Day Eight

on many levels i am angry. but on the most basic level, and the one closest to my heart, i am wistful. wistful over everything that has transpired be it good or bad, and wistful over what could have been. like my red curtains, and the lanterns i was going to hang from the ceiling in the middle of the room: things that never happened because like everything else, my wishes just weren’t communicated rightly or taken seriously enough.

what went wrong all boils down to communication and respect. lack of. i remember how i felt when i walked in and saw the grey curtains and how my heart just stopped and spilled all over the wooden floor. what is the word i am looking for? dismissed. a word so often used against me, but always ejaculated with a conviction that smells suspiciously like hypocrisy. irony. the most important things become forgotten and shoveled beneath layer after layer, mound after mound of flimsy defenses and self-righteous pride. how can you say you love someone when you are so much more in love with yourself?

pebbles in shoes come to mind. i have forgotten how to speak, i have forgotten how to be happy. reprieves come often enough, but i’m taken away from them by the call of duty and guilt, mixed together into a love potion. nothing complements each other, nothing feels perfect; it’s always either or, compromise, win some lose some. we give in all at the wrong times, and so we collapse together, recklessly and without any tenderness.

i feel deprived. starved, somehow. repressed. oppressed. sad. lonely. disappointed. furious. cold. contemptuous. on one hand, what was i thinking? on the other hand, there were all those laughs and all those mornings - those sweet mornings with the kisses and the cologne and the space invading. brushing teeth. making fun. siew long pau. pooch. the airport express. cold cinemas. you see? you see what i’m doing? why am i doing this? this is so fucking irrelevant. and you know what else? Ocean’s Thirteen was fucking balls anyway.

April 13th, 2008

As I Sit Here

i will always remember that moment where i tried to disappear into that corner outside the lifts, and the minutes leading up to that moment. i will always remember that sense of estrangement, that betrayal, that nauseating distress that was scratching its way out of my stomach and into my mouth. there is the quiet kind of loneliness that you feel in the never-ending expanse of your bed in the dead of night when you can’t seem to sleep.. and then there is this kind of roaring raging angry loneliness when you realize with a thudding clarity that trust is hurtful and dangerous when placed into the wrong hands.

slivers of that moment haunt me when i step into lift lobbies. or when i am back there. and even sometimes when i dream, especially that particular dream last sunday that felt like a grotesque hall of shame that i was eternally trapped in, thinking to my dream self over and over again, how could this be happening to me.

all i can do after i lock the door behind me each time is sigh. here we go again, these wooden floors. i wish they sold resilience by the bottles over the counter. i would break my piggy bank for a lifetime supply of the stuff.

March 20th, 2008

With Ice Cream

i had this dream last night. in this dream everything was right. it was so believable and so comfortable and so perfectly indestructible. when i woke up, i was alone. i grasped the pillow next to mine and pretended i was holding his hand. then i fell back into sleep and - to my delight - resumed my dream, though not exactly where i left off. in this dream, he talked to me the way he would talk to me, but also in a way that he wouldn’t. he touched my hair in a way i’ve never known. there was this buzz and this high. the smell of white and the crunch of gravel. he loved me and i loved him too.

February 26th, 2008

How To Be Happy

happiness is a choice, he smiled at me.

sometimes it evades you, i said quietly. then it’s no longer a choice you have the luxury of making.

no, happiness is always a choice, he insisted, beaming brightly.

i went home and thought long and hard about it. after putting everything side by side. left to right. up and over each other. i’ve learnt that, yes, happiness is a choice. even if it evades you, it is still a choice. it is always a choice.

i choose to be happy today even though it is difficult to be. and because there is nothing big to be happy about right now, i will choose to find joy in something small. this isn’t as hard as i think it to be, because there will always be little things around us that we oft overlook in the pursuit of bigger things. so i will take this tiny, almost crackable, ounce of joy… and i will turn it into something that is bright, cheerful and bigger than me. as long as i can make it bigger than me, i will be happy. so the small thing i choose to find joy in today is: the song Bubbly by Colbie Caillat. i’m gonna wrap myself in it like frozen fish in cling-wrap.

It starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Where ever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Where ever you go

someone i know calls me Colbie because this song reminds him of me. it’s so perfect.

so, for today and maybe even for tomorrow, my name is Colbie. because i am happy.

January 22nd, 2008

Strangeland

the world is my Flying Pan.

i just have to keep telling myself that and i will be okay.

it has been an unusually difficult couple of days. i would like to talk about it but it always comes out wrong. once again, i have made the wrong decision in a crucial time. why do i keep doing this? is it bad judgment? indecisiveness? recklessness? love?

the floor here breaks my heart. there are all these things scattered on the coffee table that i don’t even want to touch. within 10 minutes of arriving, i had to lock myself in the bathroom and cry. and then earlier this afternoon i had to come back in because i forgot my mobile phone.. in a fit of determination, i made myself lie down on the bed. my bed. in my room. facing the wardrobe. just to stare at things. and so i stared at the wooden duck on the floor. stared at the potted plant. all while trying to pin down nausea and a spinning head.

yknow, it’s so easy to say, this is just another place, but it is NOT just another place. it was supposed to be so much more than that. it’s funny how the things that you love the most, hurt you the most.

i really want to go home.

but then, going home is for the weak. i am strong, i am brave and i am good at what i do, and no one or myself can convince me otherwise. the world is my Flying Pan. if i could do it that one time, i can do it now and always.

January 16th, 2008