Lie in the Light

A symbol of everything people like me were told to believe in.

Hope. Justice. Protection. The idea that if you are good, if you follow the rules, if you keep your head down and do your work, someone will come to save you. Someone with power will use it for you, not against you. Someone will see your suffering and intervene.

That was the promise of the blur. That was the theology of the superhero. It was a secular religion preached in comic books, in movies, in the hushed whispers of parents trying to soothe frightened children. Don’t worry, they said. There are good people out there. There are heroes.

But people like me? We weren’t the ones being saved. We were the background noise. We were the collateral damage. We were the ones standing on the sidewalk, holding our breath, hoping the battle didn’t spill over onto our shoes. We were the ones who learned early on that heroes don’t live in our neighborhoods. They don’t patrol our streets. They don’t know our names. They don’t eat at our tables. They don’t feel the humidity of Kuala Lumpur sticking to their skin. They don’t smell the exhaust, the durian, and the fear.

Heroes live in the sky. And the sky is far away.

My father lived on the street. He knew my name. He knew my fears. He knew exactly how much pressure it took to break me. And he used that knowledge not to save me, but to shape me. To harden me. To make me useful to the very system that crushed everyone else. He taught me that the world wasn’t divided into good and evil, but into predators and prey. And if I wanted to survive, I had to learn to bite.

I was told to believe in the symbol because believing was easier than facing the reality. It was easier to look up and imagine a savior than to look around and see the enforcers. It was easier to trust the myth than to trust my own eyes. So I believed. I believed that if I was perfect, I would be safe. I believed that if I was smart, I would be protected. I believed that if I was quiet, I would be invisible to the monsters.

But the monsters weren’t in the sky. They were in the car. They were at the dinner table. They were in the mirror.

And the hero? He was just a distraction. A pretty lie painted on the ceiling of a burning house. He was a pacifier for the masses, a way to keep us looking up while they picked our pockets below. He made us feel like justice was inevitable, when in reality, it was just another commodity, bought and sold by men like my father.

For years, I clung to that symbol. I wore it like armor. I quoted its principles. I tried to embody its ideals. I thought that if I could just be enough like the hero, I could transcend my origins. I could escape the shadow of the Black Dragons. I could become something pure.

But you can’t scrub off the mud with light.

The more I tried to be the hero, the more I realized I was playing a role written by someone else. A role that didn’t account for my autism, my trauma, my family’s history. A role that demanded I ignore the pain of others to maintain my own image of righteousness. I became judgmental. I became cold. I became an enforcer of my own moral code, punishing those who didn’t meet my standards, just as my father punished those who didn’t meet his.

I wasn’t saving anyone. I was just controlling them.

Now, I don’t believe in symbols. I believe in actions. I believe in the person who stops to help you up when you fall, not the one who flies over your head. I believe in the friend who listens to your story, even when it’s messy and uncomfortable, not the icon who ignores it because it doesn’t fit the narrative. I believe in the truth, however ugly, over the fantasy, however bright.

People like me were told to believe in the symbol so we wouldn’t question the structure. So we wouldn’t ask why the enforcers were allowed to rule. So we wouldn’t realize that the system wasn’t broken; it was working exactly as designed. It was designed to keep us looking up, waiting for a savior who would never come, while the real power consolidated itself on the ground.

But I am asking now. I am questioning. I am realizing.

And I am done believing in lies.

I am ready to build something real. Something grounded. Something that doesn’t require me to look up to feel safe. Something that acknowledges the mud, the blood, the fear, and the love. Something that says, We are here. We are hurt. But we are together.

Because safety isn’t in the sky. It’s in the community. It’s the truth. It’s in the hands of those who stay. Those who hold on. Those who refuse to let go.

And I am staying.

I am no longer looking for a hero. I am becoming a human. And that is a much harder, much braver thing to be.