Month: November 2017

you fold your letter like a child folding origami, paying too much attention to the little things that you know I wouldn’t mind slightly imperfect. You take too much paper because you’re afraid to mess up the letter, but you know that I’ll take you, messed up or not, just as you are. No questions asked.

I hate how it’s impossible to keep the A/C on without switching on the car engine, watching the minutes tick by and knowing that my parking fee will probably hurt, but the prospect of not being there for the next 3 weeks will hurt more than the parking fee itself.

I spray my $240 perfume that I don’t ever use for myself, on you. It reminds me how it’s worth every cent I paid; it’s deep, rich, and long lasting. It is everything I want to have with you. You smile a little too wide, and I’m not used to so openly expressing myself in person. I like to hide behind a screen and pour my emotions out but for you I force myself to be upfront, to be direct, to love you as you would want to be loved.

You taste like green tea, blackberry and sandalwood.

Your hands on my hands are my hands, and your scent lingers on me that they lull me into a peaceful slumber.

I don’t deserve this.

you fill me up to the brim with your affection and love, that i go to sleep with butterflies in my stomach and a fuzzy warmth all over.

it’s late and you’re superstitious—you should be in bed away from your supernatural fears, getting a well deserved rest. But you are with me, and for once I believe that I have actually done something good in my life to deserve this. You tell me your stories at 3am and I sense tiredness in your voice, and then you lean a little closer, the physical weight of you a little heavier on my shoulders, and your natural comforting scent comes at me in full power. And so, I hold you a little tighter.

your back hurts after a while, and it reminds me that humans are fragile beings; soft, tender, delicate. I touch your hands and forearm, my thumbs draw circles on your skin where it’s warm, I feel you relax and then you calm all my storms.

your eyes look tired and you yawn, and I think that I probably shouldn’t keep you up too long. The walk back was freezing cold in the night wind, but something inside was warm, full, like the first sip of hot chocolate in a raging snowstorm.

you give me a hug before you go to bed. my head explodes, you drive me nuts. then, I start the car engine and drive back home, but sadly home is away from you.

There’s an “ok” with a heart shape, a sad-faced one disguised to look contented and happy, a genuinely happy one that just doesn’t seem sincere from all angles I look at it.

How do I read Telegram stickers? Am I on the same frequency as my interlocutor? What if I misinterpret your sticker (though I’m darned sure it has already happened)? Why do you choose this sticker over another if they carry the same meaning? And above all, can the sticker be fully substituted with a word, phrase, sentence, or an entire essay if absolutely necessary, or are stickers unique in the meaning they convey? Do they promote laziness, or forge closer bonds, do they make it easier to say words that are otherwise never going to escape your mouth, or do they just provide an easier path to temporarily escape your feelings?

I’ve been told by several that I’m exceptionally devoid of emojis and/or stickers in my texting. That I can sound cold, unapproachable, overly formal because I have always preferred words over emojis. But I battle a constant battle understanding someone else’s emojis and stickers, and so the last thing I want to do is to complicate myself even further by sending my own emojis (which I hate to admit but are sometimes sent without the supposed meaning of the emoji). I’ve always found emojis and stickers as an easy way to escape out of a difficult text, and perhaps some would consider that aspect of emojis/stickers as a saving star, but I need to know the truth. But it wouldn’t be appropriate to interrogate the purpose behind every sticker, can it? There are a million and one reasons behind an emoji. Some are genuine, some are carelessly tossed into the wind, and some emojis should just never exist.

What’s in a Telegram sticker? What constitutes them psychologically, emotionally, personally? I wish I knew, but as usual I’m clueless about the things around me.

Today, accompanied by a storm in my mind, a mess in my emotions and a heart unsure of what it feels, I stare down at my sticker pack on Telegram and hover over hundreds of stickers in an attempt to respond to a rather nonchalantly crafted reply. I eventually give up, and as usual, I reply in words.

I’m stuck on the expressway at 5.45pm in a heavy downpour. I drive a manual car. I gear up and down and come to a complete halt. My left foot aches. I go from gear 1 to 2, to 3, and all the way back to 1. The brake lights of the car in front of me come on and off, and I feel like I’m tailgating him, but so is the car behind tailgating me. I drive from NTU all the way to Ubi. I don’t know what I’m doing, except this is supposed to drive me out of my permanent laze and slumber. I really hope something good comes out of this.

The taxi drivers on the road are not courteous, they cut in and out of queues because every second on the road affects their income. A second waited longer meant an unhappier customer, a second worth of gas, a second of car depreciation, and a second taken away from their family. They horn at me because I’m still on my probation plate.

I didn’t feel comfortable. Dinner was difficult to stomach, the beef felt unpalatable, undercooked, raw. The rice felt too hard. I’m 30km away from my comfort zone. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. My friend looks calm and certain, and I take a deep breath and trust that everything will be fine.

I’m not ready to take on the world financially. Will I ever be? Business. Business. Business. What’s that?

Someone respectable shakes my hand. His handshake is firm, confident, smooth. He speaks to me, a stranger, effortlessly. He openly admits that he hadn’t had a glorious education path, but damn. He’s doing so much better than University graduates. He wears an expensive watch, and we start talking about watches because I’m a watch slut. We talk about niche Swiss brands. Rolex. Omega. Tudor. Jaeger-LeCoultre. A. Lange & Söhne. Patek Philippe. Vacheron Constantin. It’s so nice to find someone who likes the same things as I do.

I go inside the office. Someone gives me a presentation. He wears my childhood dream watch on his wrist. He’s barely 5 years older than me. He turned down his University offer to do business. He says that the path less taken is the path more rewarded. But most of us don’t have the balls to do that.

The night is messy and my bank account hurt more than it did before I arrived. The parking fee by the time I left cost $5.50. Ouch. At least, the 30km drive back was significantly undisturbed. I cruise along lane 1 on the expressway at 100km/h the whole time. My mind raced my car. I’m not sure which one won.

At night, I sit on a bench and talk too much. She’s very patient and I couldn’t have been more grateful for that. The security guard walks over but finds no reason to chase us away. I wasn’t drunk, wasn’t rowdy. Just too bombarded with thoughts, that perhaps my life needs to take a permanent change in a better direction. I wanted supper, but my wallet whispered no. Fuck supper.

I drive her back to hall. It’s late. I go back to my room at last and my roommate is fast asleep. I like how she wraps herself in blankets like a burrito when she’s asleep, such that I can’t see her face, but the lump under the sheets tell me enough that she’s there just fine. I creep around my room as quietly as I can, fumbling through my own wardrobe as though I were a thief, so quietly I can barely hear myself breathe. I take a hot shower a little longer than usual because I have the luxury of time.

2am, I crash into bed and did not bother answering my text messages. They can wait.

My mind races too fast. Then it crashes. Then I’m out.

 

You’re lovely; in every single way you think you’re not.

1 a.m. in the laundry room, the warm clothes from the dryer suddenly remind me of you. But you’re nowhere near warm. The washing machine cheats me of my time. 38 minutes on the countdown screen becomes almost an hour’s wait. I’d get angry, but I can’t. I don’t want to be angry. Not when everything feels like a crippling sense of loss, that tonight this goodbye feels particularly long, this heartache particularly dull, and this secret particularly hard to keep to myself.

I’ve done it again, over and over again. I’m good at talking bullshit. I’m good at distracting others on what I truly feel. I was hoping that through distracting others, I’d find myself an alternative out of this horrifying truth in myself. But I don’t. I feel it deep within just the same. The hurt gnaws with the same intensity, if not worse. I always desire the impossible, and this time something tells me that things have gone exceptionally out of hand.

This is an internal battle I cannot afford to lose.

My roommate is asleep by the time I’m done with laundry. The smell of fabric softener makes me drowsy, gently alluring me back to the place I don’t want to be. My dreams tease me because my reality is a disastrous failure. My guilt kills me from within. I realise I’ve never been good at dealing with my guilt. I apologise too much. I don’t know how to stop. I am always feeling guilty, even when people tell me I really am not.

My body is a block of wood at 2am in the morning, my brain has stopped functioning. I jot these incoherent thoughts down like I always had. But these dots don’t connect. They don’t ever connect.

I test the speed limit on a deserted road at 90km/h on gear 5. The engine revolution goes up to 3,000rpm. I race the BMW beside me. I win. I race the gust of wind blowing against my hair. I win. I race against Time. I lose. Spectacularly.

I’ll never have enough time with you.

I race the car like my mind races; it’s fast, it’s furious, it’s fearless. I am on the top of the world. Nothing can stop me now.

And then, I run into a red light. I abide by the laws even though I didn’t have a practical reason to. The roads were completely deserted. I didn’t need to stop. But like the law abiding citizen that I was taught to be, my foot jams on the brake before my mind could tell it otherwise. My body lurches forward from the sudden impact. My seat belt keeps me safe. Always keep your seatbelt on during a ride. The sensation is gone. Fuck reality.

The song on the radio isn’t helping me stay calm. It’s too loud. Too much rap. Too much pop. I need something to soothe me, to calm me down. I realise I don’t have a playlist on atmospheric calming tunes. I jam the accelerator. Go. Go. Run. Run away from this monstrosity. Then I realise I can’t.

I am the monster.

fasten your mouth and keep your lips sealed tight. a swig of alcohol, a roaring sensation in the head to spill everything you’ve ever wanted to say.

but don’t you ever say them.

in a mixture of truths and lies, i have used my tipsiness as an excuse too much for the words i otherwise had no forgivable reason for saying. am i lying or telling the truth? is this tipsiness or a blatant moment of unsuppressed youth? i forget to chain the beast inside my mind, i forget to apply my filters for what ought to come out of my mouth, i forget that my demons were not supposed to come out to the actual world to play. they should stay inside me.

it’s all my fault. my body has had enough from me the past 3 days. i’ve worked it so hard i forget i’m ever tired, and when i finally crash at 4.a.m. waking up in the morning felt like instant death. my natural body clock wakes itself at 7.30am, and i’d think with a sleeping time of 4am and alcohol overdose, my body clock would for once shut down. but it didn’t. my mind is wide awake at 7.30am but my body screams death. my memories scream death. the words i hear from everyone else screams death.

karma’s gonna get me. some replies in my text messages in the morning have killed me even though i’ve become good at temporary ignorance. i just hope i didn’t mess up too far. my emotions are in a mess, my heart is in a mess, the words i have said are in a mess. but what my heart wants remains crystal clear even though i have no idea how i’m supposed to get it in this present state of mess.

but would i do it again? fuck yes.