The first time

Ever since my first full-time job I've had the luxury of liking work so much that it became more than a second home, it became a safe haven. 

But I've also had a healthy amount of unrelated emotional turmoil at work. Someone passed away or someone stole my money or someone broke up with me, or someone broke up with me again. I would cry my eyes out before punching my timecard and my agony out of the orbit.

Before you; crying on the bus rides home, crying on the bench outside the store. Before marriage; crying in the toilet cubicle when my uncle passed away. Crying with my head in my locker after text arguments with my father, and crying by the smoking area when I saw something in my room that morning that made me not want to go home.

Despite all these workplace tears over the years, it was always too easy to collect myself and continue smiling to customers and colleagues alike. To continue shelving and finding racks to rearrange and listen to different colleagues complaining about each other. I just never would've thought you'd be the reason for any of my distress. 

It's my second time wishing I was dead since we were married, and I wish the reason wasn't you. I wish your voice wasn't the weight on my mind that slowed me down while doing one of the few things I love.

I'll have you know you sounded exactly like my older brother when you screamed at me. It was the exact same voice he used before he threw punches, all left to complete the scene was for my life to flash before me. And the more I explained myself, the hotter your blood boiled apparently.

Was that split second of anger worth it, all because I "embarrassed" you in front of your friends, for telling you not to curse around your son who is now learning to speak? Then why don't you scream at me when I post stupid pictures of you, or when I'm the butt of the joke, or when I'm squatting on kerbs talking to cats? Aren't I embarrassing you then too?

And I can't forgive you yet, for the way you had screamed once, taken a second, and then screamed again, louder. Making our son cry, right after we'd had the conversation about babies understanding emotion. Even if I can forgive you for shouting at me despite knowing my hatred of loud noises, can I ever forgive you for scaring our ten-month-old before he should know what fear is?

3. Vigilante shit (2014)

(the playlist)

The fun was fun while it lasted. Then Jurong East hit like a meteorite and I started making friends with its debris. 

First I went back to Pasir Ris after more than a year, stayed up late to avoid being asleep during the witching hour. Having conversations late into the night with any mutual who was also awake. Texts in the middle of classes I would come to regularly skip, with the other stragglers who had to repeat modules with me. I pierced my ear twice more and then my septum, trying to prove something to someone.

I went from drinking alone on waterfronts to drinking on carpark rooftops with people I was meeting for the first time. Infiltrated a years-long relationship, but the girl evened it out by naming me anorexic, and we formed an unlikely friendship. And I taught her how to live without him the way I'd learned the hard way to live without mine. We both have children now, with people we met long after.

Casually became friends with an ex's friends from all walks of his life. I fell in love with his best friend and then with an ex-schoolmate he never liked. Then I walked down his school halls and made myself comfortable in his second home, plainclothes among the uniforms. 

I became close friends with the one who called himself rebel, exploring his hometown, watching movies and beach walks in mine. Long online conversations with a Brit-Thai, about anything and everything except our one mutual. Unintentionally continued existing on the timeline of someone who would rather forget me, wondering why I wasn't still at the spot he had left me.

All this innocent and vigilante shit in colours I hadn't worn, colours sharp enough to blind men. All while hiding behind memories that will remain crystal clear nine years later. 

Next: 4. Would've could've should've (2014)