Author: Fangjie

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.

 

I have eyes that won’t close, dreams that haunt me wide awake.

I have sleep paralysis that makes me never want to sleep, makes me never want to leave the night. Makes me never want to leave you. But what I want isn’t necessarily what I’ll get. Normal.

I test the speed limits at 12am down a road I know too well; running away from school, running away from rules, running away from you. My engine revolution hits 3,000 on gear 4 and I know I’m going too fast, just like how my mind is racing, but there are laws I’m obliged to abide by. So I slow down. But my mind doesn’t. There aren’t laws concerning overthinking, though I wish there were.

My body is aching everywhere from gym. My shoulders are whining. My thighs are crying. My mind is screaming hallelujah, pain is pleasure, it’s rewarding after an effective gym session, but every other part of my body demands otherwise. I woke up the next morning and wanted to skip class because it hurts to get out of bed, but I needed to submit an assignment so I forced my lazy body out against all its crying like a mother disciplining her uncooperative child.

My engine revolution goes up to 3,000 again. I need to stop thinking about irrelevant things. I clutch in and gear down, gear 3 should be safe for me not to speed. Wrong. I unintentionally gear up again. I race my car against my mind into the carpark and do a shit parking job. I make corrections thrice because I can’t concentrate. 12am is a bad time to drive. Today is a bad day to be alive. At least the car is intact.

I dive into my bed at 1am, drowning in a sea of thoughts of words people (carelessly) said. I need to stop thinking about these words, my own words. I take words too seriously, I rethink them over and over again until I exhaust myself physically, then I proceed to dream about them even while I’m physically unconscious. My dreams are too realistic for my liking. Some people don’t dream, but they wish to. I dream too much, too realistically, sometimes I wish I don’t dream.

I plunge my face into my pillow, I stick earbuds into my ears and blast my insomnia songs. As usual, it doesn’t put me to sleep.

Missing you is like a gaping hole yearning to be filled, a darkness that awaits a flame, a craving that has exploded in desire. All these, kept clandestinely in my heart like a secret that can never see daylight.

I tell myself not to be like this, not to feel this way. I tell myself not to anticipate, lest I aggravate what damage that has already been done upon myself. But I can’t help it, the impossibility of being devoid of all emotions regardless how hard I try and hold it in. There are certain people you just gravitate towards naturally, but how cruel is life that we don’t always receive reciprocation.

I don’t know if it’s the pain of our goodbyes that hurt more, or our hellos. Our hellos mean the world to me, but with every hello comes an inevitable goodbye—they always come too quickly, when I don’t want them to end the most. And so, I’m afraid to say hello. I don’t say hello, but that’s rude. And so, I smile.

It’s ironic how what usually follows intense euphoria is intense pain. It’s like you’re never entitled to feeling that happy in the first place, so you subsequently get punished for getting too happy. They say that you should be happy without a reason, because the reason can be taken away from you. But you make me so happy without even trying and I don’t understand how it’s possible, but you do that so gracefully, so swiftly that I had no time to brace myself for the impact of your presence.

I haven’t felt this way in a long while, for anyone. I’ve almost become convinced that I’m incapable of feeling so much for someone who doesn’t know it, but every single time you remind me that I can fall just as hard, just a lot more selectively. And I don’t know why I’ve subconsciously chosen you. But I have. And this is so hard for me, like a cruel joke we have the worst compatibility ever. I must be stupid.

Yet, I should have seen this coming a long time ago, but I failed to address it. I should have known better from the very beginning when you made me feel differently from the rest, how quietly you took my heart by storm; like a gentle wave of light showers suddenly cascading over me like a hurricane.

I wish you’d know, but I’d rather you not. Lest I take away your happiness with this knowledge, I’d rather take all this pain myself.

Missing you is tougher than ever, but I know not how not to think about you.

Time and time again, I’ve proven to myself that I cannot sleep in.

Jolted awake at 5am in the morning over the same scars that hurt two years ago, except today the pain has drastically intensified. I’m guilty of carrying the burden of all my past guilts (how ironic) everywhere, but I don’t know how to let them go because I never stop feeling bad about them. My mind does an excellent job at randomly recollecting a past bad thought, flipping my entire day around and drowning me in an abyss of guilt and utter discomfort. I wish I knew where to draw the line between inhumanity and over sentimentality, but since I don’t, I’d much rather spend my time at the latter than the former. It’s just who I inevitably am.

I’ve wasted too much money this week, too. Especially when I could have avoided them. I spent close to $300 on medication this week because I failed to take care of my body during vigorous exercise. I’ve played badminton close to my entire life and this is the first time any injury has lasted so fucking long (it’s been nearly a full month) and it hurts where it matters the most to me—my fucking wrist. I have never felt so crippled my entire life playing badminton, stripped of the ability to do some of the shots that previously came so naturally, constantly having to take mental notes to take care of my ass so that I don’t aggravate. And people constantly asking me, how’s your wrist? And I wish I could cheerfully reply, it’s all good now, thanks! But I can’t, so instead I say, it’s getting better, but getting better it is at such a slow rate that sometimes I wonder if it’s getting better at all. Sure, it’s better than the initial stages where I couldn’t even rotate my wrist, but it seems that after a few weeks of recovery the pain has just stagnated there. It doesn’t hurt when I write anymore (which is good), but I still can’t lift heavy groceries for my mother, and still can’t play badminton like I used to. And it bothers me when I don’t do as well as I know I can. And this injury should have been avoided because my wrist was sending warning signals but I ignored it and overstrained, and now I pay the physical and emotional price.

University work feels like a constant marathon, the accumulation of short term inputs for a long term outcome. Sometimes this is good, because it means that I need not worry about a behemoth of an assignment that determines 400% of my grades, but it also means the constant, persistent need for consistency in hard work that frankly speaking, some days I just feel like I’m not up to. But I can’t stop there, it’s barely half the semester of my first semester of my first year, so I can’t stop because I can’t be a quitter. Everyone else is working hard, and the same I should like to believe for myself. I can’t give up because I’ve already come too far out, and I cannot afford to disappoint because then I will need to permanently carry this guilt for the rest of my life, and I’m having none of that. None.

I’m thankful for days like this where the words flow so naturally, because on days when I feel dry I cannot squeeze a single alphabet out. And writing has become so essential in my daily life, to the extent that it decides how well I graduate, how well I interact with others, and selfishly how I protect my own sanity. On average I’ve been writing 3000 words a day this week, it’s tiring, but it doesn’t stop there. Not when I have 3 writing assignments to fulfil, that requires constant refinement, drafting, and frankly speaking a whole lot of self doubt and uncertainty.

But this is what I have chosen, and this is what I will become.

So have mercy on me, my sleepless nights. Let me sleep in and temporarily escape this monstrosity.

see you,

when I see you again;

we make no promises to meet

it’s a better way than saying

goodbye.

•

i had dinner alone at night

in the east, far away

from home, both

physically, and

emotionally. something

stings.

•

at night, I am guilty again—

the objective consequentialist

screaming at me: this is partially

your fault we lost it, and I don’t

fight the accusation.

because I am guilty for not realising,

I spilled the beans. And

it haunts me; I can’t sleep.

•

maybe i am too naive

I always come off as

inexperienced, immature

but I am trying

but I keep failing

like a kid.

•

i didn’t really need dinner

i was hungry

but it was not physical hunger.

rather, I consumed my emotions

cuz I was too weak to fight them

too weak to hold them close.

too afraid to brace the collision

of the truth.

•

see you,

when I see you again;

I wish there’d be a date

but this is with what I will

temporarily settle.

the rain destroys my hair

wipes away my smile like

acetone on nail polish.

•

she smiles. I smile back,

but I didn’t want to. I am

too tired to function.

•

I constantly am at a loss

of seemingly everything;

words, faith, hope, love,

I don’t know why it is

so tiring, except that

it just is. Lethargic.

•

she is graceful and calm

i am erratic and dumb

my legs won’t move when

I want it to, I fall.

•

my wrist hurts.

•

and I know that this tiredness

is incurable with sleep

like raindrops against my skin

it starts off soft and grows into

a thunderstorm; and it consumes me

together with it.

don’t forget to remind yourself to forget about the things that hurt

to forget about the things that you’d be better off not to feel

•

the type of hunger that can’t be foreseeably satisfied;

I wonder if it’s better to never try to fulfill, instead of

stupidly wishing upon dead stars in the sky

clinging onto wistful memories of hope from the past.

the stars are long dead.

•

you’ll need to work hard for the things you want

but there are certain things you’ll just never get

I wonder where it is to draw this line; I am always

crossing onto the other side I don’t want.

•

I am afraid to go to sleep because I know I’ll see you

radiant and vibrant in my dreams—how effortlessly

you make me feel at ease and I am utterly terrified but

nature determines everything; I am the moon and

inevitably I rise and fall completely for you

in the wee hours of the silent night

all the way until your sunshine

renders me invisible at morning light.

•

I was not aware that euphoria can be crippling

drunk on high hopes with zero foundation

in the middle of the night I was screaming your name

but my roommate was fast asleep

so I screamed your name in my heart and into my dreams

in the morning I woke up like death, I overslept.

my heartstrings jumbled up in a complete mess and you

swung on them until it was too painful to sleep.

•

it is ironic because I wanted to write this post

to forget about you but I know I have only just

risen even higher above ground only to

fall even harder than I ever did at the start.

please have mercy on my heart.

When I tell you goodnight

I mean it in a way, not just

rest tight, but may your soul

be calm and gentle to you

•

it’s midnight and I am

anything but rested and

I wonder if you are sleeping

or wide awake just like me

my incoherent 2am poems

they are not poems

they are the cries of my

heart and soul because

I do think about you

you know nothing.

and it’s fine.

• •

goodnight.