His eyes stung as the dust settled,
Looking onward,
To the darker shadows of his home;
His family.
A company he would, could, not force.
Young man.
Too young.
Less experienced.
With no words, Fatah of Twenty-Eight years old assertively okayed the obstacle,
Dragged himself deeper to the emotion;
Lungs felt like exploding,
But he remained unwavering.
Distance was his debt,
Faith & naivety were his guiding beacon.
Try as he might;
No tear came to his eyes.
Water spat from his lung;
A frigid dam.
He was a free soul,
Trapped in his icy prison
Till the cold bit and the wolf howled.
He is light on his feet, lighter than the cigarette that wounds and turned to ashes as the smoke cleanses the air around him, turns it into something he can more or less breathe. But his heart weight his lung down, to take it slowly and not to blow the smoke to his counterpart.
He is light with his drinks, lighter than any beers anyone drink at any parties to have something to blame after the substance smashed their heads. But his heart weight his throat down to escape any dreading party he feel obligated to attend and swallow the subtances that tastes grainy & hurtful like sand in his throat. Although annoyed, he always smiles at parties; thankful despite his words, humbled despite his actions.
He is light at his words but his heart weight his lips down; the first time I said I love you, the lines blur for a moment that he needs to count backwards from ten until his lips stop tasting like someone else’s name and the heartbreak stories that left him with and replied with the same sentence over a phone call two years ago. Nothing could prepare him for the searing melancholy that I would leave him with or how empty he feels after giving her everything and realising it can never be enough. This is now, and that was then, his heart is always in the right place; in me, he claims
But to me hearts are dumb things and he can barely keep his under his skin when it so longs to be ripped. So I hid mine and his under my sleeves.
You are a work of art.
That crooked teeth you got from a basketball game in 7th grade. That slightly bent arm you got from that time you fell off the swing for trying to fly. That scar on your lower lip that lasted for minutes and disappeared as the moment you tried that bungee jumping. That little perfect imperfections that makes you the perfect you.
You are a work of art.
A sleepless muse that came from a thoughtful artist. A masterpiece that sings to him in the voice of serendipity. An inspiration that whispers the will of desperate bid to be grandiose.
Only to be put up on a wall for a moment, until the next big thing, next big artist, next bigger canvas come to take off your temporarily nail.
You are a work of art.
You are an eye candy. Something that catches the trader’s eyes only to be bought and hidden away in his golden cage, surrounded with magnificence and wonder but accompanied by darkness. The thing that only breathe in for a moment of a gaze. The thing that comes to life when someone gave you a cursive look.
A pretty thing that painted, sculptured, made by a hand only to be forgotten for the next pretty thing that inspires that hand.
You are a work of art.
Blood red as fresh wound. Hair black as a dark mustang. Eyes brown as teak’s trunk.
A jailed and replaceable beauty.
Unlike many of the other women in this book signing party who boasted geekiness, some with crime-inflicted makeup or embarrassing bottom firmness, her frame was spare, bordering on drug addict thin. Her dark wash jeans sported jagged-edged holes, and her faded grey shirt could have used a good ironing.
He was curious himself. He pummeled her with questions, more than any of the other attendants. ‘What are you?’ He wondered. Here before them was some mythical being, her youth and her dishevelment marking her an alien in the line of cookie hater adults.
“I’m a writer,” she replied as if she was reading his mind. Without mercy, she continued making the man more confused. “I don’t find exchanging money for books a fair trade. Give me your attention instead.”
Silence followed them. He knew what the feeling was like. To have twenty pairs of eyes blinking owlishly, to blatantly witness the influence one had on others minds, it was oddly satisfying. She only smiled, enjoying the stupor she had created
Give me your attention instead, she had said.
In his own perfect cursive, he had written:
“Well, you have it.”
.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak,” he said after an eternity to collect his courage.
“My aim is to corrupt young minds,” her tongue brushing subtle strokes of mischief under each of her replies. How easily he had been ensnared by her incantation.
He smiled as his hand slipped into hers.
“I enabled you.”
.
His free time in the following week was spent reading her works. The blended of the magical with the mundane, the bizarre with the banal. She made people believe that such potent beings stood behind you in line at the grocery store and got drunk at the bar fussing over human problems—of their purposes in life, of why they remained yet unloved, of the promises they had broken.
He fell asleep. Bloated with strange dreams and he envisioned himself flying on top of a dragon around gothic castle.
The morning woke him rudely. Splinters of sun spiked through his window. He looked at his phone and find her text showed up with the other texts blurred and distant.
He can imagine her face, her poopish-brown eyes were so clear and almost laughing, that she looked almost insincere in the request showed in the form of honest text to go over coffee.He had always been wary when it came to fulfilling women’s wishes of him. He believed he was too insignificant to warrant their attention.
This time, it was not.
.
Their first meeting was just to get coffee. She drank hers like a girl, with three sugars and three creams, while his was taken black.
The way she spoke; animatedly, gesturing as if there was something in front of her and she was annoyed and trying to unravel them.
The way she smiled; one corner of her mouth raised higher than the other with her eyes stared near and distant at the same time but enough for him to join in this forbidden liaison.
He wondered if she could tell, that he had read her stroked words and letters issued by her hands and fell asleep with her enchanting fantasies.
They did not experience the silence, but he can sense that she avoided the female tendency of continuing dying conversation with more bootless inquiries and appreciated that.
“I want your attention,” she said cryptically, her stare still both distant and near. “I want to arrest your soul, to a world much bigger than you could have ever imagined.” Her words were at a near whisper.
“That you, too, are far greater than a mere bag of bones and skin. It’s amazing. It’s ridiculous. It's…”
“Irrational,” he finished, closing what sounded like recited poetry.
The spell was broke. She straightened her back, her lips twisting into a grin. She laughed, and the brown flood of her eyes ignited.
“But it’s invigorating!” she rejoiced. “So rejuvenating!”
“It’s also awful,” she began. “And I mean that in the most literal sense. It inspires awe and fear because it defies the laws of physics. People used to tell me I can’t think like that, that to think like that is idealistic and crazy. But what is so wrong with believing that we are more than a flesh an a bag of bones? People describe love in the same nonsensical manner, but no one says, ‘No, don’t talk about love like that.’” she paused, a contemplative wrinkle engraved into her brow.
He sat politely straight, regaining posture at the introduction of her forte into their discourse, and he was right to be alarmed. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his neck. To have a writer explain herself to him is just as taboo to a magician revealing his tricks.
“Why not share this vision with me?” she asked rhetorically, his reply already written in the pages of his mind:
'I already do.’
.
That first night felt like someone had set him aflame from the inside, cleansing by way of fire. He went to bed feverish, woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, wet between his legs.
- to be continued-
One of my english teacher once told me a story about a King who had made three questions to a shepherd boy. It could have been simply one of the many things my teacher said in class that would vanish from my memories right away, except for one part:
The King asked the third question, ‘how many seconds of time are there in eternity?’ Then said the shepherd boy, 'in south Pomerania is the diamond mountain, which is two miles high, two miles wide, and two miles deep. Every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it, and when the whole mountain is worn away, that is the first second of eternity.’
I remember thinking. How could someone conceive such absurdity? A little bird chiseling away a mountain made of diamond? In each century? That was maddening! No single life form in the world, even if immortal, would have that much patience.
Nobody would have that patience.
It would be a lot wiser to simply walk around the mountain and leave it there: unaltered. A thing that should project strength and endurance, maybe even admiration.
Perhaps that bird was the only one brave enough to do that.
Did the bird sing to the mountain?
Did the bird stay for long before leaving once again?
The lonely mountain, so strong, was slowly chiseled away by the determined bird. All its harshness and coldness were stripped away.
I think lot about that. It makes me nervous.
There should have been something very unimpressive underneath. Something whose fear of being exposed was so great that it built an entire mountain to keep others away.
What did the bird do after there was no mountain?
What did the bird do when faced with the creature underneath it?
Would it be disappointed?
Would it flee?
Every time I heard a knock on my door I jumped right to it. It was possible that if someone had seen me behaving like this, the person would say “why this needless hurry?” nobody but me understand my anticipation.
It was that time of the week again.
Every time I opened the door quickly, I see him even more beautiful than I remembered.
I always smile brightly and throw my arms around his neck, pull him close for a kiss.
The moment his lips touched mine, I feel all my composure crumbling down. I admire his magnificent features in awe and fear that I would start crying at any moment every time I see him.
It not had been that long.
Though I had missed him so much.
“I’ll stay for a whole day.”
Little did he know, not even all the time in the world would be enough.
I feel reassurance, as I always do whenever he came to visit me, and that feeling compensated my long lonely days.
In that day, I no longer worry about the bird.
The bird took one second of eternity to reunite with his lover, having to conform to brief visits and kisses before that. His motivation is crystal clear.
His strength of mind did not waver because he knew that, in the end, they would be together for the rest of their lives.
I first saw her at his father’s funeral. The fact that he introduce me to her wasn’t weird at all. But I always knew, she’s going to make him happy.
I call her the girl with a piercing. She pierced her nose, and she dyed her hair dirty blonde in her current Facebook photo.
I know I’m not supposed to care. That was my justification a week later as I clicked through his Facebook profile late at night. trying to hold on of whatever piece of him I might still have left. And that was the first photo of them together. His hand were wrapped up around her waist. As I stare into the photo I tried not to imagine what it felt like if he put his hands in the same place on me. It didn’t work out.
There was a second photo. In Amsterdam. My stomach twisted as I realise the girl with a piercing has destined to become the recurring character of his life. I couldn’t digest that someone could fall in love with someone else while I still love them. It’s easy to believe the unbelievable just because it hurts less.
The Internet told me a lot about the girl with a piercing. She’s shorter than me and have a deep dark eyes while he called mine “poop-ish brown.” She looked like she came from money, compare to her I look like I’m living some hand-me-down-budget-list. Despite our differences, there is one overlooking similarity, we both love the same boy.
Weeks passed and I saw them tagged each other in photos and relationship status changed. I saw them driving in the car we kissed and the car we had fight in. I saw their relationship going to places ours had gone and ours had not. Maybe he’s different now. Maybe his laugh changed, and he stopped folding his pizza into sandwich before he eats it. Maybe I don’t know him at all.
Still, visiting him reminds me that I’ve been to that place. That I’m worthy of love and capable to love. What matters, when you truly care about a person, it never really goes away.
I watched him fall in love. Maybe somewhere and someday in a library in London, he’ll watch me do the same.
It was small things at first; I no longer broke the speed records in gym class, my soccer kicks were no longer powerful, and that I bombed my math test.
Until I’m old enough to realise that I will always have an unresolved issue of being adopted and that math test was my outright failure that forced me to confront everything I had ever held dear.
Especially my fastidious hold on my emotions.
It was 2003. I wasn’t sure when I’d start feeling this way. I wasn’t sure when I’d start feeling at all.
For as long as I could remember, I’d always tried to be the perfect daughter. I was always calm and polite. Not loud, or rambunctious. After all, I had been chosen to be brought into this family; I wasn’t going to do anything to make them regret this decision. Any hints of emotions were quickly squashed under thought of how it would reflect on the people that had no obligation towards me. If anything, I owed it to them to be always stable and perfect.
I remember I was very confused when my father silently sobbed in front of me. He was worried about me. He was hoping that for once in his life, I would act normal instead of perfect.
I remember I scratched the back of my neck when my father finally told me about that. I continue to scratch it until I smell a hint of an iron and see a bloody stain in my nails. Even after clumsily cover it with a band-aid it still itch.
I managed to go through those years, a shaking mess inside a cool exterior. Ignoring the metaphorically burning itch at the back of my neck, my mother unshed tears, and my father unsaid disappointment. It drowns me in. I was torn being the Amelia that made me happy, or the genius that maybe made my parents happy.
A 12 sessions of meeting a therapist didn’t help much, except for getting a prescription for a 100mg of Clonazepam and Ativan up until now. Which later I found out those aren’t sleeping disorder medication my therapist had told me but an anti-anxiety medication.
At my 12th session, I finally talked about my parents. Or the feelings I have towards it, what my therapist insist.
When I talked about my real family, I cried. I can’t tell her why. I never met those people that created me. I never could. I wasn’t sure I want to, at that point of time. But I know the people that made me who I was right then. But still, I cried and I cannot grasp the significance of it.
I remember being very sad once a year on the same day. It’s a clockwork of the body, the one where I spent staring at the road outside my window and with a book or computer in my lap, trying to understand it through my young eyes.
Over the years, I tried to understand it, with the taste of overly-sweet lemonade on my tongue and tears blurring my vision that are not my own. Perhaps I picked up my father’s own melancholy and tried to alleviate it, because it is not my own. Or I picked up the sweet rain and my body knew it better than my brain. Either way, it’s incomprehensible for me. But I still don’t know why I was sad, and as a child, I rather thought that my father would have the answer.
Now I wish I had not thought of such a horrible thing. Knowing is half the battle. I do not understand the other half.
I told my therapist I sometimes hear a voice in my head. They were not terrifying, or demanding, or loud. I suspected that it wasn’t imaginary either.
Always a whisper, always with few words.
The girl.
Smart child.
Love.
They were illogical but they were kind, wistful, and proud.
My therapist said it was my biological parents legacy to me. Over the years I held dear to that words until I’m old enough to realise that my family is a big, beautiful mass of misunderstanding and contradictions and things to learn about.
The family I meet and never say goodbye to.
The family I will never know have never left my side.
The parents who have raised me and loved me just the same.
And the siblings who are waiting for me are my brother and sister I never knew to want.
My family is right here, and i’m always be the last to know of such an obvious thing.
This writing probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you. After last night, I’ve lost some poetic ethic and I feel pathetic and I can’t finish any of the writings in my draft folder.
You told me from the very beginning that you’ll face with the outcome of falling into me; you’re afraid of height but you’re still climbing with me knowing the consequences you’ll be isolated at the top if I don’t return the same feeling.
I asked you if we’re crazy, you said you don’t know, and that you don’t care because you’re happy, but for someone to constantly deprive themselves of happiness and to embrace sadness, you’re very crazy to me.
I remember you saying that this is the kind of feeling you wanted to have. I remember saying that I don’t understand what is this feeling. I remember you saying you’re afraid of keeping in touch because you don’t want to bother people. I remember repressing that fact by constantly following up with the conversation. I remember you saying that life is hard for you because nobody understands you. I remember I don’t understand how bad it is but also wishing that I could be there for you. I will always remember wanting you because you’re running away with my sanity.
It is these little things that makes me smile every day about the most inane things. Little things that are easy to hear from you but hard to understand. You always listened to every boring things I’ve said no matter how inconsequential and insignificant it was. You were the first person in years I was this honest to.
I am afraid to write about you. I am scared because the more I write about you, the more I fall in love with this projected person I have in my head; the static person, not the real you and it’s dangerous to fall in love with an apparition—especially the fleeting one.
When I fell in love with the idea of you, I foresee all of your habits; to me, you represent the apex of intelligence and everything I want out of a partner. I truly believe I know you inside-out because I am always deconstructing your personality and I only latch to the parts I want to notice; I ignore your flaws.
When I fell in love with the idea of you, I can never feel fulfilled. No matter how many late night chats, I will always gonna be brooding and comparing you to this person in my head; I forgot you’re only flesh and blood and my idea will never exist in this physical world.
And when I fell in love with the idea of you, I can’t keep it forever because an idea will never dazzle me in the humanity and will never polarising me in the complexity.
To the nostalgic night on a small park; me crossed legs, you politely straight. To the beers and mild soju-drinks. To what it feels like a long drives after spending the day together. To our shadows that reflects on our glasses and to happiness that refracted around us. To being honest, earnest, and present. To giving the greatest gift you could have ever given to me; reminding me that sparks do exist and not compromising me for anything else.
I know this means nothing and I know it will be another ache, but at least now I can walk knowing how it truly feels to love a real person and to have loved by a real person.
I’m sorry that I have to kill you.
My mind was a stream of continual reprimands against me and my weak will as I tried to keep my phone away from me. I couldn’t carry on in this game of talking around each other’s sensitivities in between periods of tense estrangement. The thought that I had unwittingly sabotaged my own peace of mind was a disturbing one. The thought that you overstayed your visit in my head was very disastrous; I know how it ends, I know how it sounds like.
It sounds like my sister’s childhood building blocks toppling over each other during short period of time before it crumbles down.
It sounds like the gravity to which wants to break everything on contact if the object is heavy and fragile enough. Including the said building blocks.
It sounds like the friction of the sheet and my body which heavy and fragile enough that I have to linger my arms around your neck for support.
it sounds voyeuristic. Through your gaze I could sense that you see me being beautiful, alluring, and pure, like an untainted soul seeking refuge from humanities scourge.
It sounds like me moaning; yearning for someone to discover my innermost desires and secrets.
From someone who also desperately yearned for some else to discover their deepest emotions.
it sounds like repressed shriek of some type of emotions that can potentially damage your nervous system.
it sounds like two adults in a two loose end relationship.
In my prayer, I hope it doesn’t sounds like your guitar.
Dear Future You,
You wanted this. Always wanted this.
You’ve convinced yourself thousand times, but up until now you can’t say it out loud.
Can’t you really say it or the truth is just jagged and sharp?
Do you like it to be blurry like that tangy haze of red wine and denial?
You’ve always try to forget it, because once you forgot, who’s gonna blame you?
Ah… Yes, blame. The heavy thing you’ve always take the brunt of.
It will always be your fault because of your lack of remorse.
Your fingerprints are all over the destruction.
Your relationship falls apart and it will always be your fault because you never allowed the physical manifestation of emotion.
He walks like a wounded animal, you dressed the wound with happy face.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
Your mouth is burning from searing recriminations and bitter with everything you have said.
No memory of his kisses, only the hatred he left is lingering in your lips.
You were drunk with each other’s anger and swallowing the poison.
You with your petty vengeance.
He with his petty jealousy.
You thought you could wipe love like his existence.
And yet you were not prepared when it dies the way you didn’t intended to.
You’re not afraid to be alone.
You were always alone before you met him and it never frightened you then.
You’re too old to fear something that doesn’t exist.
It only seems bad because it’s your first night.
Your room only feels this way because the darkness is empty.
You’re left with the creeping shadows on this claustrophobic-provoking room.
Once you get used to it, life will be bright again. It has to be.
Brush your teeth until your gums split and sting.
Spit blood, rinse, and don’t look into the mirror.
You used to get smugged with your striking appearance.
Now you can’t stand to look at it.
Tired, older, defeated.
You aren’t the same woman who used to turn few heads around.
Your label is now ‘pretty enough’
Exactly why you haven’t turn on the lights.
The dark is closing you.
Grabbing you.
Claiming you.
It’s the grabbing in your throat and the twisting in your stomach.
Ineradicable as your vanity.
Hop into the bed and close your eyes.
Close them.
If you open them you’ll only see the dark.
In dark you’ll only see imagination.
You can’t afford imagination.
He isn’t here. He never will.
Don’t think about him in the dark or when the silence is loud.
Pull your covers up to your head.
You don’t need an arm across your hips to chase the cold away.
Now you can move anytime you want without worrying of waking him up.
You can sleep in the centre of the bed.
But you don’t.
You don’t, you can’t, or you won’t?
Don’t open your eyes.
If you open them, you’ll never be able to fall asleep.
It would be a shame if you lose the sleep on the night you always wanted.
You always hear yourself think, but now it’s too much for you.
Think about the softness of your bed sheet.
It’s good enough you can’t smell him in your pillows or feel his breath in your neck.
You never needed that.
He won’t pull you close against his beating heart and whisper pretty words in your ear.
He won’t trace fingertips over your arms or insinuated his knee between your thighs in the dawn.
You can finally sleep in peace, no point bringing up the past.
You can’t smell the sex, but you both can smell the lies.
They weren’t supposed to remain.
You’re glad he’s gone.
You are. yes you are.
So, why can’t you sleep?
Check your phone, hoping to live out the life out of twitter.
You can’t escape the loneliness, and deep down you wish there’s someone out there who you can be lonely together.
It would only break you more if you weren’t too smithereens.
Lock your phone.
Pull up the covers.
And the darkness swallows you to the dreamless oblivion.