Month: December 2017

Baby,

We come up with stupid jokes for the simplest things in life, covering up taboo topics with lame slangs that cannot be properly said with a straight face. You like to laugh a lot and when you laugh, your eyes laugh together with you. You like to playfully hit me and when you do, I feel the affection that comes from you.

We talk a lot about the future, and the past three days were fruitfully spent figuring many things out together. Some plans were made, others were unfortunately foiled; I saw you experience one of the best first things in life, and also saw you bravely endure one of the most difficult pains. You are strong, steadfast, and you love yourself so well even though you have many reasons not to. Because of that, it is so easy to love you.

I like how close we are to each other, even though our houses are so far apart. As you fall asleep in my arms, your breathing slows down to a gentle, therapeutic rhythm which calms me and all of my storms. You exhale into my neck as your mind wanders in your wonderland, sending chills down my spine and goosebumps all over me. Your scent, that of fresh soap, is mildly sweet but completely mesmerising and as your body relaxes and your muscles loosen as you fall into a deeper sleep, I hold you a little tighter because I don’t know what is going on in your head.

I wake up from a nightmare and find you still peacefully asleep beside me. I hold your arms a little tighter, and then you stir gently and wake up. You ask me if I’ve been awake all this while because it’s already 5am, but I tell you that I only just did so because a nightmare had robbed me of my sleep. You kiss me and we go back to sleep, and my nightmare never did return.

You have one of the nicest, most understanding roommates I ever know. In the early morning, your roommate leaves the room, leaving us to our own devices. There is everything to be unhappy about with a room intruder, but your roommate is a blessing and an amazing person, just like you.

Things have never felt so right in a long time. Not everything has gone smoothly between us, but so far through it all, every encounter we have faced has ended with nothing short of an amazing process.

I can’t wait to overcome more challenges, and experience the best things in life with you.

Towards the end of every year, I am reminded that things rapidly change; how people come and go, how you adopt a completely different routine, how new things come and old things go.

This year was groundbreaking in terms of change. This year, I say goodbye to mandatory school uniforms and stringent timetable schedules. I say goodbye to a fixed group of classmates, and hello to hostel life. Old acquaintances become newfound friends, age is no longer that big of a deal because virtually everyone I know is older than me. I learn new skills as my age hits the legal baseline for doing certain things, I gain greater independence and experience doing things on my own. I socialise with brand new people, and realise that closeness is not about how long you’ve known each other, but how well your hearts connect. I finally broaden my extremely limited cultural circle after being stuck the past 19 years of my life socialising and interacting with people solely of Chinese ethnicity, of my own kind, and started to understand and appreciate people of other races and ethnicities.

I have so much to be thankful for in the short course of one year. A year ago, I would never have dared to imagine the magnitude of change that I was about to face in the next 365 days. During this period of time, I have gained working and internship experience, an eye-opening experience for a freshly graduated college student. I have experienced the unfairness of the work force, and how unprotected and wild society can be. I have done part time tutoring, and it felt surreal that I was on the teaching end instead of the end where I was being taught, as was the case just one year ago. It felt surreal to be addressed as “teacher”, and to be responsible for someone else’s grades when a year ago I struggled to be responsible for my own. It was almost unbelievable when I received a Teacher’s Day present from one of my students. I have feared, endured, and survived ‘A’ level results day, one of the most horrifying days that one can ever anticipate. I have once feared that I will never be able to make it to University, but today I look back at my past and am grateful that I have pulled through and survived the ordeal. I experience a brand new schooling experience, a campus so big that shuttle buses are required to transport students from class to class. Many students drive, and there are so many carparks available. There are abundant food choices, ridiculous sport facilities, and freedom beyond my wildest imagination. They say that University is the best time to mingle and socialise, to meet new people. I couldn’t agree more. For me, staying on campus is almost a necessary aspect of completing the University experience. It’s given me so much to look forward to, so much convenience, so much to love and a very special someone.

I am in a new relationship, and in many aspects I am heartened to see myself becoming a better partner. My first has taught me things I should never do, and to never settle. The good thing about having your heart broken once is that you know the signs of what to do, and what to avoid. In this aspect, my first heartbreak was a blessing in disguise for someone much better, a relationship much healthier. I couldn’t be happier.

I have new friends and we do things that could never have been done a year ago. Late night suppers and drink sessions, 3am confessions and impromptu dinners and lunches. The good thing is that everyone is willing to talk, but the bad thing is that you’ll never know where you stand in different people’s lives because everyone has too many friends; you don’t want to treat them as too close, if they aren’t willing to reciprocate and do the same for you.

Everything is still somewhat new, and will take more time to sink in. Right now, I just wanted to take a moment to be grateful for these changes, and to give myself a pat on the back for doing more than just surviving these changes; I have sailed the waves, and in my own opinion have done quite an excellent job with coping with all these changes.

Some days, I feel so small and inconspicuous. I feel mundane, the weight of routine weighing down on my excitement, going about the same processes day in day out. Wake up, and do the same morning routine over and over again. See the same few people with little variation, do the same things, talk about the same topics. It’s not that I don’t appreciate these people, I really do, and life without them would be a hundred times worse; it’s just that sometimes I question if this is what’s in for me—could there ever be a change, and if so, would I really embrace change?

Occasionally, you see different sides of the same people. You see the girl whom you once thought was quiet and reserved, talking endlessly about things that might be inappropriate a little too loudly, under the influence of alcohol. You see the boy who is usually loud and a little rowdy, have a soft and caring side, a seriousness that is very attractive, alongside characteristics that he usually does not display. You see the gentlest of people cook up a storm, and the noisiest subside into a gentle breeze, a light drizzle after a thunderstorm.

And suddenly, everything becomes a lot less boring. Oftentimes, we try too hard to conceal the parts of ourselves that we are too afraid to expose. We try so hard to build up a facade of our own image, an image that we wish to be associated with, even when it’s nothing like who you really are. We have a perfect society full of imperfect people, and I wonder why we bother to try so hard to fit in when nobody ever fully fits in.

I have a hangover. My entire body aches and my muscles scream for help. I have dirty laundry all over the floor, and my lips are stained red with the raspberry vodka I had last night. I look like I have lipstick on. My hair is a complete mess, my eyes are tired and dazed. There is a bruise on my face just below my lips, and I can’t remember how I got it. Looks like a battle scar, but I’m absolutely positive I didn’t pass out last night. It hurts, but not as much as some of the things I’ve heard. It’s true that alcohol makes one a lot more honest, and sometimes candour is the best way to hurt, to internally kill someone else. But then, I may have been just too sensitive, as I have always been more inclined to be. I put too much emphasis on words; I let words break me too easily. Some people’s words are so cheap. I’ve spent an entire lifetime coming up with the right words to say and I still struggle with my words, so how is it that certain people can throw their words around so carelessly, like it didn’t matter at all?

There are a lot of areas that I think I am inadequate in. In fact, I am inadequate in every single plausible area of life that I can possibly associate myself with. I am flawed in every area, every nook and cranny of my existence. Even though I know that the people around me are equally flawed, it doesn’t ease the discomfort in me knowing that at certain points in time unbeknownst to me, I have made someone unhappy, whether minor or major, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I hate that feeling of disappointing someone, and I cannot decide whether I would rather have their disappointment in me verbally conveyed, or kept in silence. Both seem equally hurtful.

Amongst all my insecurities and flaws, all my mistakes and challenges against the law, I would like to believe that my wellbeing is being more than deservingly taken care of. My life, in all ways, is privileged. I am happily attached to someone who treats me like I am everything that matters, and the reason behind that is a question I will spend my life to answer. I am privileged to be able to send and receive genuine messages of love and affection, oftentimes with a hint of playfulness and naughtiness, but love at its most sincere form nonetheless. I am privileged to be given a gift with my words, how my words flow so smoothly, that my thoughts and soul can be conveyed without too much physical exertion. I have done something right in this life, but I do not know what it is I have done. I’ll just have to be thankful, be loyal to my morality, be someone I won’t regret becoming.

There are a lot of things I do not know, but those that I do, I try my best never to abuse them.

I think that I think a little too much, read a little too hard into trivial issues. But I’m always the one who looks at the small details, the fine print. I think about times where I have slightly angered people for the smallest reasons, like horning at my friend in front of me playfully while I was driving. He’s probably long gotten over it, but I still find it impossible to fully rid myself of this bad feeling, and I suppose telling myself that “everyone has their flaws” is not a very responsible way of evading my consequences.

I’ve never been good at handling guilt. Can anyone ever be ethically skilled at facing their own guilt?

This post is becoming too lengthy, too verbose. I know I am fully capable of being verbose, sadly, but I haven’t yet found a reason good enough to change that aspect of me.

Oh, the tyranny of being trapped in my own thoughts.

Lately, I’ve been doing plenty of waiting.

Waiting to board my flight, waiting to land, waiting to clear immigration. Waiting to come home, waiting to return to you, but first—waiting for you to come back to me, too. Waiting for my international parcel to arrive, though I am to blame for doing online shopping at this period of time, waiting for your text messages while you have terrible Wi-Fi. Waiting.

We are more than two-thirds done with this long distance. Fate has pulled a cruel trick on us, that when I am overseas you are home, and immediately when I return, off you go. No overlapping. Just pure waiting. And my heart is anxious, but there’s only so much I can do; I can’t wait to see you, but these days will crawl away just as slowly, ignorant of my burning desires, ignorant of how much intensely I miss you.

I love you like how a child loves candy, like how a child loves the warmth of a fireplace in the winter cold. I want you with the enthusiasm a child has, ripping open his present on the morning of white Christmas to receive his favourite thing ever.

My parcel is reaching me at a snail’s speed. DHL isn’t supposed to be so slow. I twiddle my thumbs and refresh the tracking page over and over again, then I realise that I’m the one who is expecting too much. Your Christmas present is very likely going to be delayed, because I’m the one who foolishly placed the order a little too late. Everything is a little twisted in time. I take too long to come to a decision, and suddenly this decision is too rash. And then, I have to wait.

I strike off days on my calendar, and every night when I go to sleep I imagine telling myself that when I wake up again, I’ll be one more day closer to seeing you. I look forward to night time, to the moment my head touches the pillow and my mind goes to rest, knowing that sleep is the fastest way of painless time travel, the easiest way to take me back to you. In the morning, I sleep in until I can’t stand my own laziness anymore. I get up and go about my day, but my day is so, so, empty without you.

The seconds are always ticking. Scientifically, they’re always ticking at the same rate. But this wait is so long, so arduous, so gloomily cold.

I can only hope for tonight to come, then tomorrow, then the day after that; until finally, you are here with me.

I love your accent. I love how you speak a little differently from the rest, how your cultural background is one of a kind to my very limited exposure from the past 19 years of interacting with almost exclusively people of my own race.

I love the way you say my name; tender, gentle, like the delicate sound of rain, like the warmth of the sun. I’m usually tired of hearing my name; like it’s routine, over and over again, but you make even the most common of things sound like magic.

I replay your voice message over and over again, and for the entire 1.5 minutes I am ecstatic, swept away by a wild gust of euphoria. Your intonation goes up and down, like a rollercoaster, sometimes you are louder and sometimes you are soft, and sometimes you are bold and sometimes you are shy. I love that.

You’re not one to typically enjoy phone calls, much less sending voice messages. You say that it’s weird because it feels like you’re talking to a wall, but I feel you—every inch of you, every nook and cranny of your soul, right by my side. You’re warm, even when it’s cold outside.

My countdown timer reads 10 days to seeing you. I can’t believe we are already more than halfway there, nearly a month without seeing you, it’s not exactly long distance, but neither is it short. I don’t want to imagine when we both have to go for a semester long exchange.

Your limited internet is a painful ordeal to survive.

D-10, come back soon.

For the first time, I am excited about Christmas.

I don’t ever celebrate Christmas, such a tradition does not run in my family. But it runs in yours; that’s all that matters to me. Christmas is a day for gifting, for warmth, for love—for you.

I don’t consider myself a person of gifting. My love language for gifting is the lowest out of the 5. I think there are more gifts gone to waste than those which are actually appreciated and used. I don’t want to waste my time and money on gifts that will go to waste.

But for you, I’ll do everything to get you something perfect, despite you telling me that you don’t need anything for Christmas.

Your name is a partial homophone with Christmas. You are everything my friends told me that I deserved, everything that I never dared to dream of. You are everything I never believed existed until you are right here in front of me, right here with me. You are everything that healed my wounds, everything that silenced my fears and self-doubts. You are everything deserving, an oasis of comfort and warmth, my shining star. You are every love song I listen to, every romantic quote I read; you are every poem I resonate with, every emotion I bleed.

For you, I don’t think I’ll ever run out of words to say. Yet, nothing I say will ever be enough for how implausibly perfect you are to me.

This is where I know that for once, I can’t sleep because reality is finally better than my dreams (Dr Seuss). This is where I know that for once, the essence of everything is encapsulated in one person, one heart, one soul.

I’d like to keep that. I’d like to keep you forever. You are my greatest gift.

 

it’s the little things that matter the most to me. it’s the little things that i can trust. it’s the little things that you confide in me, embarrassing conversations and wild ideas, 1am insomniac thoughts that make everything so wholesome, so meaningful, so complete.

it’s the “how are you?” message i receive at 1.02am, from someone i haven’t seen for very long, that reminds me that hearts do connect even with the barrier of distance. that i can feel something solid, something physical, something genuinely sincere even over a telegram conversation. from someone whom i haven’t seen in nearly a year telling me the secrets that bother her at night, that i know that distance is nothing when two hearts connect.

i’ve never felt that i’m the right person to consult when it comes to relationships. i’m not good with my own emotions; i feel too much, or too little, finding the optimum point of balance is something i have always struggled with even up to now. i’m no good at telling my heart what it should feel. when reason clashes with sentiment, i’m almost always at a complete loss for what to do. i feel bizarre and erratic. i feel everything or nothing at all.

but i am lucky. i am beyond lucky, sensationally blessed with friends nothing less than magical. their words of affirmation, random text messages to update on the little and bigger things, sharing things they enjoy, asking if i’m okay, affectionate diction. the little things. it’s always the little things that are the worthiest of attention.

and you convince me that i am worthy of being loved. your love is so gentle, so meticulous and delicate. your words like a sacred sanctuary of calmness and peace, and i am eloquent because of you. yet, you are the masterpiece i can never write. writing about you has involved thousands of backspacing, hundreds of deleted drafts. and so, i’m convinced that i can never encapsulate your essence in any form of literature that i may write. but i write, because you feed me love so powerful, because you exist.

you are fire;
powerful enough to burn me
gentle enough to warm me
deep enough to save me.

sweetheart;

your eyes are tired from the sleep
you’ve not been getting
sleeping at 3am and
waking up at 8.
you say goodnight, but I really do wonder
if your night was good.

you send heart shapes and sweet messages,
warming my heart in this bitter cold winter
every passing day a day nearer to warmth
every passing day a day nearer to you, because
home is warm and
you are home.

you ask me how I turn my words into romance
I’ll tell you I’m a hopeless romantic—my soul
bleeds in the form of words, of poetry and prose,
for keeping my sanity
in loving you insane

You are madness in its loveliest form
I am a passionately raging thunderstorm
and I roar when you roar
I cry when you cry
and I fall when
you fall.

days like this hurt more than the rest; like the raw numbness in cold winter, like an uncontrollable rage, like an utterly crippling sense of loneliness when i am somewhere far away from you.

days like this hurt more because i miss you a little too much, when everything reminds me of you—from the warmth of a stove all the way to the bitter coldness of my hands against the winter wind without gloves. every day is a day closer to seeing you, but every day in between is an arduous challenge, oftentimes gnawing at where it hurts the most. sometimes it feels impossible to survive the night in this terrible cold, the back of my hands have numerous small and tiny cuts from the merciless torment of the wind. but today these physical pains are nothing compared to what I feel inside.

but this feeling is not new. this is a feeling I know all too well, a feeling I am familiar with. this is insecurity tormenting my restless mind, threatening me that i am always the one at fault, the one not good enough, the one who doesn’t deserve this happiness, the one who doesn’t have a right to feel angry. but because I haven’t lost the battle with my temper for over a year, today I will not lose to it, and so I take a deep breath and suck it all up, take it all in. i shall not aggravate. i will not lose what i have. i don’t want to hurt anyone. I’ve always preferred to be the one hurt.

days like this i remind myself that my pain is not the worst, and that because I have lived through days like this I will live through this one just the same. days like this I know that I’ll just have to grit my teeth harder and push through, hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.

days like this I count my blessings and i count you 2927362936282762 times over and over, for taking me as i am, with all my insecurities and imperfections that constitute the quintessence of my existence. i survive on your ‘i love you’s, taking them in like a therapy to cure this bad day.

this bad day.

he wraps me in his arms for the first time in all my 19 years, his calloused hand brushes against mine while he tells me how excited he is to finally see me. today is the first time we have ever met.

the warmth of a family comes in the form of welcoming someone he has never seen home to a special homecooked meal that took 5 hours to prepare, filling my bowl over and over again until my stomach is crying and I force myself to be firm in saying that I don’t want any more food. tea? he asks, and I consent to tea. i feel pregnant with food and love.

he shows me pictures of my grandparents and my great-grandparents. my grandmother was incredibly pretty when she was young. she’d be suitable as a runway model, but she spent her entire life taking care of her children and her all too many siblings, day in day out of labour and keeping painful secrets to herself. she doesn’t smile much, but she’s pretty even when she doesn’t smile.

i drift away on the couch and i feel blankets being wrapped around me. i feel the same pair of calloused hands gently caress my forehead. i pretend to be fast asleep even though i am wide awake. i hear him ask my father if i would prefer to sleep on their bed; no, i would rather take the couch, thank you.

there is something about black and white photographs that segregate the people inside them from the rest of us. their world was full of colour but technology was unable to capture the vibrancy of life—reducing them to monochrome memories in the form of small and flimsy photographs. and the fact that most of the people in the photographs are now buried underneath the soil, it feels even more distant, even though it’s only been half a century. my great grandmother has the kindest look i ever know, my great grandfather looks rather stoic. i know that i know nothing, trying to figure out their personalities from a 60 year old photograph. they don’t even know i exist.

i think about how incredibly different my life is now compared to theirs. i don’t live in the same country as them, don’t even hold the same citizenship. i don’t even write in my mother tongue. i love someone from a completely different culture and we have so vastly different mother tongues, that we have difficulty understanding each other’s mother tongue comprehensibly. so we converse in english, which is neither of our mother tongues, but the language that we are both the best in.

i often get asked by my relatives how good my mother tongue is, and unfortunately my mother tongue is not my strongest language. but i would like to say that i’m decent, and that the locals here probably can’t tell that i am brought up in another country with a completely different culture unless they dwell beyond standard conversational topics. and that’s okay, i guess. i don’t want to be a culture erosion to my family, i hope i am not.

i get home and text you, and you remind me you love me. and somehow i know that even though our roots are nowhere near the same, love is universal and that’s okay.