So what if one was afraid of going home after school to not get beaten up by his brother on a daily basis, the big brother whose suppose to protect him and stand up for him. So what if one have countless scars & stitches from having his head smashed into every single piece of glass around the house. So what if ones trust was abused, and flesh touched inappropriately when he can't even understand what's being done to him. So what if we were looked down upon, insulted by people who are suppose to share blood ties with. So what if one was the kid who was taunted and beaten up behind the classrooms. So what if.... So what if....

Life is a challenge, it has always been so.

But i move on, burying the past as the past. As i look straight into the determination in my sister's eyes,
"If you knew from the beginning that you'd only be given eight years to be with him, would you still have made the same decision?...."

"Yes, I wouldn't give it up for anything." As she held her babies tightly in her arms.

As i hear the trembling voice of an elderly man,
"She was my reason to waking up every morning. But now she's gone, what is there left for me to wake up to?"

So what if? What if you look back at your life and see only misery and pain. when it is the same for others? Every one has their hidden wounds and sores. Every one wants to put the dark behind and embrace the light. So what makes me damaged if compares to all the hurt in life?

I am but broken. I am but a small papercut.
As for the pain, the pain is there for a reason.
And though it hurts, I know it hurts for a reason....