;

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.

I see you one last time before I go, out of pure coincidental fate, and I swear this is fate telling me that this is it; you are the one.

For the first time, I get front row seats on my flight, such that economy class feels like business class in terms of leg space, that I can afford to stretch them fully out without disturbing the people in front of me. I fall asleep because I am too tired, and I sleep so deeply that I miss my in-flight meal.

I’m out of the airport by 9am, but the traffic jam made a 20km journey last a full hour. We pick up three bouquets of handpicked flowers; the fresh smell of jasmines, lilies, and carnations in -8 degrees Celsius is beautiful, especially when the winter has made my sense of smell completely haywire. Today, we add in a slight hint of pink and purple in our flowers, just because we wanted to celebrate two lives that have been very fully lived, instead of just mourning over their losses.

Something feels strange looking down at my grandparents’ tombstones. It’s a horrible feeling to know that someone who has held so much significance in your life, someone who has been so lively and full of stories to tell, is now reduced to nothing but ashes protected under an expensive, polished stone with their name engraved in golden characters. Names don’t define a person’s life, but it is the only thing we are allowed to share with the public about the ones that mean so much to us.

My hands and face are freezing cold, but suddenly I feel a stream of warmth flow down my face, and then I taste the saltiness on the tip of my tongue. I sit by my grandparents for a while, telling them how wonderful my life in university is, telling them how I’ve met beautiful people in my life, telling them that I can now drive; everything that I never had the time to tell them. Once upon a time they sit by my bedside and tell me stories, now I sit by theirs and tell them mine.

I return to my house to receive your messages on my phone, and it makes everything better. I love the way you are so full of love for everyone that even your texting tone is lovely and caring, unlike mine that is so cold and stoic. You remind me that you love me and for a moment everything becomes better for me; then suddenly I am so afraid to lose you. I love how you are an abundance of positive energy, I love the way you talk about your friends and how you are so happy for them, that it makes me feel even luckier that you love me.

It’s cold here and I’m still a little sad, but every day I grow to become more thankful for you and I hope this is the way things will stay.

Lots of love.

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.