gravity

your eyes are an abyss 

that i dare not look into for too long

your name is tied to my tongue 

and sometimes i stay quiet in fear that it might roll off 

like smoke in the air

i don't see you and suddenly 

you're in my lungs and 

i am finding it hard to breathe

the night you called,

the black and white that i saw the world in 

became colours once more 

if i am honest 

i followed my heart 

and it led me to you 

but i'm not 

saturday

I left your house with my head bent and my lips trembling the way they do when it's cold outside. It is all done now, but my heart is still pounding and when I raise my hands to press the lift button, I see that they're shaking. A lady bumped into me as I exited the lift and kneeled down to help me retrieve the keys that I dropped and as she did, she looked into my eyes and asked if I was okay and that made my lips tremble a little more. 

I am terrified of all the things that I had said and done to you and now that it's all over, I keep thinking about everything that I could have done differently. Would it have made any difference at all? I wish I had never made you cry and I want so badly to believe that you will not let them overshadow the very good parts of what we shared.

When you think of me from here on, I want you to remember the very first time we met. You gazing at me from afar at the bus stop, hesitating in your step, smiling uncertainly in my direction as if unsure if I would recognise you, your smile quickly growing warm and comfortable when you noticed that I had seen you and was smiling back. That following Tuesday, we stood outside Cheers and talked while I shifted stones with my feet to distract myself from your eyes. When you think of me, remember that too.

We both turned away and I am sad because we would have been so good together. But you are well aware of the risks and I am too tainted by fear and I hope right now, somewhere across the world, there are people begging their loved ones not to go because they are in love and want to be happy. 

some of my favourite things about you

- Your face when your glasses fog up as soon as you step out of a freezing cold bus

- Your love for cats. Once, we spent a few minutes circling a void deck, looking for your favourite cat. You said you were worried because you hadn't seen her in a while. That was when I knew you had a lot of good in you

- Your eyes and how they light up when you talk about your best friend

- Your eyes, again. How they gleam when you tell me you love me

- Your smile when you spot me in the crowd from afar

- Your honesty when you're vulnerable

dangerous

You handed me flowers yesterday 

when my mind was drifting into space 

our fingers brushed when I took the stem 

petals bloomed inside my chest and

littered my stomach

made a mess 

I couldn’t say when it all began

or at which point it was that we slipped

the night we sat by the pond,

you emptied your thoughts into my hands

and told me to do what I liked with it

I kept them inside me for months

to fill me up on days when

my soul echoes with hollowness

days like this

You said what you liked about us was our lack of a start

because that means we will never meet our end

2920 days, is there really no end to this? 

you’ve lingered in my head for far too long 

on bad days I wake up and feel

your imprint on my skin, soft and fading

it tires me

You handed me flowers yesterday

I left them to wilt this morning

I am well aware of the risks of

dipping one’s toes in danger

you are a puddle after a downpour

while I am walking in frictionless shoes

meteors

You told me I was your world 
but I am less than a planet
I am a meteor
always turning and falling into others
colliding and destroying,
a speck of dust floating around the sun
trivial but alarming

I orbit so quickly,
I will not stop to say 
hello to you at the place that 
you've been waiting, 
just by the sun

I am chaotic
I shine the brightest in voids
then leave trails of destruction 
when I leave

You told me I was your world
but I stop for no one
there is more to life than 
mindless desire my dear

Do not wait for me

rut

It is that time again where I sit at my kitchen and wait for the world to be still. This comes easily when your nights are later. It strikes me now, what an irony it is to long for quiet when your own head is muddy and loud with obtrusive thoughts.  

These days, I stretch out the hours of the night. I skip mornings altogether. This is how I know that my sadness has returned. I have been so good at ignoring it and filling up my days so that they are busy and loud. But when the moments pass, as they do now, I see it right there. Lurking on the horizon, reaching out. Sadness. It has come back again. 

I learnt very quickly in my early twenties that negativity is a downward spiral. Over the years, I've blocked out negative feelings in a conscious bid to swerve them. I don't talk about them because talking means acknowledging them into existence. It is always a gamble; always the same question - will I really feel better and will talking change anything at all? Often, I overpower them with happiness and good thoughts. But like everybody else, I feel afraid and vulnerable. Every so often, I am sad. There are times when this world seems to be moving too fast and my pulse quickens and I find myself taking very soft breaths. These days for instance, I've been ridden with guilt, heavy with thoughts of not doing enough yet simultaneously feeling overwhelmed and unready. If not now, then when? Will I ever be ready again? God. That question again.

My sadness is here but I know it won't be like this forever. I've sat here in this same stillness years before, a cheek pressed against the cool veneer of the table, and felt many times worst. That feels like forever ago. I forget that I am vulnerable but now I know. I will climb up this disarray. I'll begin again. 

on reciprocity

The best feeling really is reciprocity. Receiving the same energy that you're giving out. Being supportive towards someone and having them be supportive back. Sure, we don't do things solely for the purpose of expecting it to be reciprocated. We do it because of love, because we want to, because it makes us happy to see our loved ones happy. Yeah, sure, of course. 

But at the same time, one can't deny how incredible it feels to have your actions reciprocated. Makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. Say, you really couldn't care less about theatre. Not interested, never have been. Your other half, on the other hand, is a huge fan. Because of that, you ask them about it, you sit across from them at the dinner table and listen to them go on and on about it, you even attend that 3-hour long musical with them. You support their interests. You do all these because you love them, not really because you expect them to do the same for you. But when they do end up doing the same for you; when they buy a pair of hiking shoes to hike 10km with you in nature even though it's not their cup of tea and they'd really rather be indoors than out in the sun; it feels wonderful. 

Nothing can match up to that feeling you get when you receive the same energy that you give out. 

thoughts before bed

Do I feel things more now that I am older? 

Where do I even begin? If you ignore certain feelings and thoughts, will they go away? If you actively choose to ignore them, if you don't address them, will they magically disappear? I've been thinking so much lately and it's so exhausting to have all these thoughts in your head and not know what to do with them. I've got so much of them, so much to say but I find myself holding my tongue, holding back, in fear of saying something I might regret. I've been working extra hard to filter these thoughts out but it's a challenge. I'm scared, it's right, it's wrong, it's normal, it's not normal. I don't even want to describe it. If I describe it, I might find myself wading deeper into my thoughts and I just can't afford to do that. Not right now. Filter, filter, block them out. 

I think I understand now why I treasure sleep so much. It feels absolutely amazing to sleep regardless of anything but I think the reason why I really look forward to sleeping is because that's probably one of the only times where my mind takes a break and stops thinking. It's a huge relief. 

Also, until recently, I never realised how dangerous it could be to ask yourself 'I wonder' / 'what if'. These questions can manifest into really dangerous thoughts. Once you hop on that train, you're going to cross into uncharted territory and then it's just pretty much downhill from there. It's a slippery slope that you do not want to find yourself on and it can happen to the best of us. My advice: just don't go there. Filter, filter, block those thoughts out. 

it's just a skull

I'm sure we're taller in another dimension 

You say we're small and not worth the mention 

You’re tired of movin', your body's achin' 

We could vacay, there's places to go

Clearly this isn't all that there is 

Can't take what's been given

But we're so okay here, we're doing fine

Primal and naked

You dream of walls that hold us imprisoned 

It's just a skull, least that's what they call it 

And we're free to roam.

This outro to White Ferrari by Frank Ocean is one of the most comforting things I've listened to in my whole life. It's the lyrics really, but there's also something about the way Frank sings it, so gentle and so 'Bon iver-ish' that comforts me, especially right now when I'm so overwhelmed and swamped with work. God knows my mind is so pre-occupied, my thoughts so scattered. I'm tired. 

The line, "Clearly this isn't all that there is, can't take what's been given, but we're so okay here, we're doing fine" resonates so deeply with me. Like, this can't be it, right? We can't settle for things that don't make us happy, right? We shouldn't just take what's been given, right? We should fight for what we truly want. Right? Yeah, that's what I think sometimes. But there are also other times where I ask myself, what for? Why ask for more when I'm doing just fine here? Why? Am I not doing okay? Am I not surviving with what I already have? What's wrong with just... settling? 

I'm torn between wanting change and just settling. Maybe that's why I'm happy, but not really. 

-

"You know you really love someone when you cannot hate them for breaking your heart." 

This could be 1am me listening to sad, sappy love songs talking but I think I will always care for you. I will always want the best for you. I will always try to be happy for you. Despite everything, I am sending nothing but good vibes your way. Nothing but love for you. 

remembering

I keep our memories light on my lips.

When I think of you, I think about the time I sat next to you at that open field. Grass all around, wind so strong we could barely hear ourselves talk. We were laughing about something silly, as we always did, and you let your head fall on my shoulder, as you sometimes did. When the last of our laughters left our lips, we looked up to see Orion's belt in the sky. At that moment, with the moon staring down at us and wisps of your hair tickling my chin, I knew. I guess I knew, from the very beginning. Even now, when your name appears in conversations, I start it with those words. Once upon a time. I knew from the very beginning. 

I remember once when we were in the car, I glanced over at you and you were staring at me, a soft smile on your lips. "What?" I asked. You just smiled and shook your head. Later that night, you squeezed me in a bear hug and whispered in my ear. "Do you know that I love you so much?" Ah, I remember thinking. So that was what. That night, my heart filled up so fast I thought it was going to burst. I never learned to forget that. Did you?

We have moved in different directions now, entangled in our own lives, pretending we are strangers. Sometimes, I wonder how you're doing and I wonder if you'd like to see me again and I wonder if we met and sat at that same spot at that open field, would you let your head fall on my shoulder and would things somehow magically be the same again? Or would there be a shift, would we have absolutely nothing to say to each other, would we glance down at our watches and hope for time to move faster, would we be glad, deep in our hearts, that we had chosen to leave things as it is? 

It is strange, how much just a little bit of time can change. I don't know the answer to any of those questions, but I do know the fight is over. My heart and head is clearer now than it's ever been. You were my very best friend and when I think of you today, I only remember the good things. 

baby

I think we were brave to have stood where we did for so long 

and loved as much and as hard as we did

I was holding on to our strings by my fingertips

hoping that you would want to try again 

but you've got one foot out the door 

and I knew from your eyes that nothing I said 

would have changed anything

Last night before I slept 

I thought of you and of the emptiness I've been trying so

hard to ignore 

the sound of your smile

your liquid eyes

how they light up when you look at me 

these are the things that I will always hold close to me

You are a beautiful part of my life 

we had a good run 

thank you for the past few years 

A kiss at the door and leaving 

it open