Public transport

Girl in the 4th seat with her book burying her nose

Only looking up to catch sight of a train leaving Eunos
Resting her head on the window to catch the blaring sun
The buzzing and humming, passengers of bus 21

The first to take a seat, watching the others take theirs
Boots, heels, sneakers thumping louder up the stairs

On the top deck, thoughts of love, life, and fate

Never getting tired of the views on 168

People chatting and laughing, it buries beneath

The humming sound that you are obsessed with

Your ears blocked off with your purple earbuds

Fingering, at the top of your ear, your ear studs

An uncapped pen in the pocket, ink dotting your jeans

Watching the people with eyes glued to their screens

"Change at this station for the North East Line,"

And they get up, the workers who started at nine

Being in a train is ten times scarier in a thunderstorm

Books in your bag kept dry beneath your uniform

Eyes, always following the movement of a plane in the sky

Despite the desire for travel never coming nigh

Colleagues/friends/family

Sometimes you truly forget that things don't last forever. Even though you've lost so many friendships in the past five years, you still believe there could be the few who would be there always.

Everyone says the longest lasting friendships are the ones from secondary school, but even that has been proven wrong to you. And despite referring to them as bitches when you talk about them, you're aware that it was your fault the whole time.

It's true when they say time flies when you're having fun; before I knew it, it's been nearly 2 years since I've worked here. The 1st of April, 2015, when I'd so nervously sat on the bench in front of the place that has come to be my second home.

The days melted into weeks into months, the laughter into the gossiping of annoying customers into the hatred for a certain colleague.

It completely slipped my mind that best friends would resign.
That area managers would transfer one of your best friends to another outlet.
That your other best friend is just a part timer all along who is about to graduate poly and would have to find her own full-time job.
That your remaining best friends are no longer teenagers but are actual adults who will have to go back to Malaysia and China when they get married.

It took me 20 years to find the place where I truly belong, only for it all to be taken away so easily. I know I've been a terrible person and I deserve the heartbreak, and yet I can't find myself to accept it.

The thought of having to let go of the only friendship that I have right now, the only friends who have accepted me so readily despite our distinct differences in language. The only thing I still wake up in the mornings for. The only home I have aside from the houses that shelter my blood family.

It took me forever to find a puzzle in which I am a piece of, only to realise that the other pieces are parts of other pictures that I do not know. Slowly dawning on me that eventually, I would be left behind yet again.

A diary entry a day - 2013

20 02 13 // 11:06 AM
Heidiho, my precious diary. Am at the airport now; my second home. When did we start to frequent this place, you and I? Probably after the separation with my clique. When the solitude was kicking in.

I remember the day I discovered a Dunkin Donuts on the "outside" side of the airport. I hadn't written in you much, but I was writing a letter. A letter to my murderers; the younger twin, and myself.

I was waiting for mother to finish work, and had bought Asian Geographic. I felt so independent, I don't know why; being in the airport made me feel like a traveler, someone who never stops moving forward. Someone who's always looking for new places to explore.

In reality, I'm the human who is stuck at the airport, who's bought tickets to the other side of the world but never used them, instead wanders around the terminals clutching the tickets and passport in hand.

I am that measly human, with the intention of moving forward but never having the courage to fulfill it. The measly human who is forever stuck at the airport.

This place. This view, of my legs spread out in front of me against the glass of the windowpane, aeroplanes across the sky and road, and you on my lap,... It reminds me so much of my solitude.

Same shit, different year

Three years ago you left me because you lost interest. You also claimed that I was a bad influence and that we were 'too far deep into sins', even though I'd already tried to stop it from a few months before.

Now it's 2017, after the many times you've said to me that you'll never let me go again, that you've every intention of marrying me, that you've learnt your lesson, and everything else in between.

After everything that we've been through, imagine what a disappoint it was to hear you say we should 'take a break' because of what a friend of yours has said. A friend of yours who doesn't even know me, who doesn't even follow me on any social media and wouldn't know shit about me.

Well aware that I'm a piece of shit, but do I really deserve this after everything for the past four years? Half of the time we were together, there was the existence of a third party, someone unplanned. Do I not deserve somebody who wouldn't forget all that I had to go through? All of the physical pain and the emotional turmoil that still remains to this very day? You may think it's nothing but you're not the one who experienced it firsthand.

All gone, because of the opinion of an outside party. You know how I always had those "nanti orang cakap" sentences, this was one of the things I was talking about. I already knew a handful of your friends have opinions of me.

It's not the first time you've chosen your friends over me. If you really feel that they're important to you, it's fine. I don't know how it feels like to value some friends from secondary school anymore. You and I, we're more worlds apart than you'll ever really sit down to think.

It's different if you wanted to leave because I did something bad, like if I cheated on you or anything. The only times I've lied to you is when I keep my thoughts from you because I know you'll never understand, or you'll make fun of it, or you'll throw it back in my face in a future argument, or all of the above.

I became better at controlling my tears because you once said, well in April of 2015, that my tears are like tap water and they're meaningless to you. Some people would think that I have more reason to leave you but I didn't because at least I know I love you, unlike you, who lets a friend decide for you.

You say it's just a break, but I don't want to go back to someone who's let me go so many times over the past few years over the slightest things. And don't forget this isn't even the first time that the reason for it is because of your friends.

I want to explode but I'm more let down, heartbroken, than I am actually angry. It sucks when the last human on earth that you actually want to hug doesn't even understand, doesn't even want to bear with you anymore, doesn't want you anymore.

1/3 pages

"You know how there are some classics which people enjoy and at the same time lots of people didn't? How these people didn't understand these novels, so they declared their not liking it--I feel that way with my diaries. My nonsensical thoughts that possibly just maybe 5% of the world's population would understand. People who are as crazy as I am; not so easy to find.

My pages made me love myself. It's so easy to drown myself in all this ink--I discovered this in 2012, the first time in my life I'd felt completely alone. Before that I wrote, of course, but nothing more than just shallow pieces, gushing about a boy I wouldn't even look at twice now, laughing about my then best friends' shenanigans. Nothing deeper than the thoughts of an average fourteen-year-old. A normal person, something I've lost touch with over the years. Sometimes I hate it, but now I'm glad for this; the way I settle in like a very sore thumb among the long, slender, manicured fingers. I don't quite belong, but I'm in my place.

Back a few weeks ago, I remember it being the flower's POP, I couldn't stop talking to the wind because I just had so much to say. It's not so easy to run out of things to say when your mind is swirling with all kinds of things--be it jellyfish, whales, and most especially rubbish. My mind is like the sea, contaminated by more trash the more people that pass.

I've completely no idea how big the capacity of my brain is.

My initial plan in coming here was to read this random book I'd picked up from Pasir Ris library a few days ago called The Girl In The Road and you can already tell by the title that I'd taken it just for that. I'm not sure if this would make sense, but sometimes, I feel I've fallen out of my love for books. I'm still very much into reading, but only if I've already gotten hold of a book that's completely worth it; most of the time chosen by luck.

A long time ago (okay, maybe just last year) I thought of this: when you're standing in a crowded bus, look at the person next to you. Look at his face, and take note of how unattractive he is, or at least, how unattracted you are to him.

And then imagine: while to you he's ugly as shit, there's one other girl in this country that thinks he is the most good-looking in the world--she's in love with him. And then think about this: on the other side of Singapore, there is your own boyfriend, the only guy you think is even remotely good-looking. And next to him is a girl that takes a glance at him and thinks he is ugly as shit. She doesn't know that you exist, a girl who thinks he is the world.

Isn't that weird to think of? Maybe that should help in reminding me that it doesn't matter what other people think. There would be someone else across the country who can't imagine a life without you, even if there's a bitch you just knocked into without saying sorry who wishes you would die today for that."

-10/02/17, 2:33PM