un

How does keep missing chances and keep orbiting but never have the gall to land, how does one get everything she needed at the wrong ages of her life? Someone once said timing is a funny thing, and I agree wholeheartedly and it makes me want to laugh until I drop dead. 

And here comes the blue moon where I so badly prefer to die, I have not seen it since the time my melonsoy was drunk without permission. I saw glimpses of it half a year later in dec 2021 when I found out my unborn child was a boy, and again in early 2023 when I saw my empty room. 

But it's clear now, I've seen it threatening to come when my demons found me through my mirror again last year, it's clear as day now. It's here in this room with me, typing in the darkness with my husband snoring behind me, it'll stay throughout the day in the hottest of weathers and brightest of spotlights. 

My suicidal blue moon orbits around me and nobody will be able to see it, they will see my crestfallen face and hear my silence but nobody will tie it to wanting to die. What a shame, I've only started getting some colour back to my face after so many insecurity issues the past year, I've only started being more social and a peoples person, and now it will fall back flat. 

Just like I wish I could be now, I live double the floors now than when I was living with my parents, I can imagine the splat from the eighteenth floor. How glorious my fall would be and I could think of a year of my life at each floor from 2024 until 2008, ages 29 to 13. 

The many times I have shed blood from down there for various reasons, I could have shed blood and tissue from the crack in my head instead. 

It takes a split second for one to ejaculate but an infinite more for another to think about how this will change her life once again. How her personal will uproot once again 

20. Sweet nothing (2024/2011)

 (the playlist)

I used to have my ears plugged with music all the time, I needed a soundtrack for every bus I took to work, for the way home, for every new station I wandered. I needed words to associate with every step of my life. Like a song about demons heaving on my shoulders when I didn't have the strength to get up anymore, or a song about daylight when I got married.

When he was born, I stopped relying on music. I started measuring time with his life, a week old, a month old, a year old. Two and a half years old. I have no songs associated with his first steps or words. From the moment he was conceived, I measured my birthdays with his existence, 26 and pregnant, 28 with a one-year-old, next year, 30 years old with a 3-year-old. I spend more time with him than my music or writing, and I have to tell myself I am mother first, writer second.

But maybe one day I can go back to my writing, in his independence and silence. When he will go to school on his own and I no longer have to hold his hand crossing the road. His father and I won't be the first thing he looks for in the mornings, maybe a phone or a cup of coffee instead.

But if I raise him right, he will still talk to me over the things in his hand. He will still talk to me about the cards he was dealt with, numbers on the front of tests or words a friend stabbed into his back. If I support whatever he does and comfort him with my kitchen humming when he comes home from school. The way my own mother was for me in my youth.

I always thought her nodding at my endless chatter was a sign of absence. But I grew older and she tells stories about me as a kid to my husband. And I am surprised to know she was there. She remembers my awards in primary school and friends from ballet, I'm sure she remembers every single time her 16-year-old daughter came home late without greeting her.

What she doesn't know is I remember everything she does too. I remember her bragging to my kindergarten teacher about me knowing the word 'astonishment'. I remember her praising the makeshift storybooks I made in primary school. I remember her listening to the speech I made at secondary 4 camp, and if she had kept it up afterward, I would remember her reading my scribbled poems and cryptic posts. 

Now I get annoyed when she makes the entire family pose for a picture, not realising she is just trying to make memories the way I do. She is back to being happy whenever I visit, and just because of that I feel safe coming home to pasir ris again. And I want my children to feel this way with me even decades down the road. I want them to walk around their lives knowing I will always support whatever they do in the sweet nothing of my settling down.

Maybe they will turn out okay immediately, or maybe they will have to go through their own versions of 2012 and 2013 and 2014 and 2015 and so on,,, like I did, before they can come to the very moment in their version of 2024 where they realise... that they may not break the generational trauma after all... and maybe their child will still turn out to be the cursed way they did no matter how much they try. 

Restart the never-ending cycle: 1. You're on your own, kid (2012)

Ordinary days

One of those tiring-for-good-reason days. The tiredness that reminds you how fun life can be. For some reason every Ramadan will have one of those days, and in the midst of my routine and my settling down, I had one just yesterday.

It started when I was stuck in a traffic jam on the way to work. My husband got the car after his motorcycle was scrapped from an accident last year, and he's been sending me to work everyday since changing jobs. I missed riding at the back of the motorcycle and riding the trains by myself sometimes, but at this point I've accepted the passenger princess nickname. A bit ashamed though. 

Anyway when we were exiting onto the highway what was supposed to be a single lane became two because cars were overstepping each other. At one point we were at the beginning of the split, line of cars on either side, and for a moment it reminded me of riding pillion. That was the picture I snapped. 

If you don't know me I have never been late for work, never. Even when I take my own sweet time getting ready I am never late, from my Popular days until now. It's a curse. So you can imagine my panic when it was like 8:30 and we were still stuck somewhere in the north-east. That's the time I'm usually sitting in the pantry, in uniform, sipping on hot coffee. (I start at 9 for morning shifts, and in orchard)

I got a little bit pissed at my husband for taking that alternate route, but trying not to because he was sending me out of his own goodwill. I fell into silence after awhile but I was watching the time on the dashboard. And then he zoomed through the PIE, some occasional setbacks, and then I'd never been happier to see my building come into view. 

We reached at 8:58!!! I jinxed myself when I said the lifts better not fuck me over, as they are wont to do. I slammed the door after yelling Thank you, bye, bye, thank you as usual, ran up the steps and pressed the buttons for both lift lobbies, to take whichever came first. 

Of course they both took forever to come. One came a split second earlier, so I went for that one. At the same time the lift on the other side came, but I was already queuing up. And by the time people left the lift, others boarded, the lift I did not go for had already ascended. JINX. 

When I tell you I ran from the moment the lift door opened on the fourth floor. The logistics team was already setting up their space, getting ready to start the day, and library trolleys were everywhere,, more obstacle courses for me. I was just swishing myself around like some ninja warrior. 

Another obstacle: I knew I had to stop and declare the book that I brought with me, by writing my name and the title on a sheet of paper before coming in. I just plopped my book on the security's desk and bolted to the thumb in machine. I did not stop to say hi to anyone!! But I heard giggles from security and my colleagues while I was zooming past. Have been working here for 5 years, they know me always being early at this point. 

And guess what time I clocked in: 9:00. With 30 seconds to spare before I was late at 9:01. I guess I cheated in a way because I usually changed into my uniform before clocking in. But record not broken! Never late for work! I was changed and at my department counter by 9:07, with some sips of coffee in my system. (currently not fasting)

That run from the lift lobby to the machine actually took a hit on my knee. I'm growing old. But that chaos was the start of my day, and by the end of it I was feeling in touch with myself again. 

I had counter duty from 10 to 2, which meant I had to park my ass at the information counter and be the scapegoat for every customer that needs something. And most of the time it's a curse sitting there because all the hard and annoying customers will come out of nowhere. 

Yesterday was pretty uneventful, not as much as that one day earlier this year when every single customer that came to my counter was difficult. My partner was one of my close friends too. But when she momentarily left to do some of her department stuff, I saw a boy running past the counter crying.

It took me awhile to register, until I saw another customer staring at him. He looked to be about 7 and his face was wet with tears. I managed to stop him and ask Are you lost?, he nodded, I asked for his name; I couldn't get it because it sounded like a long Japanese name and his crying made it harder to understand.

Because I couldn't get his name so I called the receptionist to simply page for: A boy wearing a black t-shirt has been found. Will the parent of the boy please proceed yada yada. 

Like 10 seconds passed and I decided to ask the boy to write his name down. This time he left out his surname so it was a short one syllable name. Got the recept to page: A boy by the name of blah wearing a black t-shirt yada yada.  And then I saw other customers who needed assistance was starting to gather in front of the counter. I asked the boy to come into the counter and sit while waiting, and I quickly served other customers before getting back to him.

Now I managed to get his age, 6. And there was still no sign of a frantic parent coming, so I got the recept to make the announcement one more time. That was when my counter partner returned and I told her what happened; she went out to look for that frantic parent. And maybe 5 minutes later she returned with the boy's mom and older brother, and the way the lost kid hugged his mother made me wanna cry too uwu. 

She comforted him with something like the Japanese version of  'dah, dah' while the older brother patted him on the head. It wasn't the first parent-child I reunited at work and definitely wouldn't be the last.  

After counter duty I spent time with my D3 brother and sister through the shift, both working and giggling over stupid things. I hardly write about them but we were always the ones suffering at work together. When I had to be acting commander because the two ranking above me were on mc for 2 days, they were there. With enough respect for me to heed my instruction but at the same time enough comfort to make fun of me when I do dumb things. 

One of the random things that make me laugh until now:

Called a customer about her enquiry. After I told her everything I needed to, she asked me questions. But everytime I was just starting my sentence, she cut me off with another question. It happened a total of four times, so my colleagues heard only my side of the conversation: "Uh---uh---uh---uh" and when they told me I was stuttering it just made me laugh so hard.

After my shift I had about an hour to kill before the iftar my colleague from Logistics had organised. I wanted to contribute some funds but he wouldn't hear of it, so I just helped with any preparations I could. Which was basically laying out plastic plates and cutlery, and asking one of my work friends if she wanted the kopi or teh. 

Sadly ex-staff weren't allowed to join like the previous years, a new rule put into place. It did feel like something was missing but I still loved every minute with the existing presence. The ones who were on the Afternoon shift had to go back to work, so the rest of us helped to clean up. 

And if that wasn't enough, I had the chance to get on my east-west line. My husband was at the geylang bazaar with his friends so I met him there; after parting ways with my work friend, it was just me and music on the old familiar green line. Putting my face close to the window to look at the view clearer was a reminder that I was still the same old me.

It was bittersweet alighting at EW8/CC9. I had just spent time with the people of my new life in orchard, people I've spent five years with now. But paya lebar in ramadan just hits different and I can't help but think of my previous job and colleagues. I was walking towards my old workplace around the same time I usually left work back then. If I had looked for her, I would definitely have seen the 2017 me jaywalking.

The song that was playing at that point: losing a friend - elijah woods. Randomly heard it on the radio awhile back but it perfectly encapsulated the walk from paya lebar.

I hadn't walked much through the bazaar because my husband and his friends were pretty much done with it. We got in the car after last cigarettes were put out, and the mini traffic jam when exiting the carpark meant we could point out girls for the singleton friend to look at. 

My husband dropped his friends off in tampines where both of them had parked their motorbikes, and we got down for one more round of cigarettes and jokes. It's a little different not riding around on one too, to have the friends you used to ride with squeezed in the back with the baby seat. 

Would definitely have made more plans this ramadan if I hadn't been insecure about my face. I thought having insecurities was something only youths had, but now I'm looking more like my age and am not being mistaken for a student anymore. My son is closer to his adolescent years than I am to mine and customers call me ma'am instead of miss now.

But I know I need these ordinary days to make the ordinary life I had always wanted. 

19. Dear reader (2023)

(the playlist)

If you're still here reading this, reading these numbered posts inspired by somebody's music and lyrics, somebody else's words, then you should know by now: somehow, I made it. 

But what they usually don't show when somebody has made it is what comes after. Not runners lying down, gasping for air by the finish line. Not critically acclaimed actors getting into drugs at their peak, losing all sense. Not the cleaning of floors and picking of bottles after new year's eve parties. 

Definitely not girls from broken homes spiraling back into nothingness after creating their own healthy families. 

I never read anything about that, so I didn't know what to do when I became one. With a job that I loved and a man who was nice to me and made me laugh and a kid who was alive and perfect and a house that overlooked my expressway of loneliness - you'd think with this success I would have no reason to be sad. But we all forget, when we are at our highest, there is nowhere to go but back down. 

What had to happen for me to feel this way but the erasing of my past. Just earlier this year I thought of a trip to langkawi when I was fifteen; the pictures were on my old facebook account which had been unfortunately deleted from being stagnant too long. I thought of the sketchbooks and diaries from primary school, I thought of 2012 when my father decided to discard all pictures of me out of spite, a gap between my brothers'. 

Then I thought of the diaries from my naivety of fourteen, crushes on tall boys next door and wondering what having a boyfriend would be like. The diaries from my loneliness of seventeen, painstakingly writing about my parents seeing me as a bug and other metaphors. The laptop from the time, I didn't know the concept of hard drives. All gone, not a word or picture or cell left. 

The knowledge of snippets of my past disappearing started collecting like rainwater, until one more memento broke me like a dam. 

Back in 2018, someone gifted me a dreamcatcher. When I started thinking of all the lost memories I had the heart to take that back; I didn't take it with me when I moved out, being a gift from another man after all. But I was slowly losing proof after proof of the adversities I was so proud of going through, and I needed to hold onto every scrap. 

Timing is a funny thing, it's true. The things in my room were left untouched in the almost two years since I moved out in June 2021. But come March this year and my heart stopped when I saw an empty corkboard instead of the one thing I needed to stay upright.

I had to laugh it off in front of my parents, keeping up the illusion of having matured. It was only when I left that I thought of my older brother's room being left alone for longer. It was only the next day that I wondered whether my dreamcatcher giver was still alive. It was only after more vivid dreams that I wanted a dreamcatcher after all, be it against Islam. 

I retraced all the wrong things and made up conclusions about my father still not loving me after all, that the friend who gifted me never existed and that my youth wasn't real. I wanted to retrace further, but now the medals I wore with pride were tainted with the trash of the landfill they sat in.

Afterwards I did what I did every time I had my heart broken. I gallivanted. I wrote endlessly. I listened to music I liked in the past, trying to grasp onto who I was as my own person, neither wife nor mother. And I couldn't find her. I could not find myself anymore, because I was too happy and at peace. 

Friends had to see my unravelling through stories, because I think texting people directly about it would be forcing them to listen or advise. If anyone wants to ask if you're okay, they will, and if not, they can flip past without feeling guilty. 

I went to work laughing like a normal person, I went to social events and talked about my family, nobody noticing the caffeine and confusion up to my neck. Nobody suspected I was drinking four coffees in a day and searching in vain for something poisonous to feed on and spit back out as words. 

If I was religious or have had my heart swallowed by it, I'd have told myself to pray. I still did my five prayers during my mental breakdown, but I was only exorcised by it when I read through whatever of my writing I did have left. 

I read my blog posts all the way to 2012, I searched the storeroom for the notebooks I wrote in at 22, I scrolled up old conversations, I opened up the Word document for a novel I hadn't worked on in years.

I desperately read every single word, and I realised: the best self-reminders are the words you wrote yourself.

I saw between the lines, between the timeline of the young and now me's, a message from myself. A letter to myself. Dear reader...

18. Mastermind (2022)

(the playlist)

I read somewhere how all the eggs a woman will ever carry are already forming within her while she's a 4-month-old foetus. So you were already in your grandmother's womb when she was months pregnant with your mother. If you were pregnant with a girl, you'd already be carrying the eggs that would be your grandchild.

My son has been with me everyday since he was born a year and a half ago; you could even count the nine months before that. But scientifically, he's actually been with me since I was in existence, more than 28 years ago. And somehow that was everything. Somehow that was the start of the plan I didn't know I had, to create someone I would give up so much for. 

During a birthday you only celebrate the fact you were born. You don't celebrate everything else that had to happen for you to be. You don't celebrate your mother going into labour, holding you in her arms for the first time and thinking of all she has gone through before you. 

My life flashed before me when my son was born. I knew everything I did led me to this moment. I thought about the boys who had to break my heart and the friends I had to lose, the hits from my father and the insults from my mother. I thought about the unborn girl whom I still wish I could hold sometimes, and I know it was all steps and shoves I had to take to get here. 

I retrace my steps to the day I endured surgery to keep him, to when I cried for days after finding out it was a boy. To the day we saw a red line, pregnant, to the day we exchanged wedding rings and my husband took full responsibility for me. I retrace my steps to the days I almost jumped off the ninth floor for a cousin and a father and a few boxed drinks. 

I retrace my steps to our engagement day, to the first fights and touches, to the day we first met and the hardships prior. The bottles of coffee surrounding my laptop and the swipes on dating apps. I retrace the days I lost my mind after losing someone I didn't know if I still loved. The nights I cried for someone that I chose to kill. The train tracks that I fell in love with and that I wished I could be dragged across.

My first day working fulltime, my last day at ngee ann before I would drop out without graduating. My first day of year one standing on the platform at paya lebar instead of pasir ris, an aunt paying my school bills instead of my own parents. 

I think about the year 2012, when it all fell apart. I think about my youth where my father nearly kills me with his punches. My childhood where my older brother nearly kills me with his, after buying me the first diary that would kindle my love for writing on my 7th birthday. Where I start to notice being left out of the mother-older son and father-younger son relationships. And I know throughout it all, I was already on my way to my life today. 

When I looked at my son, both of us alive and well, I knew I made it. I burned bridges and paved the way with my mistakes to get here. They say God is the best planner but it was all along hand in hand with my bad luck and stupid decisions. The baby I held in my arms that night in April was the product of our mastermind: a God's creation and a girl's endeavour. It was all planned. 

railway sleepers before/futures [deleted]

Syahir was always the third wheel, the in-between of most arguments, but no matter what he’s still the best friend who knows the both of them inside out. For nearly four years he put up with it, but he finally admitted they were not good for each other and their differences only make it all worse. He thought Hanis will never be as mature as Zhafran and Zhafran’s shallowness will never help him understand Hanis. They were raised so differently and have gone through their own pain. Their expectations for the relationship will turn out separately too, if not now then years down the road.

Well, that’s what Syahir says. Zhafran is convinced he doesn’t know anything. Syahir hasn’t been in a single relationship his whole life, so what does he know? Sometimes contrasts between two people are what make them work the best together. Where Hanis is angry, Zhafran is patient and calm; where Zhafran is monochromatic, Hanis is colour. Just like how he is falling asleep on this bus while she stares out the window like she’s never seen the world before.

Hanis is a flame, with her never-ending hope. Zhafran is wind, for his ability to calm people down when they’re angry. He is the gust in her hair and the storm whose eye she calls home. They keep each other under wraps and for that, they deem their souls intertwined. Again, what does Syahir know? He has never loved anyone, never found something that gets him riled up the way a passion or lover would. While he has fire and storm as his best friends, he will always merely be the last tree in the field.

It is the last thing Zhafran thinks of before he falls asleep, with his head lolling back against the headrest and his girlfriend looking out the window.

Tripping

For a married couple, there's only so little energy you have left for spontaneity. What more a married couple who needs to pack a diaper bag before going on one. Maybe spontaneous trips to buy groceries, or to the drive-through after my afternoon shifts. Wow, how fun.

Yesterday we had another fun one: a spontaneous trip to an acne doctor. I shouldn't have touched my face when I had just one giant pimple back in January. I started using creams, and suddenly I was getting breakouts that lasted for months. Yesterday was my second visit, for phase two they said. 

The doctor's room is full of acne charts and posters; that's how you know they really specialize in dermatology. Only yesterday I noticed a poster at the corner that said: If you find yourself breathing in short pants, try wearing longer ones. That was so close to changing my opinion of this doctor again.

I always thought doctors were quacks, but this one I took quite seriously. He's in a wheelchair, and he has an inspiration poster in the waiting room of him on some snowy mountain that he's conquered. Everest? Wherever it is, you just have to respect him. 

He doesn't talk to me the way other docs do, like you're just there for the piece of paper that excuses your laziness to go to work. He takes me just as seriously, and at the same time punctures it with lightheartedness and camaraderie. He draws a picture of me on my patient card to mark the areas where my acne is the worst. I was about to put back on my mask when he cries Wait! Must draw! and I really couldn't help laughing. But he doesn't draw a smile on my face. 

So he said, phase two. Do you have any intention to get pregnant soon?

I said, God, no.

He nodded, OK, because this medicine is stronger and is unsuitable for pregnancy.

A nod from me, No problem.

He continued, And we also need to make sure your liver is good.

Another nod from me while I was honestly thinking of the last time I'd drank alcohol, Yes, my liver is good. 

He stopped and stared, Oh, we have to take a blood test.

Nod from me, Yeah, sure. 

He laughed and said okay and explained about the procedures yadda yadda, I listened I swear. I signed something and then I stared at the short pants poster again and then suddenly he had a tube and a fresh needle for me. He said, It's nothing, you've given birth before, you're good. 

And I was, but I looked away and closed my eyes and braced for the prick of the needle into my veins. He said I could take out my phone and watch YouTube or Tiktok, but I just kept my eyes shut and pictured my son's face. 

I have gone through worse, multiple times, and for god's sake I have been losing blood every month since I was twelve. He praised me once again for my composure, something I'm always so surprised I have, having been fueled by anxiety my whole life. I laughed, thanked him and left. 

Walked out to the waiting room, where my husband was sitting. My sleeve was already rolled down, but I gestured my elbow to him and announced the blood test I'd just taken. Can't remember the last thing I said before I felt the dizziness kick in. I felt my hearing go numb, then my vision slowly faded. 

Honestly was one of the more psychedelic trips I'd taken while awake. Never had epidural during my labour, and the laughing gas flew me high but I still had some semblance of consciousness. But yesterday in the waiting room, I basically had those long, vivid dreams of mine but wide awake. And it only happened for a minute, I believe. 

I was awake enough to realise a few of my thoughts, first being, I shouldn't have come here today, second being, I hope I don't pee my pants. 

Sadly I was brought back by my husband's voice, Jangan ngada-ngada lah, darah sikit je, and I was almost leaning on his chest when I last remembered sitting upright. Only later on the drive home he said he regretted saying that after he saw how pale my face was, how drained of colour my lips were. I felt better after putting my head between my knees for awhile. 

At one of the red lights on the way home, I called out to him from the passenger seat, Look. And for some reason I started enacting someone about to pass out, with quite a bit of exaggeration. I heard so much pain in his silence before he cried out, See this is why I don't take you seriously! 

Sometimes I imitate the way our kid's eyes roll back when he's falling asleep, and I do it quite often. So yeah I admit, I can see why he thought my passing out at the clinic wasn't real. 

We reached our carpark, and I was about to exit when I noticed the car opposite us that also just parked. The driver had fallen down after leaving their car, and was lying on the ground. I kid you not, my first instinct was to run over and help, but when I saw it was a man I told my husband to do so instead. 

The man laid there for awhile, really looking like he was resigned to his fate, and then I started laughing. My husband told me to stop because we were still in clear view, so I had to look into my phone while my shoulders shook with laughter. 

When I looked back up he was already on his feet, and my husband said, Tak baik seh, orang dah jatuh abih you ketawa. To which I retorted, At least I didn't say Jangan ngada-ngada lah. Think I'm gonna be using this line for awhile now.

So yes, our "spontaneous" trips as a married couple may get lamer through the days but I still had fun. I'm also having fun writing about normal days instead of cryptic posts or past traumas, for the future me to read back and reminisce. 

17. Paris (2021)

 (the playlist)

My wedding day wasn't one of my favourites. You'd feel the same way if you hate having your hair out of your face and a different woman looking back at you in the mirror. I was lucky to be among the few who value the marriage instead, and only when the groomsmen and our photographers left did I feel like myself again. This time, better.

We had to have our honeymoon in singapore, with the borders still not open yet. I couldn't complain, with my everlasting hatred for flights and travels. We spent two nights in a loft hotel and one in a fancy, expensive one in orchard. Both we marveled at, even the loft despite it being significantly smaller. Despite the fancy hotel being walking distance from my own workplace, as if I weren't always in the area.

The first thing we notice when we check in new hotels is the floor we are on. We gasp in pleasant surprise when we realise we're on the highest floor, already excited about the view that is to come. Maybe we take pictures, maybe we share them with lurking eyes or maybe we don't. 

The next place we stayed at was on the 18th floor, and already we wondered about the perspective. Even before seeing the unit for the first time, even before signing our names and taking congratulatory pictures with the property agent. Even before we got our keys to the house and had our impromptu wedding photoshoot in one of the empty rooms.

The view from our new home wasn't much but it was everything. 

At 18, you could see ikea and my old hometown in the distance; you could see our 2017 selves, 22 and lonely on a bus, 24 and free on a newly owned motorcycle. Once ants on the expressway but from our new home, we had a good view of both our past and the future we wanted to build together. The house itself needed some work, furniture to buy and kitchen cabinets to rework.

It was nothing much, but with the right person, it may as well be Paris, it may as well be the whole world. And that was how our honeymoon, though confined to the walls of the country, was extended until now, where he continues to make me laugh, where I continue to hug him from behind. Where our laughter is joined by genuine friends and now, our toddler. Two years honeymoon, and still going.

16. The great war (2020-2021)

(the playlist)

His knuckles were bruised, from the punches he blew all my life. I think the physical abuse stopped somewhere at age 17, but the emotional and mental continued on to my adulthood. 

The war started again the year I was turning 25, two years after finding someone I wanted to marry. The way my father agreed to marry us in front of my partner's parents, but looked down on me behind them. The things he said about me thinking I was so mature, that I'd gotten big-headed since being with this person. 

My mother insisted on a traditional process, which includes a merisik. Something from the olden days, the guy's family comes to the girl's home, knock knock, we'd like to have your daughter as our son's wife. 

My mother insisted on it, my father refused it, and I was caught in between. I didn't want it either, but when the day came, I still wished for him to be around instead of lying about having to work. 

Then circuit breaker happened and the battle was taken underground, behind closed doors. The torment continued, adding on to the migraines I had from screwed body clocks and niblings shouting in the house all day. My father banging things around when I walked into the room, getting up from the dining table when I sat at it, my engagement day when again, he 'had to work'.

Getting engaged was only the beginning, it was a big step forward but it was only getting harder. I know he always saw me as a burden, maybe from the fact that in Islam, as a father he was responsible for my deeds. If so I never understood why he was so angry seeing me change for the better. His words, Dia ingat dia dah ada matair dia dah besar, tattooed on my mind.

After trying to keep silent as long as I could, I finally tore his banners down when I started fighting back. Since he was treating me like an adult daughter not worth respecting, I thought I'd act that way. I was, after all, fighting for a future with someone who actually treated me like a person.

I turned 25 in September 2020 without a single acknowledgement from him. It wasn't my first birthday where he had ignored me, but it would be my last being his responsibility in the name of Islam. Tears on the mental letters I wrote him because deep down, I still felt a little bit sad about it.

The year I was turning 26, the year I was to be married, our father-daughter relationship still didn't improve. It was difficult not having that bond, seeing that as a father, he had to be heavily involved. He continued leaving the rooms I walked in and stopped acknowledging me completely. 

I eventually did the same, bombs coming closer, until Melonsoy happened. He finally remembered I existed, but for the wrong reasons. I turned chairs over and he yelled at me, I didn't know for certain if he would lay a finger on me one last time, but I left the house before I could find out.

I truly commend my partner for the way he helped me through things. Being the middleman between two hot-headed egos. Nobody else could plow through the situation like he did, so patient and firm. The way he drew up good faith treaties for two people adamant on drawing curtains closed instead.

24th of May, 2021, I told myself my parents still hated me nine years after my teenage angst. I walked from paya lebar mrt to my refuge, my grandmother's house, and I finally burst into tears. Tears that were held in from the past several months, the tears for 17yearold me who thought things between us would get better by this time.

19th of June, 2021, I left my house as my father's responsibility for the last time. To my wedding venue, where people braided my hair and put layers of makeup on my face. Masking the restless nights that precede what should have been every girl's happiest day. The flowers in my hands for the life I was about to start.

From the moment my partner said my name in full, from the handshake my father gives him to seal the deal of giving me away. That was the moment I as a burden was lifted off his shoulders, and he finally loved me again. As a wife, I gained a husband and in-laws who treated me like everything. As a daughter, I gained back my father but it was too late to ever be a priority to him anymore. Because in his eyes, I am finally my husband's problem first.

So I know now that in the great war between father and daughter, I never could've won. 

References: playing victim (2020) https://109blackaxesii.blogspot.com/2020/05/playing-victim.html?m=1 

melonsoylia (2021) https://109blackaxesii.blogspot.com/2022/11/melonsoylia.html 

green light of forgiveness (2022) https://109blackaxesii.blogspot.com/2022/09/green-light-of-forgiveness.html

15. Snow on the beach (2021)

(the playlist)

Early morning, with a long road ahead. It's a very particular time of day where I don't have to switch on any lights, but the entire house will be lit up with sun.

It does remind me of certain parts of my life, after long nights of terrors that make me wonder if I'll live to see sunrise each time. 

But the sunlight that comes in each morning; I couldn't have done it without the people who unknowingly opened the windows for me. 

It is the first friend I had in my new workplace, seven years older but a shared sense of humour. It is our similar complaints from our own partners to the common avenues we walk on. It is the way she has inspired me in religion and motherhood even before I embraced either. 

It is the one year older friend I laughed over crossword puzzles with, hiding behind acrylic displays. It is the way we suffered by the same hand, giggling on our knees amid the magazine stacks. It is the comrade I almost saw as a best friend despite the names she called me.

It is the gem of a friend I'd only discover when our departments were forced to merge. It is the way she laughs at my jokes and listens to my rants, it is the way we help each other out on the days it was just us two, and the way she appreciated me every single time. 

All these friends I unknowingly made after telling myself I wouldn't, the conversations in the pantry and hidden behind counters, handwritten letters and drawings of cats and my favourite pokemon that would be pinned onto my corkboard. I saw flecks of these when I first joined this job, but I told myself to ignore them and not to get too close.

But most of all, it is the group who asked if I would join them cycling. I remember standing by the back door of our workplace, punching in the passcode that would bring us to the shopfloor, when I was asked to join them. And that question, taking me by surprise, would change everything.

They gave me new memories on old routes, they took away the skepticism I had from cycling again after many years. The first time we went was at night, and cold bit into me but I was only feeling warmth from the friendship. 

Again, I reminded myself of the past colleagues I saw as sisters who didn't feel the same way about me. More new memories replacing old ones, balancing on train tracks and walking treacherous trails. More tremors that threatened to break the walls I'd built. 

We were playing by the beach on our second cycling trip when I felt that warmth again, seeing them on the swings and taking photos in the ocean breeze. 

Life was abusive, I'd had an awful flight getting there, but I started daring to call them my friends. They weren't just colleagues anymore, and I already knew I was falling. So soft and quiet, I was the only one who noticed the falling of the snow on the beach that blazing day.

14. Question...? (2020)

 (the playlist)

I remember. 

Your hurricane wasn't confined to the country, stemming from your parents' house in johor and sprouting towards the sky. Ivy around my house and the planes that would be your second home. Your rental unit in the neighbourhood I wanted to burn down. I finally wanted to settle for you but you had an underlying sadness. 

By then it had been five years of knowing you. Your handprints imprinted on my soul when you walked me home, singing the songs we played on our phone speakers. Even with the many abandonments and reconciliations it was enough time for you to paint me into the mosaic I was in 2018, that I would never be again. 

Two and a half years later, about a month after I turned 25. Chocolate ice-cream thrown, old friends texted, angmokio waiting. Conversations around a table dripping with condensation from our rounds of iced drinks, and he casually mentioned you. One thing led to another, and I was in the cab after midnight when you texted. 

It was about the money, for a computer whirring to life and a soul being put to death. Some back and forth until you relented when I said, I'm still bearing the emotional cost until today.

I thought it was the end of it but you asked about my family, something exes don't ask each other. You always agreed with your friends that I played victim, yet you always agreed with my writings that I was victim.

How's your grandma, your family scares me, I read your blogposts once in a while, you left an impact on me. And then a picture of your bunny and a video of it doing zoomies. 

I had years-old questions, from fears that fed on my imagination after you left the last time. I thought of all your friends cheering when you said you were single again. I thought of your marsiling girl coming over to your room after another night at the club. I thought of your feelings for a fellow flight attendant that overlapped with our relationship.

I couldn't ask any of them, so I never knew if my thoughts back then were ever true. I don't think it'd be wise to know. The same way your mother would never know the alcohol you serve and the girls you bring home and the sin waiting confused in heaven. Would you ever tell the truth or let your whole life remain a question...?

You'd know.

13. Lavender haze (2019)

(the playlist)

The first part of my new life already started 2018, with a new romance. At that point I was content with the still waters, the same routine of bus 21 and a dead mall on tanjong katong road. 

It was a job that kept me as happy as occupied, maybe from the familiarity. I was enjoying the mix of customer service and putting racks and shelves in order, even in the departments that weren't mine. I thought it was exactly where I was supposed to be.

But the year I was turning 24, things began to change. I'm not sure if it was my outlet's closing down that finally opened my eyes. I'd like to think it was my own indifference that led to its downfall, when I, the one person running things, finally stopped caring. 

I'd applied to my current workplace somewhere in February 2019, and four interviews and less than a month later I got it. I was a little bit proud to be told the position I'd applied for was only for minimum diploma holders, but that they valued my experience. 

People like me would usually be under scrutiny for our lack of education, but I really felt appreciated when mine was glossed over. Also when comparing bookstores, the company I was from is completely different, vibes and clientele. Alot more heartland and rugged. I was pretty sure of already being defined by these things.

I finally tendered somewhere in March, a few days after my grandfather's passing. My outlet was already having its closing sales, and I spent my fourth anniversary of the job overnight, packing products away to be given chances in other branches. 

It was surreal looking at the racks and years of effort stripped down like nothing. The glass windows were burning red from the company poster that stuck on the outside. The length of the entrance was already boarded up, and it was bittersweet seeing the inverted logo and name hanging lonely.

I still had a week left, so they assigned me temporarily in bedok. It did leave a bitter taste in my mouth, to know that I wouldn't 'finally be appreciated' because the colleagues at my old branch didn't have to work in my absence. After four years working so hard and being in love, I didn't even get the mandatory call from hr asking why I was leaving. 

I told myself from the start of my new job not to get too attached, not to get too close and to guard the old me. To stay in my own department and never see my new colleagues as family. I wanted to stay in the lavender haze of my meagre pay and humble position, no matter what people say, and never leave the bubble of the newness. I'd learned from the last time. 

12. Labyrinth (2018)

(the playlist)

From the moment we met, I hardly wrote about him. For the most part I was still hung up on the wrong things and did not believe in my own future, definitely not one with a good guy. But once I was helped out of the years-long tunnel, it was easier letting streetlights shine upon me.

There was where I sat waiting the first time, underneath the dim lights by a Domino's. The least romantic place you could think of, what more with the abundance of ghosts sitting right there, old friends and boys alike.

My bedroom window has view of his block, we'd taken the same feeder bus to school years back, his brother married one of my past best friends' sister. We met for the first time after texting for weeks and living opposite each other for years; and that was how he came to clean the taint that was my life.

I believed wholeheartedly in montages that would never last. I believed the neighbourhood I was living in deserved to burn to the ground for the bittersweet memories given by both family and peers. I believed that the strongest form of love was only for life when you have nothing.

The walk to the beach after sundown, skipping along kerbs and sitting by breakwaters. At the time I felt like it was just a crossover of my new and old lives, that we weren't alone and the ghosts of my past would always be surrounding and following me. 

But the good dominoes already fell into place when he showed up that night, and with it a brighter side of pasir ris. He brought me on a version of the expressway that was less lonely, out in the road with my clothes fluttering and with no choice but to hold on to him. It was the second time I stayed out late, but this time, there was no reason to doubt anything.

He gave me none to doubt or fear, and from the very first night he was always easily making me laugh. Just as well for the other way around, I still think it strange that he finds me funny. He brought me new friends who lifted the dark out of me in their own ways, and he still manages to remain the brightest one.

Of the many things I've said about him, both the bad and the good, this rings the truest: He's everything I never thought I deserved. There was no hesitation to trust him, and he jumped in with me instead of pushing me off first, and that was how I fell in love with someone new after years of hurricanes. 

I always knew my mind was a labyrinth, but it was only when I met him that I knew there was a way out after all.

friendzone

During my recent breakdown I started reading old messages. It became reading old tweets and mentions, then digging up old diaries and now, reading very old blog posts. My past self was very sweet but naive, and she still had long roads to walk and strong currents to swim through. 

Now I'm thinking, I haven't written about something as simple as my day in awhile. Reading my 2011 posts brought me back memories I almost forgot. I'd be damned if I do, seeing as they were the foundation of the person I came to be.

It's been twelve years since the aforementioned posts, of the days in my first parttime job. Almost everything in detail, things that I find myself still laughing about. When did it stop being cool to journal and document your days via writing? I'd be honoured to be one of the flames who keep this alive again.

So here I am now, at the end of a day worth writing about. For someone with traces of social anxiety, I did a good job today. The first step taken was registering for this community event thing, where people in my age group gather to make friends. Something I very much needed during my anti-hero year.

My next obstacle was seeing a friend I haven't seen in ten years. There is still some invisible expectations you hope to meet, that you're still as nice as they remember, maybe better. But somehow it was easy falling back in, maybe from a combination of the old bond and my new outgoingness. 

I kept my friend company for awhile, since we were the first of our assigned tables. After just a little bit catching up, my anxiety already gone, I saw two members of my table arrive. I picked up my food and made some joke about me being accident prone, before walking over to table 7 and saying hello so easily. 

I told them where I live and work, being very careful not to reveal anything weird about me. About my living in the Northeast only recently and having been a pasir ris girl my whole life. One guy was in tech, and the other a civil servant. Add my retail to the mix and we already have three very different people at the table.

After some chatting and our group of three becoming five, we were made to fill in these cards. The guy on my right, the one in tech, he was pondering for awhile and I thought he looked like gurmit singh from his side profile. I told him so, but thank god we got interrupted before he could react. Looking back now I'm not sure if that was considered rude.

So I had to think for quite abit before being happy with my own answers.

I spend my days: daydreaming, writing

2 things I want to learn: 1. How to keep friends 2. Singapore history

2 things people can talk to me about: 1. Anything about themselves 2. Anything about myself

A question I'd like to ask is: Is there a way to have both happiness and identity?

There was some sort of icebreaker, which I thought would make a round and have the spotlight on us one at a time, but thank god it wasn't like that. There was an outline of the Singapore map on the floor, and first we were told to head to a makan place we love.

Honestly I didn't have anywhere to recommend per se, but I went to where I thought pasir ris was, with my mother's house in mind. Everyone seemed to flock to the west, but another girl looked a little lost near me. I told her I think this is pasir ris, and we got to talking very naturally. When she told me she just lived in the block upstairs, I said Oh so that's why you're just wearing slippers. And she laughed so heartedly, the dimple on her left cheek so deep.

Next we were told to go somewhere we want to explore. I went to the North where woodlands was, and I tried explaining to the nearest friends why but I couldn't put it into words. Basically I just see woodlands as an old friend I haven't seen in awhile, and I wish for us to catch up again on our many changes.

I'm surprised I didn't flaunt my northsouth line tattoo at this point.

One of those friends told the rest of us his clementi reason, how he stayed with his aunt since childhood and treated her like his own parent. It resonated with me, but I held back my story. He looked like he hardly talked about it, despite it being a big part of who he is, and I wanted him to have his moment.

The last, we were told to go somewhere we love to hang out in. I went to the central where orchard was, without hesitation, and my tech friend from table 7 exclaimed, Did you really choose your workplace?! I laughed and had to admit that work was one of my favourite places. Then someone beside me told us the magnetic hold that bugis had on him, and I understood what he meant.

We got back to our assigned tables after. I admitted a few things, like the way I enjoy my job unlike many others. I talked about the book I painstakingly wrote and then neglected. I shared the outline of it and the traits of one of the main characters, made a joke like Hmmm I wonder who is she based on. We talked about a post apocalyptic Singapore and the local writing scene, both of which tugged at my heartstrings.

We were given cards with conversation starters on them, but our group didn't seem to have trouble moving things along. We were all so different, jobs and aspirations and places in life, and that was exactly why we had so much to talk about.

One of the cards: What are some of the challenges that are preventing you from what you want to achieve?, something along those lines. And I was the one who had to get the ball rolling. At this point the mp of punggol west decided to sit next to me, telling us to pretend she was invisible. It was still a lot of pressure, but I somehow managed to go through.

I told them about how I really have so much to look forward to and yet I still feel so unfulfilled. Being happily married with a one-year-old son, working in a place I love, knowing what I want to be. These are the things some people wish they could have. And my entire table was single, so I was somewhat steps ahead in terms of these cliche achievements. (But then again I never graduated poly and they're all higher educated, so they're steps ahead of me in that sense.)

Said that the problem really is myself, that the only thing stopping me from finishing my novel and my dreams was me. Then I read out the question I wrote on my own card, Is there a way to have both happiness and identity? Everyone gasped at the question, I tried to relieve the seriousness, but I could see the entire table already pondering about everything themselves. 

After so much conversing, both deep and funny shit, we had to gather one last time with everyone else to share our takeaways of the night. And I learned that I had no reason to panic and get anxious at the thought of being who I am. Nobody is judging, and in a way, everyone sticks out like a sore thumb because we're all just so unique.

I've been having some identity crisis thing lately, feeling very washed-up and faded. Like I'm not very interesting anymore. Motherhood has brought me up in ways, down in others. But now I know, I will always be interesting, the way everyone and everything will always be to me.

I figured that my identity was never at stake after all. That I am still me, 27 versions of myself that have come to be who I am. The 28th version is forming, and I can see that she is made of both the sides of her that have been in constant battle. She is a mother who doesn't have time to write while raising her kid, and because he keeps trying to smack her keyboard; she is also a writer who is inspired by the bruises on her soul and her ghosts that follow her everywhere.

Today was exactly what I needed, laughter over parents pretending to be their babies in Instagram captions; reflections over our places in life and the steps to take next. It's been awhile since I stepped out the triangle that is the two loves of my life and I, and it's okay if you ever need to feel like yourself apart from the people you already love.

11. Midnight rain (2018)

(the playlist)

The year I turned 23 I was lucky enough to find the two nicest guys on a dating app known for notorious fuckboys. Of course this came right after my being unlucky enough to be dumped by yet the same person for the ninth or tenth time. But well. 

Among the many other matches, the first thing these two had in common was the pictures of cats on their profile instead of themselves. The second was the gut instinct I had that neither of them had an ounce of hidden intention. The third was their taking me seriously and choosing to start a friendship despite my dark humour and negativity. 

If you don't know, I would come to marry one of these two. Here's the story of the other, one of the forms of friendship that I somehow managed to find in a place people usually only found rebounds. 

When you've been shipwrecked you will do anything to survive. Some of us prioritise finding a water source, or building fire. Some of us forge weapons to fend off live danger. But we tend to forget also keeping our sanity intact, there being no sign of humanity anywhere. 

When I was marooned, my sanity subconsciously became my priority. I talked to friends both old and new, I had one-sided conversations with my notebooks, my version of stray volleyballs. Somehow they all morphed into one person, a living, breathing human that restarted my life on a Wednesday night. 

He was the very first from the app that I met in person. Late night conversations that made me feel like we'd known each other our whole lives. He became my best friend in that short timespan, somehow knowing me the way nobody else did. Somehow liking me, despite my negativity I thought would only repel.

I will always owe him for understanding me wholeheartedly, and I know he liked me for me, among all the girls in his life. I will always owe him for the dreamcatchers he twined together after I mentioned my constant nightmares. And I will always owe him for leaving him stranded, for being his hurricane after crying to him about mine.

I ended up choosing somebody else, but he will always be the first friend I had at the end of my years-long tunnel. A friend who wasn't an ex's first, a friend who simply accepted and understood. 

The long walk beneath the train tracks, coping forks from a convenience store for the cheesecake he bought. Petting a stray cat in the middle of people's bungalows and unintentionally making him laugh. Driving home, him letting me choose the music and the flow of the conversations. These are the ways he will always be the sunshine I remember him for.

Saying out loud that I didn't see anything worthwhile in life despite his support. Slow replies suddenly one night, he was sick and I was with someone else. All the laughter we shared wiped out with a few swallows of his whiskey. There is no way to replace his last memory of me anymore; I will always be the midnight rain he remembers me for.

kisses [drafts, 15 Jul 19]

They always make it a point to watch how a man treats other people. From waiters to children to their own mother, it doesn't matter how much he spoils you or treats you like a princess. It speaks more than enough if he is unkind to the rest of the world.

I've seen him angry, at strangers blocking our way or stopping suddenly, making us crash into them. I've extracted that anger myself, teasing him to a boiling point. But he has never lashed out at anyone apart from a click of the tongue. He has never retaliated, just closing his eyes and taking a slow, deep breath that is enough for me to get the message.

I have been in his house and out with his parents enough times to see how he treats them. On the first dinner, I watched him lay out serviettes and cutlery for his family. His mother had laughed that he is never like this, suggesting that it was just for show because of me.

When we first met, he told me that his mother is first in his heart, followed by his nephew and his dad. I'd listened to him go on about his nephew but watching them together was a different story. The kid was so shy hiding behind his mother's back, until he ran to his uncle and jumped onto his lap. Even now he is always looking at me wearily, but never hesitates to wrap his arms around him and kiss him.

He is like me, with a general dislike for kids; but it is adorable when he smiles at videos of babies on social media, softening his voice to coo at them. Even with the power his mother and I have, both of our pleading isn't enough to make him stop smoking, so him mentioning that he will give it up after having a kid is a big deal. It just melts my heart to hear how much he wants his own.

But what makes the wonder is how he has changed me. Before, I would grumble and groan when my mum asks a simple task of me. Before, I would never glance twice at a child even if one was staring me right in the face.

Somehow amidst my hatred for people, I chose the son who kisses his parents on the cheek, who makes funny faces at kids and smothers his nephew with pecks.

Happy first

 A year ago I was screaming and begging for my life to meet you.

Maybe I still am, internally, but there's nobody coaxing or helping me this time. I give myself laughing gas trying to take my mind off the blinding pain, but it still goes through. You're out of me, but I'm still out of it.

I've been in this dark place many times before. From losing a years-long relationship, a couple boxed drinks, a soul way younger than you. I'm familiar with the fire and my mind engulfing each other, me in the process. 

These aren't things I want to tell you, be it now or twenty years down the road. This isn't the side of me I want you to read about. But why would I keep the truth from you? Maybe you'd be the kind to romanticise your mother's struggles for the hell of it.

You'd tell your peers about the wars your parents have fought, joke about their exaggerated trails to school. You'd post pictures of us from the roaring 20s, not a trace of the wrinkles and silver hair. And I'll just be the background in your arc. 

For you to arrive to that point, I need to pull myself together first. I've already lost more than a month with you, breaking down and pining for things that are not your fault. I have to be the one to hold you while you take your first steps, lead you onto the many paths life shows you. Because at the end of it all, I want to be your best person, even when I'm at my worst.

So here my happiness and identity are at loggerheads, the latter being what led me to this very moment of mine. But I have to leave it behind and choose you now, my source of the former. Happy first birthday, and happiness first. You first. I will give you the childhood and youth I am owed, I will give you what I'll never be paid back. 

// foreshadowing 2020

In which I read back some old diary entries, nearly three years ago now, foreshadowing how I feel today.

17 06 20 // 11:30PM

It's been a long time since I've written in that I can't even remember how I used to write my dates. No slashes. Definitely no slashes.

Actually I'd started in yet another notebook in mid-2019 but it was left abandoned after a few pages. It's what happens when I don't practise much. Or when I stop making the effort to sit at a cafe with nothing but music and the thoughts in my head. Or maybe it's just what happens when you're finally happy.

I have a diamond ring on my left finger as I write this. That's how long I've been away and perhaps how far I've come. I'm still the same person who sees love in railway and hope in butterflies, yet I am infinitely different. I look how far I've come, and at the same time wonder about the other two roads.

I wonder how my 22-year-old self thinks things would be today, and what the future me would see in me when one looks back. But at the moment, I am alive and content. A few tiny concerns and some anxiety left, but nothing I can't go through. I have made worse decisions and walked rougher roads.

05 08 20 // 10:53PM

Always had the dilemma of suicide by what you love, or what you fear. While sympathy floated all around me for the two railway staff who got knocked down by an incoming train, all I had was jealousy. That was how I wanted to go. Well, that or drowning. Until now it's a decision to make.

But I always had a hidden fear. The fear of being someone else, of blending in. I do not want to be genetically modified... someone who doesn't stand out. I do not want to change the person I took a lifetime to be. To accept. The first time I voiced it out, it went out the car when his mother opened the door suddenly, asking if I could squeeze in the back instead.

The second time I expressed it was in type. I could not see his reaction and he did not offer any either. Not even the next morning, everything of yesterday basically forgotten. Until the third time, months later, when my expressions finally came accompanied with tears.

I do not want to be someone I'm not. The day I blend in will be the day I die, my past and art and metaphors seeping out of me. I do not want to be prim and proper, to wear clothes I am not comfortable with, to say sensible things. I want to always be the strange artist that I am, never shy to express any differences.

13 09 20 // 1:24PM

Why do people pretend to like rain so much, when it is our version of winter? Cold, dark, reminiscent of the worst of our time. Then again, on the equivalent of summer, the strangers show off their 'sun-kissed' skin to disguise the hatred for the heat, conveniently shown all over the other side of their pages.

I don't pretend. I don't mask my hatred and annoyance of the rain, from the splatter of droplets hitting my face to the sudden flash of lightning, reminiscent of photographs taken without my permission. I don't pretend to like the cold, rising my goosebumps and the puddles that obscure my usual routes, forcing me to find new ways to walk paths that should be familiar.

I don't have my balance, and no matter where I walk my steps are masked by mud and drowned by raindrops. Drops that once flourished, from the moment they leave their clouds of comfort to their demise on the sidewalk. Where they meet their fate of soaking my shoes. 

Where else am I supposed to rest or call solace when the light of my bedroom is louder than the buzzing in my head, a feat I thought impossible. A family and other half I once thought I could belong in, revealing their true motives of blending me into the rest of the nieces and wives? With headscarves and outfits that scream no personality despite what they try to portray?

I don't want to blend in with the lovers of rain and a god I don't quite believe in. I do not want to exist for anyone but myself even if I'm the harshest critic of me. I want to revel in my worst, from my hatred of normal people to my lowball dark humour, I want to sit on my throne of the worst years of my time on earth, not of motherhood and the automatic blessings of submitting myself to a husband and his god.

A loose thread

It's already been more than a month since my unraveling started. I've always had a few loose threads but they only started getting pulled when I found out early March, my dad had thrown away many of my old room possessions.

The thing that made me most shocked were the dreamcatchers an old friend had painstakingly handmade for me. This bad-dreams thing has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. But nobody had ever come close to even thinking of making or buying one for me. Not even myself.

And this friend, who isn't on social media; I never knew if he is still alive and well. When I started pulling this thread I read back old conversations and remembered the way I had left him hanging, the way our friendship was so important to me and I only made it last less than a month. 

I do believe everything is connected, so all my emotions from then are more than the throwing of dreamcatchers. I started thinking about the personality that had reeled my husband in back then, the dark sense of humour and slight eccentricity. The way I think I do not have either anymore. 

It sent me further downwards, forcing myself to starve and down caffeine every chance I could. I forced myself to read old posts and listen to old favourite songs in a desperate attempt to get my old mind back. At home I hid our kitchen knives, I was reaching the point of wanting to cut myself open, hoping I still bled ink like the writer I want to be. 

Where was my husband in all this? He laid beside me in bed, his snoring not as loud as the returning voices in my head. I did find out a long time ago that having somebody to fall back into doesn't make you immune to depression. I still hit rock bottom despite having somebody doing everything he could to prevent it. 

And in the past month, there have been instances I think that is one of the problems. In the past, loneliness was a big part of my personality. It was the loneliness that sat me down to count trains and pick moths up with my bare finger, that made me skip to work and always show up even with migraines and eyepatches. 

It was the hatred for the world and everyone in it that made me read lists of most gruesome deaths and profile myself if I was a serial killer. It was the lack of exterior emotion that identified me as an android and that made my smiles more rare and valuable.

I feel nothing special anymore. I don't spend time alone anymore and I don't write well on the good days. The trains I take now are underground and I am in cars more often than public transport. When I take down customers' names on enquiry forms, my hand shakes like I'm still learning how to write.

Where have all the flowers gone? Is there really no way to have both happiness and identity? 

Maybe I've been wondering this deep down but only the loss of my past possessions pulled and pulled and pulled until I am left naked. 

10. Maroon (2018)

 (the playlist)

maroon /məˈruːn/

adjective: of a brownish-red colour

I'm audibly sighing while staring at this blank page. From the moment we met I've written about nothing but you and the trails you've left behind. I was your fire going mad but you were always my gasoline. What more can I say about you now? 

After your thirteen missed calls I thought your arc was over. No wait, after I moved on when you broke up with me in April 2017, I thought your arc was over. No, wait. After I moved on when you broke up with me in June 2014... No, wait, after I moved on when you broke up with me in January 2014...?

Your story was getting old, but I always found a way to bring you back. As if our relationship was a timeless piece of clothing instead of its stains.

I may have been smart enough to close the door on you the last time, but not enough. It didn't stop me from leaving the room myself every other day, looking for you, talking to you. My feelings for you sat on a spectrum, floating around on good days.

After five years of breaking and reconciling again and again, things get old and colours start to fade. What started out bright red will wash out and rust eventually, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. And after a while we really weren't trying at all. 

I saw bright red walking home from Ikea, carrying new pillows and trashcans for the room you started renting. I saw maroon in the fact that you now lived in the very place I hated after having been separate entities. I saw bright red in the time we could now spend together without you having to rush home through customs; maroon whenever you chose your friends over me instead. 

Red in the night we went drinking just the two of us; maroon in the night we drank with your new friends in City Hall. Red in the time you joined my family for dinner on Good Friday and maroon in the way you had decided that you never want to have anything to do with them. 

Red: the way you waited with me while I was watching out for a snail on the cycling lane. Maroon: the conversation you had with your mother when she called. 

There was a part of me that still thought I only deserved someone on the same level of poisonous. But I'd be lying if I say I didn't have love for you at all. I was at constant battle with both sides of our past, and I wasn't selfless enough to not let it affect you.

You made the choice for us again and finally left for good. For someone who had gone through the same copy of heartbreak like nine times already, I still didn't react well right off the bat. The feeling of suddenly waking up and not having the same person to text anymore; you will always feel confused and lost.

maroon /məˈruːn

noun: leave (someone) trapped and alone in an inaccessible place, especially an island