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.

weakness

This person was always someone to look out for, so they say. If there is even a sign that you'll get a good one, lucky you. On the contrary, if they take one glance at you and decide you aren't worth shit, then you aren't worth shit. They're a mother-in-law, already eyeing your every move, already blaming you for every wrong her own child does.

In the past, this figure I had didn't think so highly of me. I dare say she was probably the only other person who thought lower of myself than I do. All for the lack of a headscarf, not even saved by my long sleeves and jeans everyday. She even overlooked her hurricane of a child, not the slightest suspicious that he served alcohol on his flights and did the forbidden in the room he rented in Singapore.

I grew up sheltered, with a mum that allowed me to wear sneakers with my baju kurungs and supported me in every awkward phase I went through. I had an aunt who took me in when my parents didn't know what to do anymore, and my dad's many sisters and sisters-in-law loved me throughout my childhood and youth. You couldn't blame me for being wary, despite the many motherly figures I've had my whole life.

He told me his father was easy to go through because they were closer. That his mother was the one who so blatantly asked when he introduced his ex to her, "Betul, ni yang kau nak?" It didn't matter how much he really liked her; his mother accepted that, but it didn't stop her remarks and constant asking if he was serious. Not a good thing to hear when it was just about the same things my own ex-boyfriend's mother said.

She was the first of his parents I'd met, at a bus interchange I so loved and detested. I shyly asked how was she, before watching her kiss his cheeks and vice versa. Barely a month since we got together, I thought it was the purest thing I'd ever seen. Gone from my mind was the times my own mother kissed my forehead when she or I left for work.

I saw how fair she was standing next to her son. Got how the people in his stories were surprised to know he was her youngest child. My heart melted, and that day I replayed the tiny interaction over and over, unsure if my smile and shy "How are you?" were good enough. I was still falling for him, but I couldn't comprehend feeling the same way towards his mother. I didn't understand why my heart skipped a beat when he said she thought I was pretty.

I only got a taste of how talkative she was at our first dinner together. A contrast to the silence his dad sat in, she laughed and brought out memory after memory. I still didn't know what to say, or even where to put my hands. I just sat there with a dumb smile, wondering why his parents weren't interviewing me like they had joked they would. It seemed like there was always a gap in his family that was made for me and I'd simply just filled it.

Eleven months later, she too can't escape the random comments and musings that spill out my mouth. Sometimes she was the one who asked about my job or my plans or simply where her son and I went on our dates. Other times when it was just me being my own version of talkative, she simply nodded. She would make a face when it was clearly something she didn't care about, but that's the thing. I didn't take it to heart. She just reminded me of my love, with his straight face while I rambled on and on.

You're lucky enough to find a good person after a bad relationship. Imagine finding a motherly figure who only speaks well of you, even with your uncombed hair and ripped jeans, even after seeing you drool in her son's bed. I'd gone over with holes in my knees twice, but instead of reprimanding me or making snide remarks behind my back, her invitations kept coming, until my ripped jeans remained untouched at the back of my wardrobe.

She remembers my off days and my schedules, constant asking him if I would be coming over. She saved my favourite chicken part for me, and she refrained from cooking beef when I casually mentioned cutting it off completely to save the earth.

"Kenapa tak makan daging lagi?"

"Beef ada big environmental impact on the earth."

"Abih chicken tak impact the earth?"

She'd asked with a hint of sarcasm, but her giggles washed off the discomfort I would have felt if my own mother had said it. I thought of my own mum, telling me off for being 'picky' when I never really liked beef in the first place.

She was the reason why I went home one day and just decided to eat without cutlery for the first time. How I told her so sadly that my own family members laughed at me for my mistakes, thus why I only ate with my hand in secret afterwards.

Five new cardigans, a mix of my usual black and two shades darker, after a trip to Kuala Lumpur. "I didn't think twice, I just took the kind of jackets you always wear," she had laughed in Malay, tossing me bag after bag of cardigans.

Me, cutting hotdogs in her kitchen while she worked on the rest of the magic. How she had time to stop and correct me, while giggling at the mistakes I was making out of something so simple.

Now I am in tears, thinking of how much she loves me and I, her.

I've always wanted to ask her where she and her husband had gone dating in their days. What age she started donning the headscarf, whether it was her own will or out of love for anyone. I wanted to ask what comes into her mind when she looks at her youngest son, a split image of the love of her life.

I wanted to talk to her about my mother, about how she never took me seriously. About my father who beat me senseless and always let his anger speak first. I wanted to tell her about how my parents only used religion in their favour, the reason why I could never head down that path.

I want to tell her that she has changed me, with the way she brushed my boyfriend's hair and touched his face. The way she leaned against her husband and called him Abang... so adoringly. The way she laughed in the backseat when I talked mindlessly in shotgun.

With her teasing and giggling and remembering the little things about me, I chose the only other woman who is your weakness.

man

I saw you first, from posts on his Instagram. He has your eyebrows, though yours are more faded and sprinkled with age. You saw me later through photographs he kept in his phone. I looked younger than I was, making you tease him for courting a kid.

Two days before his graduation we finally met, though there was not much more from your subtle nod and my shy smile. You reminded me of my own dad, from how you spoke quietly to the way you brought your head back to look at your phone screen.

You were always the subject of our conversations at the marble table. He respected you, he was weary of you, he kept secrets from you. Your discipline was just as tough, but he never hated his father the way my older brother and I did ours.

Years ago I thought if our father was shorter than us, it was our turn to stand before and protect them. I long had the honour of being taller than mine, but it is nothing compared to how he towered above you. I had to watch the way he cared about you in a way my heart couldn't comprehend.

Maybe it is the way your face lights up whenever I visit, and my father's frown whenever he sees me. Maybe it is your longing to teach me about religion, compared to my father's usage of god's name in anger and pride. Maybe it is the way you take our relationship seriously instead of shrugging my feelings off like a phase.

It was him showing you pictures of me that tugged at my heart. It was looking at the old photographs where you looked exactly like the love of my life today. It was being told how much you'd wanted a daughter, that made me cry before him for the first time.

At first I envied him for that ability to love a man for his harshness. Through your impatience with your three sons and love for your two daughters-in-law, your gentleness with your nephew's autistic child; eventually I understood.

It was your family that welcomed me, from your mother who only stops grumbling about everything when I visit; your niece who insists I don't have to kiss her hand despite the age difference; your nephew who got me to try durian for the first time in my life.

Sadly that meant the fatherly love I felt came from somebody else's instead of mine. Against all odds, I chose the man who was the spitting image of my love. For now I can only smile at him in greeting, until the day I am allowed to hold and kiss his hand in respect.

heights

There was absolutely nothing special about roads up until my second year in poly. Before that, they were just long, winding snakes that cars and buses used to get places. Nothing great about that, right? Somehow, it was that ordinariness that took my wonder.

Leaning my head against the window always felt like home, both warm or fogged up glass. There was intimacy even in the vastness of highways, with earphones shutting your thoughts and music in. Anticipation for trains to run across the overhead tracks, like not knowing where a boy's hands would go next.

I went so far as to calling it home and seeking comfort, crying as 88 took me down TPE the way one would only dare cry in solitude. I thought nobody else would love them the way I did, even if I didn't know the way around that much. Another obsession for something so mundane, like loving the sun amidst the crowd complaining of the heat.

It was so for the next four years, until I met somebody who used and knew the roads better. He went on different routes, more than I certainly did on the same two bus services. He couldn't give a shit about how the roads made him feel. He didn't even care about listening to music on the move, which was absurd to me.

Still, hearing the expressway's acronym from his mouth felt as intimate as someone you liked whispering your name. Even if there's nothing romantic about my favourite songs competing with the wind for my ears, or the little heart attacks I get when a car suddenly swerves to our lane.

From the top of a double decker to pillion, it's a downgrade from the highest point I could get. I can barely hear the lyrics in my earphones, or sit in peace with the constant panic. I am vulnerable, but safe enough to tilt my head back and expose my neck. Home enough to choose the old expressway's newfound heights, even with someone who never thought twice.

rain

Once upon a time, I liked the rain. Dashing through with my older brother when I was nine, ignoring the tsks from parents awaiting their kids with umbrellas or raincoats; jumping in dirty puddles with my best friend at fourteen, until our shoes were heavily soaked. And just like any other sixteen-year-old trying to be emo, I walked in it with my earphones in and hood up, accusing the world of being against me.

It didn't take long for me to hate it, once enjoyment turned into annoyance. I started grumbling at the edge of Elias Mall, knowing the rain was still heavy enough to turn my uniform completely see-through. It seeped through to Year One, frowning when I was forced into narrower paths to navigate the polytechnic blocks. It stayed throughout my I'm-A-Flame phase, believing wholeheartedly that raindrops were poison.

I turned into my grandmother, who grumbled about the dark skies whenever she had a pail of wet laundry to hang. Wise words from her, not very deep but sticky enough to stay on the walls of my head: biar panas terik, daripada hujan lebat. I don't remember what prompted her to say so, but it was one of the things that made me favour hot weather.

Wait a few years, and then I met you. It was my first time knowing somebody with a bike. Right, my older brother rides too but we grew so far apart, I stopped knowing simple things like his occupation. I wasn't congratulating him when he passed, like my grandmother and aunt and cousin all were. I didn't care about him leaving the house with his helmet during a storm.

On the contrary, we avoided getting on your bike at the slightest dark cloud. Or when our phones chimed at the same time, our weather app announcing 'heavy, thundery showers expected in the east'. For some reason there was neither that fateful morning, when you looked up to the sky with a raised eyebrow, then fell for my prediction: It's not gonna rain lah!

You were smart enough to run the amber lights minutes later, just as the raindrops got heavier. Waterfalls were streaming down my visor by the time we entered the highway, but it was the least of my problems when I realised how barely visible the nearest vehicles already were.

I was shaking by the time I hopped off your bike at our destination, my wine-red shoes having turned into a dark, murky colour. You still had to deposit your bike out in the open carpark, and it took all my strength not to shiver as I watched you run back to seek shelter with me.

Our clothes and footwear were heavy with rainwater, and there was no shelter to my workplace. Neither of us had umbrellas. All we could do was wait and try to dry ourselves, you tipping your sandals over and me, removing my socks to squeeze them.

We were a mess, but I never stopped smiling. I reminded you of the day before, when I'd casually mentioned wanting to know what it felt like to ride on your bike in heavy rain. I got what I'd wished for, when years before I would have pushed all the blame on someone completely not at fault.

That morning didn't stop you from riding in the rain again, greeting me with a completely opaque shirt that was actually blue, dark pants that should have been maroon. It didn't stop me from getting on behind you, shaking my head no when you offered to wipe the soaked seat.

Slowly, feelings evolved once more. You wouldn't brush my hand at the red lights but down my right leg instead, and you wouldn't turn to say you love me, but to ask how I was doing in the drizzle. It would be colder, but I'd endure it the way you had to endure the hot weather you hate.

After you, my love-hate relationship turned into something else. They turned into acceptance. Deep down I still thought I was made of fire, that the rain would never be my friend again. But I chose the helplessness that flooded me as rain flooded my socks, and with you, I would never think twice about riding in a storm.

red

I've only ever seen you drive for a while. Smooth the whole time, so sweet with your left hand over mine. You only ever let go to dance to Black Pink's new song, and you only ever raise your voice when exiting the highway, screaming Drift, drift, drift!

But most of the time, you are reckless on the road as a rider. Drifting in between cars without a care in the world. Going above hundred, knowing that your bike can't quite take it. Holding an angry hand out towards drivers who don't let you pass. Picking up speed to run the amber light, sometimes even going through the red.

I have to admit, your bike might be the only place on earth where I don't trust you. You're not too shy to glare a driver down, even if it sacrifices your attention for the road. I've come to accept that tapping you on your back only makes it worse. That your road rage is almost always cultivated by that split-second fear of another driver's recklessness.

Just today you finally removed your probation plate. Just as you miscalculated and rode off the road and up the kerb, barely missing a traffic light pole. It got a shriek out of me, audible even through the music from my earphones. It took me a while to regain control of my own legs, and I had to ask twice if you were okay, even though my own attention was on the tire tracks through the mud.

It just became another secret to keep from our parents. After your fall on the expressway where you nearly slid under a bus, your mother demanded that you text when you're about to ride off, and when you reach your destination. My mother shows no exception, always asking me out of the blue, Did Faruq fetch you again? Are you always wearing your helmet properly?

It's okay even if you know what you are doing. Even if you are the slowest, safest rider in the country. Despite all that, my own paranoia brings me down. The thought of a wild dog appearing out of nowhere, making you swerve hard to dodge it. Or my loose cardigan getting caught in your tyre, tearing out my arm along with the sleeve.

It's not like we get to talk on the road. If we did, I would constantly ask for your reassurance, to tell me that my paranoia was impossible. You are the logical one, never letting fantasy or imagination get in the way. It doesn't help that your speed and ferocity are just as high, constantly at loggerheads with my own thoughts.

But the few times you do stop at a red light, I am back to knowing you are the safest place in my life. You lean an arm against my knee, a signal that it's safe to hold your hand. To put an arm around your neck and rest my chin on your shoulder, even. You don't have to say anything, just let your voice vibrate through to me when you turn your head slightly to mumble I love you.

I am helpless from behind, a passenger who needs assurance every kilometre. You make it seem so easy to erase my panic just by gripping my hand. Granted, I am unable to do the same for you, only getting in the way of your road rage when I tap your back to move you along. But I will always choose that pause, that hesitance before it picks up speed. I will always choose the brushing of your hand at the red lights, in spite of your recklessness before or after. 

groceries

I have never met a boy who does the grocery shopping for his mother, let alone have a supermarket that he prefers. When you moved out of Pasir Ris, you couldn't rely on the 24-hours Sheng Siong anymore. The one that sits in between your old home and mine, growing alongside us.

When we first started talking, we wondered if we had ever crossed paths unknowingly. Your secondary school was a few blocks away from mine, your old home exactly thirty from mine. If it hadn't been for the condominium, your living room and my bedroom would have been in perfect view of each other.

But I couldn't imagine being in that supermarket at the same time as you. Not when you were always running errands for your mother, while mine only came down on her own or with my niece. Maybe she's the one who has locked eyes with you before; it's a little funny to think about.

Our conversations started as small talk in early June: my mum asked me to get some stuff. They became Do you want to follow me to Sheng Siong or I'll just send you home first? Somewhere along the way I became your companion, helplessly carrying your basket while you run around the aisles, knowing where everything is.

You moved to Sengkang, but the supermarket at the top floor of the nearby mall wasn't good enough. Now that I think about it, how convenient that the girlfriend you send home everyday lives near the one you favour. You trade her backpack for bags of groceries in the box of your motorbike, one last cigarette while she snaps your receipt for a cashback app.

Your mother is so lucky to have you. Three sons, but one of whom knows which aisle the spices are, which potatoes are good, the name of every different leaf. The way you treat your family ignites this little flame in me, from the patience with your grandmother to the obligation to run every favour your mother asks. It's been getting harder to say no to my own mum, just thinking about the 'okay's you give yours.

I am out of place in the supermarket, in my jeans and hundred-dollar sneakers. I never know where everything is, or what half the things on your mother's lists are. But I will always love you for the way you paused one night, passing me your phone instead. Why don't you help me find all these things today? Go, while you pushed me on the small of my back.

I loved you even when you cleared your throat for my missing the coconut milk. Even when you made side-eye while I walked rounds around the aisles looking for sawi. Even when you snickered at me for directly translating laksa leaves to Malay when on the phone with my grandmother.

I am out of place again in your home, comfortable enough to lean all the way back on your bed, but still too nervous to eat with your parents. Too shy to even hand your mother the bags I had offered to carry, too shy to say I'd bought a bottle of her favourite winter melon tea. But it is somewhere along the way that I had chosen the groceries in your box, be they the ones you picked out or the ones I found. 

sidewalk

I told you about my obsession with parallels, first thing when we started talking. You didn't understand my image of a second me walking beneath, her feet mirroring mine. But we met, and you became another piece of my parallels.

You were the man turning twenty-five, the sides of his helmet squeezing his cheeks in. Nearly four in the morning when you deposited me at 606 for the first time, helping me unbuckle the straps around my chin. It was finally the beginning of something new, hugging you until I thought my heart would explode.

I told you about the night barely two months before, when somebody else dropped me off that very sidewalk. He had a bike with him too; an orange dockless one that continued being shared among strangers after he abandoned it at his own void deck. I was in the hoodie that he had just bought me, the very one I'd worn meeting you for the first time.

I went back further eight years before, when I was fifteen and somewhere else you had just started poly. When yet somebody else sent me home on his bike, my white Converse jumping off the pegs by his wheels. In his hoodie this time, a long black one with thin white stripes. It was only then that you understood my parallels; that eventually, you would find your own.

Having you in my routine now gives me extra ten minutes of sleep in the morning, sometimes twenty. You refused to let me go work by myself as long as you could still send me. So there you always were, scrunching up your face beneath your helmet as way of waving. You always come when I least expect it, making a U-turn at the vacancy of the lot before stopping right in the shade.

Sometimes you wore glasses, lens when you had to be somewhere else afterwards. Sometimes you would have packed lunch for me, with an egg that your mother rushed to fry while you were in the shower. And sometimes, once in a blue moon, you would be soaked from the rain, your maroon pants turning dark red.

I had hoped you would be the last person I'd see on this sidewalk. The last person I would wave goodbye to until out of sight. The last person I would wrap my arms around and kiss. It's been more than two months since you started dropping me off at 608 instead, but it was enough for me to choose the arms that lifted me off the old sidewalk, stones pressing against our chests.

marble

Two blocks from mine, to avoid the prying eyes of my older brother or father coming home from work. Your bike against the parallel yellow lines, with the spare helmet placed haphazardly on the edge of the seat.

There used to be another couple sitting on the ledge of 607, but we outlasted them. Maybe they broke up, or maybe they were platonic friends who found other people. Or maybe they just got bored of the mediocre view, the ordinary parking lot with hardly any wind.

In the beginning we sat on the kerb, where we had to keep shielding our eyes from the sudden headlights of cars turning in. Confusion and an identity crisis, when I told you not to fetch me from work like you usually would. But you showed up, a shadow on the ground before you pulled my shoulder and spun me around.

We talked it out, something I wasn't very familiar with. The argument closed when we leaned in to kiss, and the moment ended when a cockroach scurried past, along the kerb and somewhere among the grass.

Over time the marble table at 608 became ours. I have never seen anyone else sit there, not since we made it routine. Not even the one time I confidently declared out of the blue: I have a feeling that someone is sitting at our table right now.

But like magic after every trip to the minimart near my primary school, there it waits. There are always new cigarette butts around it, probably the only sign the table has of other occupants. Sometimes an empty pack or two is abandoned on it, prompting me to snort with disgust.

I will always sit facing the end wall, with you on my right. Your best friend joined us once; he had to sit opposite me. On another night, two of your secondary school friends visited, one of whom started smoking with you. I stood my ground despite the smoke wafting towards me, being seated between you two. This is my seat, I had whined like the 1995 kid I was to you guys.

The marble has seen enough of us, guests or no guests. From laughing at videos on Twitter to playing games we discovered from ads on Instagram. It's watched us down our lychee tea and milk coffee only a hundred times, while we rushed to decide the minute to leave.

Sometimes I liked to imagine the tiles of the chessboard holding pieces of our conversations. A black tile for the time we insisted on our own definitions of a 'half day'. A white for the time we talked about our fathers and their different ways of discipline. Another chipped tile for the night we sat there in silence, neither refusing to give in.

At the end of the night we always have to let go. It's never our home, this lonely table at this quiet void deck. When we're gone, or even before we frequented it, who knows the habits its occupants have. Who knows if there's some other couple or lonely old man out there who loves this sadness like I do.

Yet at the same time, I know each time I leave I never look back longer than I have to. A two-seconds glance just to make sure we haven't left anything behind, and that table will be off my mind until the next time you fetch me from work. Until the next time we are lost and have nowhere else to drink.

You have one last smoke, while I am already on my playlist, one bud hooked over an ear. You finish your cigarette, then the last bit of your tea before you dump our bottles into the recycling bin. I get up from your still bike, watch you strap on your helmet and get on it.

I balance along the edges of the kerb while you follow me on your bike, until we finally have to split paths. True that I will never once look back at it, but it is always then that I choose the marble table over which we talk, about the past eight hours and their little tests.